I believe in socialism, but I feel Stalin shouldn’t be idolised due to things like the Gulag.
I would like more people to become socialist, but I feel not condemning Stalin doesn’t help the cause.
I’ve tried to have a constructieve conversation about this, but I basically get angry comments calling me stupid for believing he did atrocious things.
That’s not how you win someone over.
I struggle to believe the Gulag etc. Never happened, and if it happened I firmly believe Stalin should be condemned.
Systems must veer towards their trajectories. Markets naturally centralize and develop their own internal methods of planning, at which point it is more efficient to fold them into the public sector and centrally plan them. There’s no such thing as a company that stays the same size, nor is there a reason to not have them in the public sector when it is more efficient to do so and integrate with the rest of a planned economy.
Furthermore, being desired by a minority of the population doesn’t mean cooperatives are more effective at accomplishing said goal. They can just as easily be folded into the public sector, the profit motive is unnecessary.
Further, even in centrally planned economies, there does not need to be such an even filter across the entire economy. Public ownership does not mean the end of choice. All in all, I think you’re confused on what Central Planning and Public Ownership actually looks like.