re: whether socialist firms work, I think the main problem is going to be managers making worse decisions because they’re more blended with the interests of labor. For example, a firm where decisions are made by the workers-as-a-whole probably wants to pay workers according to their average product instead of their marginal product, but this means they’ll hire too few workers (as average product is larger than marginal product, and so the ‘last workers’ are more expensive in the average-product firm).
re: whether socialist firms work, I think the main problem is going to be managers making worse decisions because they’re more blended with the interests of labor. For example, a firm where decisions are made by the workers-as-a-whole probably wants to pay workers according to their average product instead of their marginal product, but this means they’ll hire too few workers (as average product is larger than marginal product, and so the ‘last workers’ are more expensive in the average-product firm).