I see that very few people would like to see the future painted in dark hues, and not everybody believes in ultimate survivability of the modern Western type social democracy (mind you, I'd like it to spread everywhere - foolishly, like a small kid dreams of getting a truck load of sweets...) so probably estimating how we'd fare in a society whose economy and social life is regulated through technical means may be compelling. It's something that's still in realms of science fiction (mostly distopian), but some authors who aren't communism allergic still sometimes try to revive the topic and rethink the idea.
One of such is...
http://argonov.ru/2032.html
Victor Argonov's rock opera
2032: the legend of a never happened future.
Synopsis: After death of Constantin Chernenko, history makes an alternative turn and, instead of Mikhail Gorbachev, power falls into hands of Grigory Romanov who (somehow) manages to drive the USSR out of the economic crisis of the 80's in one piece. He is then superceded in late 90's in the position of General Secretary by Academician Plotnikov who introduces an artificial intelligence system for automatic governing (the ASGU). Over next decades, it undergoes many upgrades and its capabilities increase. Under computer control, the USSR makes significant ecomonic advances and Socialist block becomes even larger, gradually including countries of Asia. That lasts until 2035, when the ASGU (which by the moment acquired a kind of female personality and a pretty voice) offers Soviet government to completely submit control over production processes and military command to 'her'. Milinevsky, the General Secretary at the time of setting, is reluctant towards the offer at first, fearing that Soviet people will be left just nothing to do, all their jobs taken away by the universal machine. Politbureau finally agrees to the offer, but insists on hardcoding of classic Communist Dogmas into the ASGU on the axiomatic level.
After a while, Western countries decide to shutter the balance and make a peripheral strike through incite anti-Communist revolts in Iran and other border lands. The Communists strike back, but the robotic war which sparkled up as a conflict in one spot, consumes more and more of the world and transforms into a stalemate. Anticipating grave problems which await the Soviet Union, should the conflict is left to evolve, the ASGU suddenly offer Milinevsky some cunning plan to make a nuclear strike with a 98% of no striking back from the West. The General Secretary is appalled by the prospect of killing trillions, and demand an explanation from the system (who is so lovely otherwise, especially due to having developed a mysterious bond with a 16-years old girl who fell in love with Milinevsky and dreamt of eternal life...) The responce was like: "because it's the objective set for me to make every people in the world happy under Communist rule - or die. What do you want - you programmed this into me yourself!"
Finally, after the "connected" girl is put into suspended animation, Milinevsky flips the switch, shutting the ASGU off. An open final comes (but the final song is so sorrowful that it enables you to make some guesses on what would happen next).
Knowledge of Russian is required for understanding of the songs, but if you don't speak Russian, you still can listen to the instrumentals (tracks 01, 07, 19, 22, 26, 29, 32). All the mp3's are free to download. Enjoy Communism. :lol: