A socialist economy stable in the fulfillment of their 5 year plans & fully established with state industries of an early commodity production type as of the first socialist camp but a step further. That step being when all the collective industries are finally converted to state, then the economy can take the great leap towards ending commodity production. That leap being a well planned transition to a labor voucher system which could resemble the following prescription for how to do so.
Carry over the purchasing power of the worker from the commodity system to the voucher system as a stand in for carrying over the value of wages:payments dispersed. Prices and payments will be exactly proportional in transit. 1 Soviet dollar = 1 digital labor dollar.
Then as automation advances relate the prices of common goods to the increasing productive capacity in order to reflect the measured decrease in value contained in the goods as determined by the unit change of (Socially Necessary Labor Time) SNLT to produce them.
By relation of productive capacity I mean in the conditions created by a common goods’ SNLT to produce being decreased which would bring an increase in the value of wages which carry either a deflationary nature on lowering prices or a shortening of the working day. If production can be doubled in the same time by next year but the price stays the same so the workers may take more time off in good proportion that is a gain still.
As automation increases prices converge towards zero and aid socialism in overcoming scarcity giving workers ample free time & a deflationary wage increase which generalizes the wealth traditionally only relegated to the petite bourgeoisie thus undermining the basis of social democracy. Production since on a planned basis would be sustainable. Some goods would not have a price for artificial demand constraint but would be allocated per person. This seems best facilitated by a labour voucher system.
In regard to international trade with other socialist states another Comecon should exist and utilize a non transferable currency to quantify the values traded on the ledger. This would be a solid step towards trading in use values until wage labor itself is safely made obsolete and the question of international trade fairness is made into a question of sustainable & moral production in relation to ecology which includes the people.
Although commodities no longer exist domestically or within the socialist camp, there is still a withering period in regard to international trade. Until capitalism is globally uprooted, socialist states may export commodities only for the securement of important inputs from capitalist nations. We secure steel to forge an economic spear. International trade between socialist states remains decommodified. In the end the state becomes a widow for her late class society based on surplus labor is dead. The bourgeoisie’s existence, the existence of commodity production is finally finally by the spinning wheel!
Capitalism developed into imperialism in about 1900 according to Lenin. Imperialism was defined interestingly not just as a type of economic model a country can have but as an age, an era. This is why even the first socialist camp didn’t have national elections because under the age of imperialism itself democracy which in its beauty is one person one vote is subverted by capital into becoming one unit money one vote. Democratic centralism / internal party democracy was seen as a way to save democracy from bourgeois subversion actually. As communists we love democracy in its fullest form in principle but where we have limited its scope was out of a concession to reality.