Tura, you begin from a false premise, that everyone doesn't start from an equal place. They do, when you are born you have nothing. When you wake up in the morning, you don't have the guarantee that you will see the end of the day. The primary difference between the "rich" and the "poor" is ambition. Rich people are rich, primarily, because they get out there and bust they're ass when no one is looking.
Also, just how high do you set the "equal" bar? If you provide health care and education so that every starts from an "equal" place, why not raise it so that even if they fail, they aren't actually hurt? Where does the drive to succeed come from if everyone starts from comfort? You whine and complain about "teh ebil CONSUMERISM", well in your world, that's all that's left to drive people to be successful is rampant selfish, keeping-up-with-the-joneses greed.
Also, Communism fails, usually quite rapidly, because the power is centered in the hands of the a few people at the top of the government. So even if you have really benevolent, well intentioned people at the top for first few years, eventually(because crap doesn't run uphill), you get these self-absorbed, narcissistic, maybe malevolent bastards at the top who snag the remaining power for themselves and then use the systems that you put in place to keep things "equal" at the bottom and make sure that they are not equally good, but rather equally bad so that they can more easily maintain power for themselves over the long term.