Hello there!

To be clear, I’m not talking about state ownership of the means of production, I’m talking about direct ownership through democratically controlled private corporations.

http://tlalexander.com/corporation/

Any ownership structure can be changed arbitrarily; destroying non-state community ownership of land in favor of privatized, marketable ownership was a key capitalist land “reform” in many places (Mexico for instance). Abrogating any democratic worker-ownership system is no less possible than discontinuing a spending program, and to the extent it's difficult it is because of popularity and the same political factors that constrain ending a spending program.

Property rights, no less than taxing and spending, is a feature of law subject to the whims of the State.

These are all fair points. Part of what drives my thinking is the assumption that the moneyed capitalists will fight to defend individual property rights, and that we can build a socialist system inside of the capitalist system. But as you say, the laws can always change to screw regular people. I’ll have to look in to the reform you speak of in Mexico. Do you have any more details to guide my search on that?

Thanks!

> Part of what drives my thinking is the assumption that the moneyed capitalists will fight to defend individual property rights, and that we can build a socialist system inside of the capitalist system.

It's not an entirely unreasonable approach; it's been used with some notable success in, e.g., the Mondragón system.

OTOH, tax-and-redistribute is even more well-established an approach, being a feature of virtually all modern mixed economies.

> I’ll have to look in to the reform you speak of in Mexico. Do you have any more details to guide my search on that?

The ley Lerdo of 1856 (especially it's application to indigenous communities) and the Constitutional amendment to allow privatization of land held in ejidos that were formed as part of the land reforms of the Mexican Revolution under President Salinas in 1992 are the two notable Mexican examples.