
Fully Automated Luxury Communism - doener
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2757-fully-automated-luxury-communism
======
unicornporn
Here's a tiny bit of luxury communism. Full book:

[http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=74D760E6B634982B0C0E4DAD...](http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=74D760E6B634982B0C0E4DAD03278E51)

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piterdevries
lim bookPrice(x) -> 0\. Mind blown.

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sewercake
Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews:

[https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-
automat...](https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automated-
luxury-communism-a-manifesto-by-aaron-bastani-reviewed-by-bill-
jefferies/?fbclid=IwAR3TFtzhUOKH9UQk8ifOxOQLLfnLB4taAkrdtGU8unm2XBlp-
TX96Nv0iH0)

\- Bastani claims scarcity is the central question in economic thought. This
is a neo-classical formulation, and is not in line with the central questions
of political economy that Marx's writings (who Bastani obviously references
liberally) grapple with. This leads to some theoretical and historical errors

\- Bastani does not have a strong grasp on the labour theory of value, or at
least doesn't subscribe to it in Marx's formulation. Bastani believes you can
have profit without human labour input, where, under the labour theory of
value, the exchange of labour is _the_ source of all profit.

\- treats the move from late-capitalism to communist utopia as inevitable, and
doesn't really grapple with strategic concerns, building class-consciousness,
etcetera

[https://theecologist.org/2019/may/29/climate-communism-
and-a...](https://theecologist.org/2019/may/29/climate-communism-and-age-
affluence)

\- The project is part of a long line of Marxist 'technologically
deterministic' theories and proposals. Basically that capitalism will lead to
its own demise through the internal contradictions that define it.

\- the reviewer is skeptical of technological solutions to climate change, and
Bastani's work relies on this heavily

I like the line at the bottom of the second review that describes this book as
'soft science fiction'. Something to shift the Overton window, but not
something that provides much actionable insight.

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crdoconnor
>Bastani believes you can have profit without human labour input

e.g. by selling mineral rights or valuable beachfront land.

~~~
Svip
But where does the money for whom that is purchasing those things come from?
Eventually, all profit can be traced to human labour input.

~~~
trevyn
I’ve been enjoying Karl Widerquist’s “Independence, Propertylessness, and
Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No”, which notes that
access to natural resources is an important input as well. That is, one form
of freedom is a freedom to use a proportion of Earth’s natural resources to
meet one’s own needs. While many may contract into a system to provide e.g.
defense or luxuries, the lack of choice in the “social contract” as regards
property rights can nonetheless be interpreted as a regrettable loss of a form
of freedom.

In other words, while labor is required to sustain human life, different forms
of labor should not be considered fungible — I am happy to labor to _directly_
feed and shelter myself, but may be less accommodating to serving others in
exchange for a form of these benefits.

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matthewmacleod
It’s a reasonably interesting topic and an important one to discuss - but I’d
caution that Aaron Bastani is generally a bit of a controversial left- wing
provocateur figure with a knack for mis-predicting events, and his book mostly
has middling reviews.

None of that is to say you shouldn’t read it and consider it in the context of
the future of automation, but expect a somewhat over-earnest political
manifesto rather than a critical analysis.

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kebman
He who controls the robots controls the world.

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theguppydream
Unherd's review was a good read, the reviewer talking about how the book was
wrong in an interesting way. [https://unherd.com/2019/06/are-you-ready-for-
fully-automated...](https://unherd.com/2019/06/are-you-ready-for-fully-
automated-luxury-communism/?=sideshare)

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throwaway77384
this is just an ad?

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vortico
>feed a world of 9 billion

How does the book suggest to maintain this population in a way that isn't
immoral? Does this book's plan work with 90 billion people?

~~~
simongray
If current population growth estimates are to be believed, the world
population is projected to peak at around 12 billion people. The fertility
rates in large parts of the world (North America, Europe, East Asia) are
already below replacement level and others around the world are falling.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth)

~~~
vortico
Yes, that is because the growth estimates assume that we live in a world where
scarcity problems are not solved.

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llamataboot
I believe we call it "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism", comrade.

[https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/fully-
automat...](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/fully-automated-
luxury-gay-space-communism-univers.html)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
Well, Iain M. Banks' SF - the 'Culture' with orbitals and AIs as adult
supervision, sort of - had at least three of the adjectives checked, and
seemed past concern about the fourth ...

