Book SummaryFully Automated Luxury Communism, by Aaron Bastani

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Fully Automated Luxury Communism

Capitalism's Crises and the Need for a Different Framework

This first section examines the current crises that plague capitalism and the way “capitalist realism” prevents societies from imagining or pursuing political and economic alternatives. Bastani contends that these crises will ultimately overwhelm and ruin capitalism's capacity for self-reproduction. He argues that only by breaking free from the constraints of capitalist realism can we embrace the potential of emerging technologies to create a post-scarcity world.

Capitalism's Crisis

The author argues that the capitalist system is facing several major and interconnected crises that threaten its future viability. Taken together, these five crises are global warming, limited resources, societal aging, surplus populations, and the specter of technology-driven job loss.

Inequality, Climate Change, Resource Depletion, Tech Unemployment, and Demographic Shifts Challenge the System

The failure of established economic models, especially after the financial crash in 2008, has resulted in a global increase in poverty and inequality. The system of market capitalism has proven inadequate to meet its own demands of growth and prosperity for its citizens, resulting in increased support for both left- and rightist political alternatives. A key problem here is the assumption of continuous expansion in a material-limited world, with this impacting access to jobs, food, natural resources, and a planet whose climate systems aren't overheating so much as changing altogether.

Along with these trends, which Bastani sees as inherent to capitalism, are five civilizational-level emergencies. First is the climate crisis. The combustion of fossil fuels, required for industrial development under capitalism, has resulted in unprecedented levels of greenhouse gas emissions, in turn leading to the warmest decades in recorded history. While the long-term consequences of this are unclear, what is certain is that failing to rapidly switch the global economy from fossil fuels will have catastrophic consequences for the ability of our planet to sustain life, as well as the basis for our civilization. Second is resource scarcity, with the world running out not only of fossil fuels but also those minerals required for even the technologies central to any post-carbon economy—like the lithium and cobalt used to build solar panels and electric cars. Third is societal aging as lifespans extend in almost every country while birth rates decrease. This has strained systems of shared provision such as state pensions and socialized health and elder care, as there are simply fewer workers per elderly person than was presumed in its design.

Fourth is the rising number of excess people forming an increasingly large "unnecessariat." The movement of manufacturing to nations with cheaper labor has not only strained labor relations in those that previously led in this sector, but it has also made billions of people increasingly redundant to the needs of global capitalism. This means even people who acknowledge that automation will eliminate jobs in areas like transport and manufacturing—along with similar trends becoming apparent for sectors like law and healthcare—still overlook that spatial solutions will fail to rescue those whose skills become increasingly irrelevant to industries built around digital technology and knowledge work. Finally, the fifth crisis is technological unemployment, currently affecting sectors like retail and logistics. It will only intensify further as a result of what Bastani calls the "Third Disruption" - where machines become increasingly capable of performing physical and cognitive labor as a consequence of the plummeting price of information and digitized labor.

Practical Tips

• You can reduce your carbon footprint by adopting a 'one less' principle in your daily routine. Start by identifying one item you use daily that relies on fossil fuels, such as a plastic water bottle or driving your car for short trips. Replace it with a sustainable alternative, like a reusable water bottle or walking, biking, or using public transportation. This small change, when multiplied by the number of days in a year, can lead to a significant reduction in your personal greenhouse gas emissions.

Other Perspectives

• Some economists might argue that the financial crash of 2008 and subsequent increase in poverty and inequality were exacerbated by deviations from market principles, such as excessive risk-taking encouraged by implicit government bailouts, rather than inherent flaws in the system of market capitalism itself.
• The support for alternative political ideologies may not solely be due to the inadequacies of market capitalism but also due to other factors such as political polarization, misinformation, and the appeal of populist narratives.
• The impact of continuous expansion on jobs and resources can be managed through policy interventions, such as retraining programs, social safety nets, and sustainable resource management strategies.
• The concept of "running out" of resources does not account for the dynamic nature of markets and technology, where scarcity often drives innovation and the discovery of new reserves or the development of recycling technologies that can mitigate the scarcity.
• Changes in retirement age and pension policies could encourage older individuals to remain in the workforce longer, thus maintaining a larger base of contributors to pension and healthcare systems.
• The rise of social enterprises and cooperative business models suggests that there are alternative economic systems within capitalism that can address the needs of those who might otherwise be considered redundant.
• Some sectors, such as personal care, education, and other service industries, are less susceptible to automation due to the need for human interaction and empathy, indicating that not all areas will be equally...

Fully Automated Luxury Communism Summary Technological Revolutions: Historical Context and the Current Upheaval

This section lays out the author's understanding that history progresses via a series of "disruptions," with each ushering humanity into an entirely new paradigm. Bastani argues that we are currently undergoing a “Third Disruption,” driven by advancements in technology, automation, and artificial intelligence.

First Disruption: Agricultural Development Transformed Society

The author identifies the “First Disruption” as the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies towards settled agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals about twelve thousand years ago.

Plant and Animal Domestication Enabled Complex Civilizations and Social Stratification

The initial upheaval was fueled by the advent of agriculture. This shift, from foraging for food to cultivating it, brought a surplus of supplies never before encountered by humans. This both transformed how humans related to nature— we were now re-programming it via breeding selection—it also created new, complex institutions, specialization of labor, trade, types of ownership, and social hierarchy. Consequently, humanity became more numerous and dominant while also ushering in a qualitatively different...

Fully Automated Luxury Communism Summary A Vision for Fully Automated Communism of Luxury in a Scarcity-Free, Post-Capitalist Society

This section provides an outline of what a society beyond scarcity and capitalism might look like in light of the technologies emerging from the Third Disruption, arguing that FALC is not only possible but also politically viable if implemented as a project of “opulent populism.”

Automated Luxury Communism: Technologies Make Communism Practical

Bastani argues that Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC) presents a viable political and economic alternative to capitalism, and that it is only now becoming possible due to the advancements in technology driven by the "Third Disruption."

FALC Communism Focuses on Abundance, Not Scarcity

The author intentionally uses the term "communism" to describe a community where employment disappears, scarcity becomes plenty, and labor and free time combine. This view is informed by Marx's idea of the "realm of freedom," where the need to "struggle with the natural world to meet our needs, to sustain and create life," is replaced by a life of relative spontaneity, creativity and, above all, personal development.

Practical Tips

• You can shift your mindset by practicing gratitude for abundance in daily life. Start a gratitude...

Fully Automated Luxury Communism Summary Emerging Technologies for Abundance: Political Strategies for Fully Automated Luxury Communism

This final section examines the emerging technologies essential to achieving FALC, and how they can be harnessed to create a society that transcends work, scarcity, and capitalism. Bastani contends that these technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to liberate humanity from past constraints while also addressing present-day challenges.

The Law of Moore, Learning Curves, and Rapid Growth Make Information, Energy, and Resources Abundant and Affordable

The author examines several technologies, such as artificial intelligence and lab-grown meat, which illustrate how exponential growth and experience effects will create abundance across information, energy, healthcare, resources, and food. Just as agriculture meant a relatively sudden exit from the subsistence conditions of the Pleistocene, these changes are of a magnitude sufficient enough to reject settled, familiar assumptions about capitalism held for the past 200 years—particularly that scarcity would always exist.

Breakthroughs in Gene Editing, Synthetic Biology, and Off-World Mining Can Eliminate Shortages in Healthcare, Food, and Resources

Specifically, Bastani looks at how advancements in genetic...