Communism probably could actually be done today properly. The problem with the Soviet Union was that the logistics technology just wasn’t where it needed to be. It wasn’t practical with the tech a hundred years ago to gather and compute all the data needed to manage production chains. Now? Private megacompanies have already built the infrastructure of state communism. It’s called Walmart. They do the exact kind of demand projections and intricate logistics planning that the Soviet planners tried and failed to do. The Waltons just have much better computers.

You could establish state communism in the US just by nationalizing Amazon and Walmart. Instead of paying money, everyone gets a certain number of credits to spend at Amazon or Walmart each year. Then we use all our computerized supply chain systems to direct those funds to actual production.

The problem with communism was that it was tried a century too early.

Sure, you can lean on more universal tropes like, “if everyone is paid the same, no one has an incentive to work.” But those same failures of incentives exist in capitalist economies. Very few workers receive any benefit from being more productive at work. They’re paid hourly or salary. At best they get a nominal bonus at the end of the year that is meant as more of a symbolic than actual reward. Modern capitalism also doesn’t incentivize workers to work hard. It incentivizes them to work just hard enough to not get fired.