It's not the capitalism or socialism that matters so much, it's the markets and competition

A useful definition of capitalism is that it’s the capitalists who own the assets. Of socialism that those same assets are owned socially. Therefore things like workers’ co-ops are socialist, capitalist owned corporations are capitalist. It may well be that some have a preference for one or the other, could well be that one model or t’other works better in certain circumstances. But it’s not actually the vital division in economic or societal thinking:

Waitrose is to cut prices across hundreds of grocery staples as it battles to win back cash-strapped middle class shoppers.

The supermarket chain said it had invested a record £100m in cheaper items with nearly a quarter of price cuts being lowered by 20pc.

Fresh vegetables, meats and cheese are among the 300 Waitrose own-brand items getting cheaper, with a 1kg bag of carrots falling from 60p to 50p and Savoy cabbages dropping from 90p each to 70p.

Waitrose is owned by the John Lewis partnership, itself a workers’ co-operative. They are not slicing prices - and thereby raising consumer real incomes and living standards - because they are lovely and touchy feely, nor because they are socialists. But because they face competition from those markedly capitalist organisations Aldi, Lidl, Sainsburys, Morrisons and so on (respectively, family owned, family owned, stock market listed, private equity). Aldi, Lidl, Sainsburys, Morrisons, all also have to compete against the Waitrose price cuts in order to keep their own customers.

The thing that increases those living standards of the population is the competition between the varied organisations, not the ownership structure of the organisations. The thing to monitor and preserve is thus the competition, not the ownership.

Entirely true that monopoly capitalism would not be a happy place but fortunately we’ve never had that. We have been able to observe monopoly socialism and that was entirely dire as the 20th century experience showed us.

As long as those ownership structures are voluntarily entered into we’re intensely relaxed about those ownership structures. It’s monopoly, the absence of competition in markets, which is the thing to be abjured.