Why did socialists make the factory system a subject of criticism?

Correct answer: Because the owner's profit depended on workers' labour

Socialists criticised the factory system because production was organised around private ownership and profit, while workers depended on wages and performed the labour that created goods and value. In their view, the owner or capitalist could receive a return greater than the wages paid to workers, creating an unequal relationship between capital and labour. This concern is expressed in option A. The criticism was not that factories had no workers or that all factories were cooperative.

Option B is plainly false because factory production required labour. Option C reverses the socialist criticism, since factories were not always cooperative. Option D confuses industrial production with feudal agriculture. The important concept is the relationship between ownership, labour, wages, and profit. Socialists asked who controlled production and who benefited from the value produced by workers. Thus A is correct.