The Chinese tried the Communist model, with their own modifications, and it failed! And they have admitted that it failed.
The kids today talk as if these things have never happened. They haven’t learned!
The author of the article and the related book is 76 years old. Are you calling him a kid?
I think that there are a lot of alternatives to both our current Western economic system and the Soviet Union, and I think that if you try to look a bit closer at many of the systems "the kids today" are talking about, in particular the principles and values behind them, without getting caught up in the labels, you'll be pleasantly surprised!
Perhaps you would find this list of books I compiled interesting? https://vladh.net/wage-labour-resources
The USSR and China were abusive because you need to be abusive to force people to give over labour for which they don't own the proceeds of. Small time farmers in Vietnam had riots over the collectivization of their land into communes (and the "Communists" there dropped it in favor of capitalism). These are subsistence-level farms who can't read or write - yet they understood the injustice of taking away one's freedom to live of the fruits of your own labour.
A far better solution is to separate the economic system with the political one (which communism tries to meld). There is nothing that says you can't have a capitalist system that protects worker rights, or that heavily taxes and redistributes.
Rather than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, figure out how best to use the eggs to the benefit of everyone.