I wish I could find the original research done into these alternative systems, but I don't seem to be able to find the articles (and, well, don't care enough to try to find them).
My favorite concept from these was that as technology causes individual humans to be more efficient, there should be less labor requirement. For instance, if the use of a tractor makes a human 10 times as efficient in harvesting food, then you should need to employ 1/10th as many people. Ignoring the second-order correction from the tractor manufacturer (who is improved by more robots and more robots and so on), as technology makes us more efficient, it is *natural* that we would work less.
The failure of capitalism here is that if you *don't* work your 40 hours a week, you don't get enough money to eat. However, society doesn't actually *need* people to work that 40 hours a week to accomplish everything that needs doing. So what you end up with is people employed who are doing essentially useless tasks, and who essentially spend their time increasing the complexity of the bureaucratic system without adding efficiency. Quite literally, many of these people consume more resources in getting to work and "working" than they produce. I am sure everyone knows these people.
Wouldn't society be better off if these people just *stayed the heck home* and did something that they were even remotely passionate about, and might someday even become good at instead of slowing those of us who actually naturally enjoy being productive down? Maybe that's art, or music, or cooking, or caring for kids, or who knows what. But at least they'll be doing *something*.
So, the proposals to deal with this messy transitional period between an industrial and post-industrial economy was to basically provide enough of a welfare safety net that if people didn't want to work, they didn't need to do so in order to live a satisfying (if frugal) life. Meanwhile, people have a standard economy on top of that for other items -- so people can spend all their time being musicians and actually maybe even become good at it -- without having to worry about starving in the interim. I guess you could say it's sort of half way between socialist and capitalist? It's really neither. It's capitalist in the sense that the free market is clearly there and providing incentives to produce value. On the other hand, the free market is limited to "luxury" items beyond the base necessities that people need.
Now, I'm not saying I necessarily think this would work -- I, like many, am inclined to believe that people are not as good as I would hope. On the other hand, maybe that's only because we treat them that way? I'd certainly love to believe that if you give people security in their food and shelter, they'll be a lot more likely to adventure in doing more productive things with their time. Or maybe they'll just shoot heroin in the back alley.
BUT, the big issue remains. Our current system is designed to rapidly increase efficiency, but not give people more free time to balance it out. Certainly most of us feel that we are working as many hours as ever we were, even if the amount of work we can accomplish in a week hasn't really changed much (exceptions exist, of course, especially in computers). If our efficiency is 10 times higher than it was in 1920, then our EMPLOYMENT rate should be only 10%! Yes, 90% unemployment is a perfectly natural state for a post-industrial society! Why else do we have robot maids and trains if not to make it so that we can spend our time doing things we are more passionate about like.........
Anyway, just wanted to throw that out as food for thought. Capitalism is all well and good, but there seems to need to be some fine tuning at the unproductive bottom of the capitalist food chain if we want to improve the value of our society. After all, as John F. Kennedy said in 1968:
"Our gross national product ... counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."