Thank you for providing an actual answer.
A few observations and questions here then:
1. Enforcement of universal rights for everyone would require a large state, just like the one
@tathra was criticising capitalist regulations for in the first place. There is literally no way to enforce something like this without state intervention. Do you agree, and if so do you think a big state is a problem yourself? Or do you believe it is an acceptable necessity or compromise?
2. You appear to be proposing a system where more skilled labour earns more resources if I am reading you correctly? How is this any different to a capitalist market?
3. Without a market, who decides what labour is worth more? The state?
4. You state your ideal is that it should be up to the individual to achieve their own desires, which I agree with fully, but why do you not believe capitalism facilitates this? And why do you believe a socialist system would be better suited for helping people achieve their goals?
5. You provide nepotism and inheritance as examples of problems within capitalism, but how would you prevent this in your socialist society?
Genuinely curious to hear your insights.
There is a lot to unpack here and I won't claim to being a complete expert. I also may have to break it up a bit since we are experiencing some serious freaking storms and my power keeps shorting out. So if this ends up looking like paste in job, its because it is.
1. It depends honestly on what flavor of communism, socialism, or anarchy you end up with. Anarchists, who I respect immensely, believe that you can do this almost purely through mutual cooperation but I'm realistic enough to know that at best, there is going to be some sort of democratically chose set of standards. Understand too that "State" in the communist critique relies heavily, heavily on stratification and hierarchy. Contrarily, the communist version instead replaces stratification and hierarchy with absolute democracy forming what Engels referred to as the "dictatorship of the proletariat." I know that seems like "six of one, half dozen of the other" but with the abolishment of the class system and lacking a set of classes available to exploit, a whole apparatus of capitalist state control no longer exists.
So the setting of standards then would likely be those enforcing those concepts of democracy and basic rights as a primary system much in the same way that the Anti-Federalists in America assumed that the Constitution would be enough because "all other rights are inherent."
So how is this managed? Well, syndicalists would pursue charters determining their own labor groupings so prices set under The Union of Plumbers and the Union of Clinicians would set prices under their own and disagreements that are considered exploitative or troubling would be hashed out not just between those two but all syndicates. I would imagine the closest thing to this is a parliament of syndicates of sorts but I doubt they'd use that term. Anarchists would likely choose the same thing but without the syndicates (because they view syndicalists as hierarchical) but participation would be much more local (neighborhoods, sectors, cities, regions, etc) again democratically but region segmented (as a guess). SocDems would likely function very much in the same way that we do know as they are the closest to capitalists without the capitalist system.
And yes, the big state is a problem. Vanguard parties are power concentrations as they were in Russia, China, and even Cuba. A communist scholar would probably lampoon all of those as and call them state welfare capitalists with "communist stickers" because with vanguardists, the proletariat are quickly forgotten for their "own good." Realistically the biggest impediment to the proletariat will always be keeping a watchful eye.
2. Yes, market commerce will always be a thing and yes, some people will have more labor value than others. The difference here is: 1. A laborer of any job will be getting their full value of labor (you won't be paying out a percentage of your pay to your boss who does not do the work). 2. Jobs won't be locked behind education levels that require massive education systems that benefit those who start from a hereditary, economic, or geographical advantage. 3. With more free time, needs met, and buy in (due to seeking jobs you want rather than what you need to live) to the jobs, people can pursue those career fields that they enoy. 4. Jobs won't be subject to the fluctuation of need that isn't democratically controlled (jobs picked as artifical winners in the current economy heavily favor industries that are often incredible exploitable like capital, military, and energy)
3. As I said in 1. that depends on the system. And there will still be a market, just not as its currently controlled.
4. The simplest answer is because the current set of desires outside of those few people who can truly have anything their heart desires, the vast majority of us do not seek actualization but rather the basic set of protection for their lives and their family. We are worried constantly to maximize our own profitability rather than our own personal values so that we can constantly upgrade. But that drive to upgrade also creates its own cycle by which we seek less of self-actualization and more convenience and quick entertainment. Everything in our lives have been commodified, even our suffering. Marx called this the alienation of the worker from their Gattungswesen (species-esscense) and alienation from other workers.
5. This is honestly the most complex question due to a lot of theory on labor value. The biggest impediment to these would be that our current concept of money as a store of value would change. The most workable real world example comes from the Cincinnati Time Store where goods were purchased with labor vouchers. Labor vouchers, which in some ways acted like money as an exchange, rather than a store of value, were promises of participation to do certain works. Since those are valued by job and skill, the exchange of value is obviously going to be different. Again, example, you may be able to purchase a car with 1,000 labor units of from me as a carpenter but it may take only 100 labor units from me in my capacity as an Operational consultant. Using a labor value system means that you can't "make money off of money" which really makes the issue of heredity disappear. Value has to be stored in produced goods, raw goods, or people. The same sort of applies to nepotism because again, labor value has to be earned. Yes, there may still be some questions of nepotism and even issues of exploitation but with a system where workers are insulated to a vast degree by their own rights, who would realistically give someone more of themselves just because of who their parents are.
