(2019-06-20) Give Us Fully Automated Luxury Communism

Give Us Fully Automated Luxury Communism. Imagine a life in which all your basic needs were met

Then, imagine a life in which virtually all of your needs were met. In this world, society would guarantee its members not just middle-income status, but the prospect of travel, the option of a fulfilling but nonremunerative career, time with family and friends, time spent with cats and gardens and on volunteering and road trips

If the former is the promise of today’s resurgent, left-tilting left, the latter is the promise of its revolutionary vanguard, its furthest flank. And it has a name, a great name: Fully Automated Luxury Communism, or FALC.

The most ardent advocate for FALC, Aaron Bastani, a London-based media executive and writer, has written a new book on the topic

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced computing might be about to eliminate the need for human labor in no small part, Bastani claims.

That could mean the continued ruination of the planet, as oligarchs throw thought conferences on yachts and the masses struggle to make rent. Or it could mean the healing of the planet and the thriving of all its inhabitants.

Bastani is certain about the viability of all of this, yet has a topsy-turvy understanding of recent history and the contemporary economy. He fails to give capitalism much credit for moving billions of lives out of poverty, for instance, and fails to recognize the preeminence of race and racism in explaining the success of President Donald Trump or Europe’s far right. He has a long argument with Francis Fukuyama, underpants-gnomes away the political difficulty of what he describes, and seems awfully sure about the potential of space mining. But the vision is compelling and the terminology is useful.

Shulamith Firestone wrote about “cybernetic communism.” Yet the most complete picture of FALC or FALGSC might come not from radical leftists or academic economists, but from Star Trek.

Maybe FALC is best understood not so much as a diagnosis of the present or a prediction of the future but as a kind of guide star. Many of the world’s richest countries already guarantee citizens their basic needs. Saving the planet by promoting a complete conversion to renewable fuels is possible and necessary.


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