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“That kind of communalism can only work on a very small scale.”

I guess it all depends on what you mean by small scale. There have been several voluntary communal societies of pretty decent size. But time seems to be what dooms them. The true believers, the founders, seem to pull it off. Many of their children also buy into it, but the third generation, the grandchildren tend to fall away.

I think the Shakers managed the longest run and there are still, what four or five left. The last one will inherit everything they still own.

But there is a huge difference between voluntary sharing and government-compelled sharing. I always picture Dr Zhivago coming home to find his family is ‘sharing’ their home and being told they should be grateful for being allowed to live there at all.

Actually, communism/socialism has never worked. The only instances where it has failed miserably are when it is instituted in existing economies where the economy is very strong, the population density is low,the system is very productive and the economy is strongly engaged in producing very valuable natural resources that can be easily harvested and sold abroad for hard currency.

These resources include oil, timber, minerals and fish.

Sweden is a perfect example of such a state .It's system worked well until it's people became decadent and lazy and began abusing the system