Capricorn:
"From each according to ability, to each according to needs". Why not?I suppose you call yourself a socialist rather than a communist because you favour "from each according to their ability, to each according to their work" but this is what is supposed to happen under capitalism (but doesn't) and is based on a dubious distinction (stemming from Lenin I think) between socialism and communism which, logically and historically, ought to mean the same thing.
I am only jumping in here because I think there is widespread confusion on this point. While it is true that Lenin distinguished between a phase of "socialism" and a phase of communism and Marx did not, Marx did distinguish between two phases of communism. In Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, he writes that only in the "higher phase of communist society" can "society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" (International Publishers, 10) In the first phase of communism, according to Marx, "The same amount of labour which he [the worker] has given to society in one form, he recieves back in another." (8)
Regardless of how we evaluate the usefulness of Marx's ideas here, it is clear that the first phase of communism is still communism, according to Marx. This phase is still characterized by the absence of private property in the means of production, wage-labor, money, and the state, according to Marx's use of these terms.
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This just isn't allowed in the system. You are only allowed to acquire that which you can productively utilise yourself. If you buy more machinery than you can work with yourself, there is no point. To make it worth the cost, you would have to employ wage labour. But the wage labourers would have every interest in reporting you, collectivizing the equipment and getting rid of you as a boss. It need not be a case of the state intervening. It could be a case of the commune's members not recognising the right of the would be capitalist to the machinery he claims. If the commune says to the workers employed there, "feel free to take over that factory, we won't stop you" what will the boss be able to do about it?
In sum, there would be no incentive for anyone to acquire means of production that did not help them carry out self-employed work. The very act that makes this accumulation desirable and useful (the hiring of wage workers) is the act which enables this infringement of property norms to be detected (since any wage workers approached or employed by the would be capitalist have every interest in "dobbing him in").
Schweickart rules out plowback investment of this sort. A depreciation fund is supposed to be kept to keep capital value of a firm constant, but new investment must come from the communal investment fund. One would imagine that firms accounts would be open to public inspection, and would be audited just like corporation accounts are.