I've given you my definition: An economic system, absent of central planning, where worker owned cooperatives trade according to market forces. This isn't anarchism - I've argued for anarchism, Free market socialism is not that.
Absent central planning, there is no way to ensure fairness and equity in the trading of cooperatives according to market forces. Certain cooperatives gain advantage over others because of market forces, and without some central planning to monitor and regulate this, some cooperatives will become more powerful than others. As some cooperatives gain more power, others lose power, become less important. People are naturally going to want to work for the more powerful cooperative because it means a better way of life, but everyone can't work in the most powerful cooperatives, some people must be forced to work in the less powerful cooperatives and settle for a less abundant lifestyle. Again, you'll need 'central planning' to equally distribute the labor, so that cooperatives with less market appeal will be able to compete with others.
You are living in the fantasy world created in a book by a Socialist Utopian. Try to process that, because that is the root of your problem here. You've read something that probably made perfect sense, and seemed like a really great way to run things, because it is being presented to you by people who are selling you on their theories. What none of their Socialist theories take into account, is the human spirit, the human element. They don't account for people being ambitious, motivation, lack of motivation, greed and corruption. Every system of Socialism that has ever been attempted, has failed due to the human element. It's because we don't live in a perfect world with perfect people, we live in an unfair world with a variety of different kinds of people. Power is not something you can equally distribute and maintain fairness in the distribution of it. Some people, whether you have free market capitalism or what you are calling free market socialism, will still have more power than others. More power means more money, more control over outcome, a better way of life in general. Whenever this happens, regardless of the system, the ones who have the most power will be better off than everyone else.
In a free market capitalist system, every man/woman has the opportunity to better their own lives, through competition in the free market. If you don't like making $3 an hour in the widget-making cooperative, you can strive to be better, to do something else, to take your talent and ambitions to another level, to achieve financial success. Capitalist ventures will gain power over others, but with a free market capitalist system, others are free to 'build a better mousetrap' and overcome the disparity.
60 years ago, the merchandising juggernaut in the United States was a company named
Sears and Roebuck. They literally owned the market on consumer products and merchandise, and no one else even came close. In the 60s and early 70s, a company named
K-Mart emerged, even in the smothering vacuum of Sears, they were able to offer consumers an alternative, and the consumers responded, making K-Mart the largest merchandiser. They toppled Sears and Roebuck as Kings of Retail Merchandising, where Sears had held the crown for over 100 years. In the late 70s and early 80s, another company came along, by the name of
Walmart. They toppled Sears and K-mart and became the new Kings. In the 90s, a company named
Target emerged... in 2013, it is
Dollar General. This is all happening in a free market capitalist environment, where companies compete for the consumer dollar. Better ideas emerge and consumers respond, capitalists prosper and new companies emerge to take the place of old ones. Our quality of life is improved in this process, even while the capitalists make record profits and become more wealthy.
