You seem pretty open minded, I think you would find a couple of these videos interesting, by a youtuber called Second Thought if you've heard of them.

Here he directly addresses the claim that people won't work under communism : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9CFP_58mBc

From the sounds of it I could probably safely call you a Social Democrat, he has a video on that topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRq3pl17C8M

Our goal is not equality or UBI, it’s to first meet everyone’s basic needs and then help everyone reach their own personal potential. If people own their own labor they are more likely to be motivated to work. Ireland still has a dictatorship at work and that’s why people take the excuse to not work. Marx’s original goal was to make work life’s prime want. If through socialist culture people are encouraged to learn as much as they can about whatever they want people will take up jobs they really like. No brilliant artist will be forced to work a sucky fast food job because their art isn’t profitable. No one will have to be a doctor or lawyer and hate it but continue because it pays. People don’t like to not work. They will at least put labor in to hobbies, games, and community once most things are automated. Even then people can work if they want. There will and have indeed be/en bonuses for and luxuries for people who work extra hard in socialist countries too. Capitalism hinders people’s desire to work by exploiting them for capital and commodifying everything. If people can help themselves and their community by working harder they will. “No innovation under socialism” is a common anti-communist argument and can easily be debunked by the fact that the USSR went from peasant backwater to industrial superpower in a few decades without colonialism, and they went on to send the first satellite, dog, man, and woman to space, along with first crafts to the moon and mars. They also invented the internet (which they unfortunately did not see the potential of) and mobile phones.

The goal of a lot of anti-communist propaganda is to make you believe that these people are autocrats, but that's not true. They're democratically elected and unlike in liberal democracy when some dickhead politician reveals that they lied to your face and now you have to put up with them for the next 4 years regardless, communist party members can be recalled from their position at any time if the party believes they're not fulfilling the role to the benefit of society.

People are capable of having power and remaining true to the people. Though it’s true some of the leaders of the USSR eventually became estranged from the people and ended up illegally dismantling it, Stalin and his comrades were paid the same as a normal worker and he died with nothing but the clothes on his back. We can and are learning from the mistakes of the past so we can do better in the future. China’s leaders have remained principled and that’s how they managed to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and crack down on corrupt corporations and politicians. Scientific socialism will continue to learn from our mistakes and avoid them in the future. Also, If communists were out for power why would we side with the oppressed (not that you’re necessarily insinuating we are just “power hungry authoritarians” or something like that).

Ah, the "human nature" argument.

The saying that power corrupts and that absolutel power corrupts absolutely is wrong; it's more accurately, as Frank Herbert said, power attracts the corruptible. Naturally there are many was to get around this, including soviet and Chinese democracy. There are a lot of resources around here that you can take a look at about those.

That said, I definitely think we should be dabbling with it, and moving more and more power out of the hands of corporations. There’s a balance in there somewhere.

I would recommend this video, it seems like you would understand our position on "Nordic style" social democracy if you watched it. Hakim - "We need a mixture of Capitalism AND Socialism" - BULLS#*T