Naivete.
History teaches us that history teaches us nothing.
So the mistake will be repeated endlessly.
Well, in the case of socialism, we're really only talking about recent history - past 200 years or so, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution. Some of the early forerunners of socialism were monarchists/nationalists like Napoleon III, Bismarck, the Kaiser, and others who felt that their nation's strength depended on the state's ability to marshal their collective resources, engender the loyalty of the populace, and have a more efficient, better organized society.
Their main drawback was their embrace of nationalism which caused them to fight each other and waste lives and resources in the process. We still seem to be stuck in that mode even today, with all the flag-waving and so forth. That's the lesson from history that has yet to be learned.
Everyone goes along until a large enuf segment doesn't.
There's just no pleasing people, eh.
To be fair, the early industrialists and capitalists were quite abusive to the lower classes. History has also shown that people don't react well to abuse. They fight back. The early capitalists actually made it quite easy for socialists to gain a following, especially in places like Russia.
In the West, the capitalists of the 20th century (unlike their 19th century counterparts) eventually became smart enough to make deals with labor, so that working people could get a better taste of the good life. They learned from historical lessons like 1848, along with other violent events associated with labor unrest and the vast disparities between rich and poor.
As a result, socialism didn't gain as large a following in America or other Western countries. Moreover, many labor leaders went out of their way to oppose communism, since they didn't want to be tarred with that brush. Besides, the workers were getting better deals, their standard of living was improving by leaps and bounds. It seems clear that the government and ruling class were quite afraid of communism and the possibility of revolution, but in order to prevent the worst from happening, they had to compromise. As a result, the working classes fared much better in the middle part of the 20th century, which was the peak of America's industrial might and what many capitalists will point to today as an example of the "greatness" of capitalism (even though it was those pesky "socialistic" aspects which made life better for the common people).
The only reason socialism might be getting attention nowadays is because the capitalists and their supporters ostensibly want to eliminate and reverse the reforms of the 20th century and want to bring us back to the 19th century. It's a regressive philosophy in which its adherents are deliberately forgetting their history and the consequences of having large disparities between rich and poor.
But the salient point is that socialism cannot exist
without oppression to prevent the rise of capitalism.
This is one of the lessons of history that many socialists
won't learn.
Government is a necessary evil which can not exist without some level of "oppression," however one wants to define it. Oppression is necessary to maintain law and order, even in capitalist societies. You can't get away from it, no matter what system you embrace. The only real difference is whether oppression can work for the benefit of the collective whole, or if it works only to benefit the few at the top.
As far as what government actually does and how it operates in practice - that's more a reflection of the culture, resources, and level of development of the individual nation - not so much a systemic issue. Two main examples: Russia and China. They were both brutal and oppressive before their communist revolutions. They remained brutal and oppressive during communist rule. And now that both have turned capitalist again, they're
still brutal and oppressive. That's just the way they are. It has nothing to do with being socialist or capitalist. It's just what their culture and environment have raised them to be.
That's the lesson that many capitalists wantonly refuse to learn, erroneously believing that everything hinges on an abstract "system" which totally removes the human element.
But capitalism can exist without the need to suppress
socialism.
Capitalists did find the need to employ strikebreakers, though. They also felt the need to engineer various Red Scares, McCarthyism - along with a Cold War and nuclear brinkmanship which could have conceivably led to the end of all life as we know it. Capitalism needed all that and much more to be able to survive, not to mention all that they did to gain their wealth in the first place - colonialism, imperialism, slavery, racism, genocide. Not exactly a clean track record.
Nowadays, many capitalists try to tout a whitewashed, historically revisionist version of "capitalism" which never really existed in practice.
Of all the socialists on RF, I think none have
gotten together with like minded folk to create such a
system. It's perfectly legal here.
Whether it's "legal" or not would have to be explored in greater detail. Some people believe that being a "sovereign citizen" is legal, but whenever people try to actually do it, it doesn't work.
There are employee-owned companies, though.
Then there's the Amish and some forms of "collective" ownership that might exist among certain tribes, such as with gaming casinos, tobacco shops, etc. I'm not sure how that works in practice, though, as I get the sense that there's various clan rivalries within the tribes. It's not exactly copacetic.