Food for thought: Must we be paid to work?

A friend of mine made an interesting comment today:

"Ideally everyone would work to their capacity, and everyone would get appropriate/fair remuneration, but there’s really no point in championing one without the other."

This rather innocent statement hit me as an indication of how strongly capitalism has been drilled into our minds.

I'd like to ask: Is it truly necessary to be paid in order to do work? Is it not sufficient to work for the good of society?

I wonder if we had grown up in a different time, a different place, perhaps society would provide for everyone, and that in turn, everyone would work to provide the labour in order for society to function.