Libertarians argue that capitalism is superior to socialism because in capitalism anyone is free to do anything — including start a worker cooperative. In truth, capitalism constrains our options, while socialism can liberate us to live as we please.

Capitalism is a system under which the means of production can be bought and sold by private individuals, and anyone who can’t afford to start a business of their own has to submit themselves to the domination of those who can if they want to make a living. Workers spend eight out of every sixteen waking hours most days of the week in workplaces that are run like totalitarian dictatorships — and it’s only eight hours, and only most days of the week, because of victories won over generations of workers’ struggles.

If the comparison to totalitarian dictatorships seems hyperbolic, it shouldn’t. In fact, capitalists often regulate far more intimate aspects of workers’ behavior — especially for relatively “unskilled” workers without much bargaining power — than do the laws of a typical totalitarian dictatorship. Employers frequently tell workers, for example, when they have to smile, when they’re allowed to talk to each other, and when they’re allowed to go to the bathroom.

For many libertarians, none of this adds up to a legitimate complaint about capitalism or a reason to want to violate the property rights of big capitalists like Jeff Bezos — by, for example, nationalizing their businesses and putting them under the management of the workers themselves, representatives of the broader community, or some combination of the two. They argue instead that capitalism is already, in the words of the libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, a “framework of utopias.”

Read more at Jacobin.