The workers did not control the assets, unelected totalitarian dictators did, despite endless propaganda to the contrary.
I'm not saying the idea works, but the Eastern Block was not a test of it.
Все вокруг колхозное, все вокруг мое (Everything around me belongs to the collective farm, everything is mine)
Тащи с работы каждый гвоздь, ты здесь хозяин, а не гость (Steal every last nail from work, you are the master here, not a guest).
Maybe their basic needs were provided when everything was nice and rosy, after they looted. But when the economic situation went south, then you've got food rations, curfew and other stuff that is only appropriate during wartime. Also add arbitrary justice to that. For instance you were entitled to a 250g pack of butter, a box of eight eggs, a glass of oil every month and a bread every day. This happened while the ones in power were more equal than the rest. Yes, that's only providing basic needs and people were sick of it. So everyone stole from work. They stole food, they stole screws, they stole lamp oil just in case the electricity went off. They stole whatever they could lay their hands on. Some of the people stole just to get back at the commies who robbed their elderly relatives and then integrated them into the new and great communist society.
If owning & profiting from capital is impossible, what incentive is there to produce capital - it will just get seized. Where's the marketplace for capital, or does the state have a monopsony on capital purchases?
Shared ownership of production means is possible w/o a nanny state if the shareholders of a private company are also it's employees. But that doesn't really work well in practice, otherwise we would have cooperatives comparable to Apple, Google, VW or Samsung in terms of market value. I haven't seen any.
The safety net you're talking about could be group insurance policies negotiated by the said company. But why do this, when the same company could automate and greatly reduce expenses with insurance and health benefits paid to human workers? The purpose of a company is to maximize the profit for it's shareholders (by creating market value), as opposed to being a benefactor for it's employees. Of course, we also have a social responsability component but that's only because few people would work for an organization that would rip them off.
