I spoke yesterday in Paris about how socialist policy can enable us to overcome social deprivation and ecological crisis, by aligning investment and production with democratically determined objectives.
I noticed that some people assume socialism necessarily means 100% public ownership, but this is not the case. Yes, for many important reasons, we need public ownership of public services, utilities and the commanding heights, and yes we need a public finance system, industrial policy and credit guidance...
But there's no reason we cannot have private firms producing consumer goods like watches, beer, etc - the key is that they should be democratically owned and managed, by workers or communities empowered to determine the objectives of investment and production.
We know that when people have democratic control over production they are more likely to align it with social and ecological needs.
Socialism is ultimately about economic democracy: extending the principle of democracy into the realm of production. Cooperatives are an important step in this direction.