>There's nothing to stop workers forming cooperatives under capitalism.
That's true, but it misses the point of the anti-capitalist critique, which is a critique of capitalism, the unconscious structuring of society for particular ends. When anti-capitalists criticize capitalism, they do not criticize individual capitalists, but the system in which there is predominant waged labour, alienation, commodity fetishism, and exploitation. Forming a cooperative is an admirable thing to do, but to suggest it alone is by no means a response to criticism of capitalism, a particular social formation, because the suggestion is an individualized one. It would be impossible to bring everyone on earth under cooperatives in a capitalist society.
Analogy: "Just live in a safe neighborhood" is no solution to murder, or its structural causes. Just one individual being murdered is sufficient to show the problems of the system and the individualized solution.
I still feel it is important to raise the awareness of the idea of worker cooperatives as a viable alternative to capital-owned corporations, since a lot of people think anti-capitalism implies something like larger state involvement and being anti-market.
But you are absolutely right, forming cooperatives under the current system will never be a viable path to removing the entrenched from power. It is simply a vision of what a working alternative to capitalism could look like.
That's true, but it misses the point of the anti-capitalist critique, which is a critique of capitalism, the unconscious structuring of society for particular ends. When anti-capitalists criticize capitalism, they do not criticize individual capitalists, but the system in which there is predominant waged labour, alienation, commodity fetishism, and exploitation. Forming a cooperative is an admirable thing to do, but to suggest it alone is by no means a response to criticism of capitalism, a particular social formation, because the suggestion is an individualized one. It would be impossible to bring everyone on earth under cooperatives in a capitalist society.
Analogy: "Just live in a safe neighborhood" is no solution to murder, or its structural causes. Just one individual being murdered is sufficient to show the problems of the system and the individualized solution.