Fully Automated Luxury Communism

Brainster

Penultimate Amazing
Brainster
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Now that new, improved Socialism 2.0 is here thanks to Bernie Sanders and AOC, can the updated communism be far behind? No, thanks to the New York Times' opinion page.

In a way, it seems a throwback to only 2-3 years ago. Remember when everybody's job was going to be lost due to automation?

Automation, robotics and machine learning will, as many august bodies, from the Bank of England to the White House, have predicted, substantially shrink the work force, creating widespread technological unemployment. But that’s only a problem if you think work — as a cashier, driver or construction worker — is something to be cherished. For many, work is drudgery. And automation could set us free from it.
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Meanwhile, in the real world the machines have so far failed in their ruthless quest to eliminate jobs. The US unemployment rate is 3.6%, the lowest it has been in almost 50 years. But to a communist, that sounds horrific:

To say the present era is one of crisis borders on cliché. It differs from the dystopias of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley, or hell in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. It is unlike Europe during the Black Death or Central Asia as it faced the galloping Golden Horde. And yet it is true: Ours is an age of crisis. We inhabit a world of low growth, low productivity and low wages, of climate breakdown and the collapse of democratic politics. A world where billions, mostly in the global south, live in poverty. A world defined by inequality.
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He notes some interesting new technologies, like lab-grown beef, and the potential for asteroid mining. The problem? No surprise here:

But there’s a catch. It’s called capitalism. It has created the newly emerging abundance, but it is unable to share round the fruits of technological development.
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Let's remember that the last time communism was tried on a vast scale, it couldn't even provide fruit, let alone the fruits of technology.
 
Brainster said:
Let's remember that the last time communism was tried on a vast scale, it couldn't even provide fruit, let alone the fruits of technology.
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Yeah, I suppose there's no choice except for an increasingly tiny fraction of the very rich continuing to get richer, and everyone else getting poorer, indefinitely. Nothing could to go wrong with that plan.
 
Myriad said:
Yeah, I suppose there's no choice except for an increasingly tiny fraction of the very rich continuing to get richer, and everyone else getting poorer, indefinitely. Nothing could to go wrong with that plan.
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I understand rewarding an insightful inventor with tons of money for some world-changing technology. I don't understand very well why his great-great-grandchildren need to be rewarded at the same level.
 
Loss Leader said:
I understand rewarding an insightful inventor with tons of money for some world-changing technology. I don't understand very well why his great-great-grandchildren need to be rewarded at the same level.
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Because private property is a thing. And most people through most of history have considered providing for their descendants after their death to be one of the most meaningful dispositions of their private property.

Not understanding this is, I think, an anti social trait.

And also a communist trait. But I repeat myself.

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I think a lot of the anti inheritance attitude is rooted in a belief that individual wealth belongs to the state, and that the individual is merely borrowing it. They're supposed to return it to its rightful owner, not pass it on to their family and friends.
 
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Myriad said:
Yeah, I suppose there's no choice except for an increasingly tiny fraction of the very rich continuing to get richer, and everyone else getting poorer, indefinitely. Nothing could to go wrong with that plan.
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Income inequality is increasing dramatically but that doesn't translate into everybody else getting poorer. The poor are getting richer too, just at dramatically lower rate. Poverty measured globally and poverty in the US are on the decline. Inequality has its own issues for sure.
 
theprestige said:
Because private property is a thing. And most people through most of history have considered providing for their descendants after their death to be one of the most meaningful dispositions of their private property.

Not understanding this is, I think, an anti social trait.

And also a communist trait. But I repeat myself.

---

I think a lot of the anti inheritance attitude is rooted in a belief that individual wealth belongs to the state, and that the individual is merely borrowing it. They're supposed to return it to its rightful owner, not pass it on to their family and friends.
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It's about meritocracy.
 
portlandatheist said:
Income inequality is increasing dramatically but that doesn't translate into everybody else getting poorer. The poor are getting richer too, just at dramatically lower rate. Poverty measured globally and poverty in the US are on the decline. Inequality has its own issues for sure.
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I don't think it's a good metric to merely consider the two extremes (rich vs poverty); after all, isn't the American middle class shrinking? And doesn't that support Myriad's point?
 
Brainster said:
Now that new, improved Socialism 2.0 is here thanks to Bernie Sanders and AOC, can the updated communism be far behind? No, thanks to the New York Times' opinion page.
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He calls it "Fully Automated Luxury Communism".

I call it Techno-Utopianism.

The main problem as I see it with Techno-Utopianism (like what the author describes) is that it makes a lot of assumptions about the future which may or may not come to pass. Another problem is a naive view of human nature. Even if we had all the technologies necessary for a Techno-Utopia, I worry that people would still mess it up anyway because there are too many idiots and megalomaniacs and anti-social types and so on.

Still, I do hope that it comes to pass some day, and not some kind of Techno-Dystopia like in every episode of Black Mirror. If the Chinese rule the world in the future, just imagine that kind of surveillance state.

Rather than abolishing Capitalism, make Capitalism obsolete, I say. Make it so that everyone has their basic needs met, and let Capitalism take care of things that aren't basic needs: art, entertainment, luxury goods, etc. Capitalism needs consumers, and consumers need money.
 
portlandatheist said:
Income inequality is increasing dramatically but that doesn't translate into everybody else getting poorer. The poor are getting richer too, just at dramatically lower rate. Poverty measured globally and poverty in the US are on the decline. Inequality has its own issues for sure.
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Except of course they are, because wages are stagnant adjusted for inflation and things like housing, medical care and education are inflating far faster than inflation. But never let facts get in the way of ideology.
 
Loss Leader said:
I understand rewarding an insightful inventor with tons of money for some world-changing technology. I don't understand very well why his great-great-grandchildren need to be rewarded at the same level.
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I lived my first 31 years in a socialist regime. One of joke that was going around (and for which you could go to jail) was:

"Do you know why we are building Communism for our kids?"
"Because the brats don't deserve anything better!"
 
Roboramma said:
Meritocracy doesn't allow for the giving of gifts?
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Meritocracy allocates wealth and power according to ability. Inhereted wealth (which means inhereted power) skews that.
 
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