To be fair, he means "capitalist" in a different sense than you do. If you take what he said but use a different interpretation of the words, of course nonsense will result.
But I do think that despite the above your underlying point is fundamentally correct here; both commons trusts and co-ops work perfectly well under existing rules. It sounds like, aside from the democratic confederations thing, what eli_gottlieb wants is not a different system of rules, but rather to kick the existing system into a different equlibrium. (It really seems like these socialist types tend not to distinguish between these...)
Re:Is democracy a failure? (1861)
by eli_gottlieb on Saturday November 05, 2016 @07:01PM
(#12882391)
> It sounds like, aside from the democratic confederations thing, what eli_gottlieb wants is not a different system of rules, but rather to kick the existing system into a different equlibrium. (It really seems like these socialist types tend not to distinguish between these...)
Well, I'd love to know where you draw the conceptual boundaries between systems. Lemme guess: it's only not-capitalism when the state controls everything?
Common trusts and co-ops are both "capitalist institutions". They both rely on private ownership and voluntary transactions. Not sure what you mean by "democratic confederations of localities".