[petre]

My poiny exactly. Giving too much power to the state would only turn it into a dictatorship (even if it's a tax dictatorship) for the ones in power will eventually sieze that power for themselves.

Shared ownership of production means is possible w/o a nanny state if the shareholders of a private company are also it's employees. But that doesn't really work well in practice, otherwise we would have cooperatives comparable to Apple, Google, VW or Samsung in terms of market value. I haven't seen any.

The safety net you're talking about could be group insurance policies negotiated by the said company. But why do this, when the same company could automate and greatly reduce expenses with insurance and health benefits paid to human workers? The purpose of a company is to maximize the profit for it's shareholders (by creating market value), as opposed to being a benefactor for it's employees. Of course, we also have a social responsability component but that's only because few people would work for an organization that would rip them off.

[aoeuasdf1]

A co-op has no way to raise capital and expand quickly. They have to create the capital themselves by being profitable, or by reaching into their own pockets.