I've been asked before what my politics are, as in, what system of economic and/or government do I advocate for, and the problem is that so far I have yet to encounter one that doesn't ultimately rely on all people (or the overwhelming majority) choosing to do mostly the right thing most of the time even if it conflicts with their immediate personal interests, or alternatively, authoritarianism.
Capitalism fails because it is either darwinistic degrading to fuedalism or relies on uncorrupted, unbiased governments making laws and regulations in the best interests of the people at large and economic actors playing by those rules. There is no good mechanism for enforcing the latter except the former and nothing enforcing the former except the latter, so this often tends to degrade to fuedalism or authoritarianism.
Communism sounds great in theory but relies on everyone agreeing to accept only what they need (which unless the nation is highly resourced from the start is likely going to be a shared poverty,) as decided by whoever is in charge, and for the latter group to be fair, unbiased, and accurate in that distribution. Those with many more resources are unlikely to voluntarily surrender their surplus (especially when "surplus" is being defined by wanting a normal level of comfortable living rather than massive excesses of wealth) and for that redistribution to meet everyone's needs. The enforcement mechanism for this relies on those in charge to be uncorrupted, fair, and judicious with any use of force to strip the reluctant of excess wealth. This fails to account for the reality that people will seek these positions of authority in order to have some measure of control over deciding what they need instead of a third party and to enjoy any perks that come from being in charge.
Socialism looks to establish a more equal (if still imperfect) limit on wealth accumulation via scaled taxation, a robust social net, and governmental management of necessary resources such as healthcare, food, housing, transportation, communication, etc. This relies on the people in charge maintaining a true balance between governmental control and individual personal freedom, causing it to deteriorate into the same problems as capitalism and/or communism if those in charge are not restrained and fair in their use of governmental authority, while at the same time not being so hands-off that bad actors are allowed to operate with impunity. The enforcement of this is tricky because it has to be baked into the structure of the government itself, and then relies on those in power to maintain that enforcement even when it is detrimental to their immediate interests.
Anarchy relies on people collectively understanding the need for mutual aid and collaboration, and (once that has been established) their fear of retribution or retaliation should they act selfishly within that system. This works to an extent (here I'm thinking of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, for example) but has absolutely no authoritative means by which to protect weaker actors with less physical strength, numbers, and/or resources. This will inevitably lead to domination by those who know they can act with impunity due to this unequal size, strength, or access, and there is no authority (by design) that can force a redistribution (and, even if they could do this for some things, others are luck if the draw and impossible to reassign, such as productivity or physical strength.) International law interestingly enough works off of a lot of these types of principles, and you see how that is playing out so far.
And those are the systems that are trying to create a just and more or less equal society. There are other systems (e.g., colonialism, aristocracy, fuedalism, etc.) that are inherently unbalanced and designed to privilege some groups over others.
Social democracies seem to achieve the closest to a truly fair and balanced society, but still have their limitations, failures, unintended casualties, and atrocities.
The truth is that people are extremely difficult to organize on a macro level, at least in part because the larger the group, the greater the diversity of opinions and interests you have to account for. In this era of global travel, trade, and environmental impact, it is no longer possible to avoid thinking globally. That's 8.23 billion people and counting, with a stunning diversity of thought, culture, religion, experiences, power, language, and interests. Even if you focus on one nation or even scale back your aspirations to one local area, the reality is that this country will have to hold its own against empires and any localized control will have to answer to the nation in which it resides.
This isn't to say we shouldn't try. We should.
It's just... look, there's no silver bullet here and advocating for any existing system as the One Correct Path to a free, equal, and prosperous society is a farce. So I don't define myself as anything in particular except "what works in this setting using as close to an objective measure of that as possible?" And I think that answer likely varies nationally based on the peoples, cultures, and histories involved.
