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Local government has certain difficulties with redistribution. This book explains: http://www.amazon.com/City-Limits-Paul-E-Peterson/dp/0226662934 It's an old book and deals with American local government, but it explains well what goes on in Switzerland as Swiss cantons are also local governments, just unusually powerful ones. Local governments can freely pursue policies that are distributionally neutral in their effects but run into trouble when they try to implement policies that redistribute - that is, provide a benefit to people who are not also paying the taxes for it. Taxpayers who have an option to move might do so and low-income people who can use the benefit move in, undermining a local government's ability to provide that benefit in time. That would be the problem getting and maintaining within-canton redistribution, but then there's the problem of redistribution among cantons. The voters of Basel-Stadt, the highest-income canton aren't likely to want to vote to send their money to Jura, the lowest-income canton.

I'm here to discuss, too. If you have questions you can PM me, I'm a Food Science and Technology (option in Fermentation Science) student with minors in Business and Entrepreneurship, French, and Chemistry. I don't know if that means anything, but this is my passion. If you want to discuss anything I'm more inclined to converse than debate.

And in the situation you are depicting, you are a worker too. You work the machinery and your sweat goes into the product. The thing is, if other workers are given the responsibility of owning the product also, you'll have a more productive workplace. It's all about controlling incentives.

If you want an interesting read relevant to this discussion take a look at the book wikinomics.

Sports commentator and ISO member Dave Zirin wrote a book addressing these questions.

I'm far from an expert on these issues but I think it would be cool if, say, NFL teams were municipally owned (the NFL actually employs a form of 'socialism' to prevent one or two teams from accumulating all the money and talent which would destroy competitive games make the league boring AF) instead of owned by billionaires and corporations. I'd also like to see professional sports get rid of corporate advertising. But that's just me.

I would recommend The "S" Word by John Nichols.

All of these, even the heavy reading one, are appropriate for a beginner. Pick how big your first bite will be!

Casual:

• ABCs of Socialism by Jacobin - Overview of central elements of socialist ideologies
  
• Occupy the Economy or Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff - Criticisms of typical capitalist organization of production
  
• Principles of Communism by Engels - An overview of socialism from a marxist perspective.
  
  Moderate difficulty:
  
• The Conquest Of Bread by Kropotkin - Overview of (anarcho) communism
  
• Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels - Overview of criticisms of capitalism & early Marxism
  
• Marx's Capital Illustrated by David Smith - Deeper analysis & critique of capitalism
  
  Heavy reading:
  
• Das Capital vol 1 by Marx - Extremely deep analysis & critique of capitalism, as well as some hints to late Marxism