Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fully Automated Luxury Communism

versobooks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 28 posts

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#11

Post by vortico »

simongray wrote: post #10
vortico wrote: post #9

>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?

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...

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

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#12

Post by stdbrouw »

sewercake wrote: post #4

Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automat... - 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 h…

These seem like rather insular concerns. "He takes some stuff from Marx but he's not quite Marxist enough, ergo he's wrong."

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#13

Post by Applejinx »

sewercake wrote: post #4

Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automat... - 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 h…

But the exchange of labor has nothing to do with profit, since financialization. There have been many smart people for decades now, making this be so. It's very important today to come up with profit scenarios that don't depend on labor in any way.

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#14

Post by 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.

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#15

Post by sewercake »

stdbrouw wrote: post #12
sewercake wrote: post #4

Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automat... - 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 h…

These seem like rather insular concerns. "He takes some stuff from Marx but he's not quite Marxist enough, ergo he's wrong."

While there might be some puritanism in there, I think the implication is these theoretical errors lead to erroneous conclusions. I.e: Bastani is using certain conclusions from Marx, while changing certain premises, and not doing the work to then argue the conclusions still hold. I didn't read the piece closey enough (and my Marx isn't strong enough) to really go in-depth there though.

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#17

Post by Svip »

crdoconnor wrote: post #6
sewercake wrote: post #4

Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automat... - 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 h…

>Bastani believes you can have profit without human labour input e.g. by selling mineral rights or valuable beachfront land.

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

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#18

Post by sewercake »

Applejinx wrote: post #13
sewercake wrote: post #4

Haven't read the book, but here are two (notably harsh) reviews: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17006_fully-automat... - 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 h…

But the exchange of labor has nothing to do with profit, since financialization. There have been many smart people for decades now, making this be so. It's very important today to come up with profit scenarios that don't depend on labor in any way.

'nothing to do with profit' is a pretty strong claim. I think Marxists (and others) would argue that the two are stochastically linked. Decreases in the value of a good (the amount of labour-time used to generate it) roughly tracks with a decrease in the price (and thus amount of profit that the producer gets for each item) over longer time frames. I think that's what the author was implicitly referring to but I may be wrong!

As for financialization and profit: I think contemporary labour-value theorists, and even Marx, talk about fincancialization as 'fictitious capital'. The 'value' of financial instruments comes from the claim on future labour-time, and is thus generally parasitic for a well-functioning economy. Cedric Durad is a recent example of this. I'm stepping into territory I know very little about though, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt / generously.

Re: Fully Automated Luxury Communism

#19

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

llamataboot wrote: post #2

I believe we call it "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism", comrade. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/fully-automat...

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 ...
Post reply on HN