I'm quite familiar with communism, but you already know that. I just don't think it is a perfect solution either. Every communist society (and Russia, Cuba, et al. were NOT communist), has had hierarchy. I'm thinking about primitive communism, Madagascar when the gov't withdrew, etc. All of those communist societies had hierarchies, which basically were functionally isomorphic to disparities of wealth. The shaman and the chief end up with better standards of living than the average person, even when money does not enter the equation. I've worked in anarchistic groups, with consensus and free association, and hierarchy develops there too, even when there is no money and no formal hierarchy. A charismatic or popular person ends up becoming an informal leader and gets the privileges that come along with popularity. William Gillis talks alot about this phenomenon.

Also, I specifically advocate alternative monetary systems in which disparities of wealth are impossible. For instance, I propose a crypto-currency monetary system integrated with a land registry on the blockchain, where wealth will be automatically be taxed, to prohibit accumulation, and redistributed out as a basic income. If there is progressive taxation, land value tax, and corporate tax, within a socialist society in which the community has partial ownership of all land and industry, and all people are provided with a universal basic income....then there won't be any distinction between "haves" and "have nots".