Communism

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In a utopian communist situation, there would be no “management.”

No state is going to do that.  No state is going to eliminate money and dissolve itself.

Communism does not work because the proponents cannot or will not take into account the element of simple human greed.  State leaders are not going to give up all that power and wealth once they get their hands on it -- Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Chavez, Sankara, Mao Ze Dong, Zhou En Lai, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Un, Ho Chi Minh, Krushchev, et cetera -- once they got their hands on wealth and power, they turned their perfect "Workers' Paradises" into slave-labor gulags where dissenters are/were made to disappear, and outside contact is/was filtered or prohibited.

Sure, "To make an omelet, one must first crack a few eggs", but we all have yet to see that perfect omelet.

You worded it better than I ever could. Human greed is a powerful thing that seems to destroy everything it touches.

And no countless decisions to make, I guess.

Only in which line to stand, or whether or not soap and toilet paper are really necessary.

We had (and possibly still have) worker co-operatives in the UK. I was once in one. Every worker was also a director. So the management wasn't abolished. Just that the people running the place weren't different people from the workforce. So when we had management meetings, we weren't going to betray the workforce, because we were the workforce. There were also rules to stop us having external shareholders. So the workers had control of the means of production, without abolishing the management.

Yes, that's why communism hasn't been tried on a state scale - the ruling class in an existing state is personally doing too well for itself. Naturally such a ruling class would have to be eliminated. I don't see why a state would have to eliminate money as such.

Old Russian joke I heard:

It's Kruschev's mother's birthday, so the wily Soviet politician pulls out all the stops. He gets a limo to pick up his dear old mom, they spend an afternoon sipping tea and Kruschev's dacha, and then he takes her out for a caviar dinner and a night at the Bolshoi.

With that all wrapped up, they go back in the limo. Everyone's happy and full, getting a bit sleepy. Nikita's mom turns to him, says what a nice time she had at the dacha, the restaurant, and the ballet.

Then she says: "But Nikki, what happens if the communists come back?"

Even if you somehow got rid of money, you'd still probably have a ruling class. They might be defined by political influence or social capital.

We had worker co-ops here, as well. Some still exist - mostly in food production.
They often hire management, for managing requires a different set of skills than production.

In communist Poland, money was largely worthless.
So people struggled for things (every item separately) not money and accumulated power mainly through social connections.

Think this way - Neolithic societes did not have money but many had social stratification and some forms of ruling class.

I should have said:

In the utopian communist situation, there wouldn’t be a titled “management.”

Under this ideal, the workers would be the management. Ideally, they would always come to a consensus “for the good of all.”

In reality and in practice, though, capitalistic and social Darwinist forces are always around to taint this “purity.”

Societes are complex and we never really have "pure" state of anything. There will always be some forces in all possible directions and constant testing of limits. That's how the nature evolves. We can't cross this out of our equation.

^Right. That’s why I called the communist ideal “utopian.”

It is impossible for this ideal to be attained, for the reasons stated above.

Apparently they even exist in the USA. As for hiring management, it must be a good feeling to tell them they'll be fired if they don't do a better job.

A utopian society cannot be maintained without monitoring and controlling the lives and thoughts of each of its citizens. Any citizen who expresses dissatisfaction with “Utopia” is brought in for reeducation, and the most stubborn cases are made to disappear.

This makes the watchers more powerful than ordinary citizens. But who watches the watchers? More watchers? Soon, there arises a seemingly endless bureaucracy of people watching each other, with every loyal citizen ready to denounce anyone to prove their own loyalty.

Did your older brother order you to do his chores? Denounce him as a slacker and a traitor to the State.

Did your younger sister steal your boyfriend? Denounce her as a manipulator and an enemy of the State.

Did your parents dabble in the Black Market to provide a little extra food for you? Denounce them directly to the Commissar and laugh while they are executed by firing squad.

You get the idea. Utopian societies -- like the Communist regime in the failed Soviet Union -- require that everyone conforms to the will of the State.

Or else.