are intrinsic rewards good enough?

[Cavernio]

I'm very leftist. I really like the idea of communism. I've always thought that money/possesions is/are an unnecessary external motivator that overwrites one's own internal desires, and that that's tragic, (even though capitalism nicely allows for individual micromanagement.) For instance I was told of studies back when I was in school that showed that if someone got paid for doing something they already liked doing, they'd actually start to like doing that task for the payment instead, as their intrinsic reward for doing it would fade. And when encountering discussions about the feasibility of communism, a common problem people see with it is that people will simply not do the things they do now as they don't have the motivation to. I've always countered that with "If the outcome of what they're doing isn't rewarding enough to do it, it shouldn't be something that's done at all as that task is clearly a cause of serious unhappiness etc for whoever does it." and/or "people will get it done anyways because they know it needs to be done"

But I'm suddenly not so sure of what's good. Breaking Bad, the retirement threads, and most poignantly, my own life has led me to question the value of what I had previously deemed as 'the best' for people. Is internal motivation and reward really all it's cracked up to be? Would you really be happiest doing what you want to do instead of what you have to do?