think communism is what we should be striving for.
Simple - it's the ideal. Will we ever get there? Possibly not. Is it even desirable? Debatable. But it's always better to know where to go and not know how to get there than having the option of going anywhere and not knowing where to go.
It was normalized in the US because white settlers always had to be ready to commit genocide against indigenous people or put down slave revolts - that's what the 2nd amendment was really all about. In a socialist community, firearms will be necessary because there will always be nazis about (not to mention their ex-cop friends).
On the flipside, it’s not illegal anywhere in capitalismland™
It's also not illegal in capitalismland™ to use economic chicanery to outcompete and either destroy or swallow any productive organization that doesn't sacrifice everything to the profit principle - which might explain why there is no need for it to make co-ops illegal.
Like, if a community really wanted a unicycle repair shop, how would that get started?
Pretty much the same way a community would start a co-op right now.
Would that be up to a local government (or some other governing body)?
Public participation, of course. The community would form councils, where people would collectively decide whether this is a good idea or not. That literally what the word soviet means - councils of people making decisions (which is why the Bolsheviks hijacked them and turned the word into a cruel joke).
Honest question, at what point does a workshop transition from ownable to not
If you also live in it, it becomes personal property - ie, ownable by you personally.
or in the outdoors of town among large factories?
I mean, that pretty much means it already is factory-like and no, it doesn't become ownable (unless you also live in it). If it involves other people's labor, then all the grey areas vanishes - it becomes communal.
The picture above is not completely accurate - a community might decide, for instance, that all firearms must be communally owned - ie, as in a communal arsenal (essentially a library for guns) - which, let's face it, would probably be necessary anywhere in the US (because it has more guns than people - and far less sense).
As long as there are capitalists around to parasitize off people there will be fascists to protect them from people doing something about it. That's their one trick... and that's why it's still working.
injecting communist ideas into otherwise capitalist countries.
No, you can't. What you are describing is merely using faux-leftist ideas to protect capitalism from itself by throwing more scraps at the working class - that is all.
propaganda used by both sides in order to prevent reforms.
"Reform" is how capitalists protect their power and privilege from working-class revolt. "Reform" is always used to protect the status quo from desperately needed radical change. "Reform" almost never infringes upon the power and privilege of capitalist elites. "Reform" is a vital tool in the wealthy's arsenal when it comes to class warfare.
"Reform" is not change - it is used to prevent change.
Lol! What would "perfect capitalism" even look like? I'd say the only people who even imagines a "perfect capitalism" are magical capitalists like (so-called) anarcho-capitalists and objectivists - and the level of brain-rot you have to suffer from to buy into that kind of sixteen-dimensional logic-pretzel is next-to lethal.
Simple - it's the ideal. Will we ever get there? Possibly not. Is it even desirable? Debatable. But it's always better to know where to go and not know how to get there than having the option of going anywhere and not knowing where to go.