Sorry to chime in here -- as you have probably noticed, there are different opinions on what "communism" means. It is possible that my comments may not be relevant to the specific conversation that you are having with jar.
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To implement communism on a global scale one would have to erase cultural, national, and religious boundries.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Perhaps you are saying that a homogenization of the world cultures is necessary for communism to succeed? In that case I disagree.
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In a communist state what and who would determine what and how much is produced?
First, a "communist state" is an oxymoron.
As far as how a communist society would be organized, that is presently unknown, for a practical reason that it is impossible to just come up with a version of the "ideal communist society" and force everyone else to abide by it. How this would come about would be a process of experimentation on the local level, with the results being adopted by other localities, as well as attempts at organization at a supra-local level.
At any rate, I would expect that in a communist society people would be organized in small groups -- by village, cooperatives, trade unions, communes, or whatever, which would be democratically run. Representatives would be chosen for region councils -- maybe there would councils devoted to specific industries -- there would be larger councils representing larger groups, and so forth.
It would be up the these councils to negotiate within and among themselves as well with the local producers to determine how to allocate resources and responsibility. This would necessarily be complicated, but democracy involving large numbers of people will always be a complicated affair.
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If you were trained as an engineer but there was an oversupply of them and an undersupply of janitors, would you be forced to be a janitor?
This is where my vision of communism differs from others. There will indeed be some specialization. However, what determines people's specialization now? From watching my own friends, that is determined largely by the individuals' interests.
In my opinion, there would not be such a high degree of specialization. Instead of "line workers" who's reponsibility is to just use one machine to perform one small task, you would see a return of craftmanship, where any individual worker will have a larger role in the entire product.
Positions of authority and responsibility would be filled by some combination of election and rotation.
Dreary jobs of drudgery would be shared by everyone -- as a college professor, even I would have to take my turn to scrub out the toilets (although, in a more realistic less-that-ideal communist society, we professor may make the students do it -- to build character, don't you know).
And of course some people would be clearly unsuited for some tasks, some better suited, and some people may have preferences -- there are some "drudge" jobs, such as laundry, that I don't mind -- maybe I would end up doing more than my "fair share" of the laundry (if the laundry was done communally).
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In my opinion, and again this is where I differ from some other socialists, all associations would be voluntary. If you don't like the way the commune is run, leave for a better run cooperative. If you feel that the regional council is unresponsive to your legitimate needs, then your local council can withdraw and join another organization.
This would not be an efficient system, if efficiency is measured by maximizing the total number of consumer products that can be produced by a small amount of resources. But if that is the chosen measure of efficiency, then why should we discuss leaving capitalism to begin with?
My preferred measure of "efficiency" would not only include a more equitable distribution of resources (both social and material), but also a higher "quality of life" where people are more content and satisfied with what they have and what they are able to achieve.
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