Thanks for linking the article. I like most of its points, but I don’t agree with this materialistic outlook that the economic development is the be-all and end-all solution to implementing “true” socialism.
I believe that the root cause of all attempts of it failing so far is that humans are selfish assholes. Unless everyone bar none starts caring about their brethren and sistren at least as much as they care about themselves, the system can’t work. It’s simply too prone to being overtaken by bad faith actors who will inevitably abuse it for self serving purposes in the name of “socialism”.

Marx and Engels were constantly hounded as “authoritarian” for advocating for central planning.

Well maybe these two guys were a product of their time and had some not-so-good ideas, so not every word of theirs should be taken as a gospel.