There is also something else: if you accept violence or not. If you do, no matter how noble your ideas are, you are just another Stalin or Mao.
So where does socialism sort of work? In small, voluntary setups like the Longo Mai. Just like Open Source works within the framework of limited communities of interested people.
XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2347/
- Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
- Apache HTTP Server: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server
- Python: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)
- GIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git
-OpenSSL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL
For a list of cooperatices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cooperatives
They are done by free people, using their own resources!
That is the problem: "socialists" don't want to use their own resources and effort to accomplish their utopian goals; they want to use your resources.
There is no amount of other people's blood and treasure a socialist is unwilling to risk.
See right here.... " "socialists" don't want to use their own resources and effort to accomplish their utopian goals; they want to use your resources." Now you're just projecting what you "think" is socialism. Which this is not. In Socialism we all decide what to do with the resources at hand.
For example Private Property.
Private Property is land and tools used to produce things to be sold for profit.
If you own a house with a garden, that's your personal property. Nobody's gonna take that from you.
If you operate a farm and have a house on that farm, where you live, then you have both personal and private property. However since YOU work your own farm, you're not losing out; you'll actually get MORE say in what you can do with that land.
If you own a farm but hire a bunch of people to work it and you gather all the profits and only pay them a wage...THAT is private property, and you're going to have to share the revenues of the farm equally with all the people who work that land.
But nobody's going to take your stuff.
My leftist friends are very much involved in co-ops and in general what you say it's true.
However, when we talk about the actual socialism, that is the political system in Eastern Europe from 1945 until 1989, the parent is right - the socialists, and their older brothers communists, wanted your property and in general non-part initiatives were either frowned upon or strictly forbidden.
The people living in the so-called Socialist Republics would disagree, especially those whose property was seized by the government - and the rest who had limited property rights.
When people nowadays talk about socialism, they might mean something like the Nordic Model although these countries are not really socialist. The actual socialism in Eastern Europe was gloomy and the countries that manage to escape it are grateful it's ended and are growing fast.