I will say it again, in socialism there is no state. The idea of a socialist state is one of state capitalism. Socialism has not yet become a reality, it requires a conscious majority of people to make it a reality.

Capitalism is an extremely wasteful society, vast amounts of labour are spent in just keeping it together (finance, accountancy, police, military, insurance, cashiers, taxmen, lawyers). Socialism will negate these pointless tasks freeing up vast amounts of time for us not to need to be spent full-time doing one job as most of us do now. Marx said something along the lines of socialism would allow me to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and criticise after dinner, without ever becoming a huntsman, a fisherman or a critic. There is no need for such a great division of labour, but this is an essential for capitalist efficiency (that is profitability for the capitalist). If people want to do one task all day then it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

I don't know where Bill D. got the idea of dividing things up equally between people, people have vastly different wants and needs and abilities. The socialist slogan is 'From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs'. The short supply of goods is an fatcor of capitalism because its purpose is to maximise profit (not to meet needs, which is why it doesn't (not even basic ones, in the most advanced countries)) and plentiful goods don't command high prices.

I envisage there will be much less bureacracy is socialism. It some cases it might increase, e.g. for democratic decision making: referendums, polls and the like. But electronic communication makes this really easy.

You guys portray countries that are mostly state-capitalist, such as Cuba, and used to be, such as Russia, as hell-on-earth (I believe living conditions have actually got worse in many places since they started privatising their industries) but I have been watching the recent events in New Orleans on the TV, I would describe that as hell-on-earth. Capitalism is redundant wherever it is, and whichever minority owns the means of producing the things that we all depend on.