Ignorance and self satisfaction, always a great combination those. I debated whether to even respond, but decided I would for those reading along.

> Ha sure.

Yes, worker cooperatives exist and are successful. Mondragon[1] is probably the biggest and most well known. It's effectively the GE of worker cooperatives. It's based in Spain, functions across numerous verticals and has 80,000 worker owners and total annual revenue around 12 billion euros.

One you might be more familiar with is Equal Exchange[2] - yes, the tea, coffee, and chocolate company. They have 126 employees, annual revenue of around $70 million, and national distribution.

Those are just two examples, there are hundreds more. You can scoff all you want, but these companies exist and are successful. They show that companies owned and governed by their employees can operate perfectly efficiently and compete in the marketplace.

> Ok, which brand of socialism do you support and why?

It's interesting to note that nowhere in my comment did I imply support for socialism. I merely mentioned its existence as a system, in the context of a conversation about boiling down the world of economic systems to a spectrum. Interesting that the parent commenter found mere mention of its existence triggering.

> Socialism: social control of the means of production
> What does that even mean in practice? Nobody knows. This is why socialists and communists always end up killing each other.

From wikipedia[3]:

> Socialism is a left-wing[1] economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership[2] of the means of production[3][4] as opposed to private ownership.[5][6][4] As a term, it describes the economic, political and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems.[7] Social ownership can be state/public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee.[8][9] While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism,[10] social ownership is the one common element.

In other words, there are any number of ways social control can be constructed, and has been constructed. Some more successful than others.

And no, socialists don't always end up killing each other. Social control through the state of large segments of the economy has been perfectly successful both in the US and in Europe.

Driven on a road? Congrats, you've benefited from social control of infrastructure. Drunk water from your tap? If you're in the US, the water you drink from your tap and the sewer that carries away your waste is almost certainly owned by a municipal utility - again social control. In most of Europe, entire health care systems are run by the state through social control.

In other words, state socialism - both municipal and national - has been shown to be perfectly successful when used in the sectors of the economy it's best fit for and on the scale most fitting.

As I pointed out above, social control of individual enterprises (worker cooperatives) has also been shown to be perfectly effective.

By all means, engage in the debate about what economic systems are the most effective and the least harmful. But if you're going to do it, do your homework first and leave the self satisfaction behind.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Exchange
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism