meaning that I like your argument a lot, but one still has to deal with the tendency of socialism to centralization and paternalistic bureaucracy. That seems like a 'default' in socialism, but can maybe be countered by checks & balances, or even better: a new, greater level of community activism and participation in decision making processes. It all depends as you say on the common consent, but the problem still remains that socialism needs to be administered and centralized more than market capitalism - at least, in the way we know and understand socialism so far up till now. A new, devolvement of authority towards local and community structures would be essential for socialism to remain democratic. If that could happen, we could then achieve something even more democratic than today's big-capitalism - where, yes we are free to sell our labor to any employer, but in the end are still completely immersed in and dominated by a giant economic machine.