Who's Afraid of Fully Automated Luxury Communism?

Why Anarcho-Primitivists and Techno-Utopians don't like the idea

The Dream (1910), Henri Rousseau

The previous essay in this series is here. The next one is here.

In the last installment of this thought stream, I looked at proposals from a number of Radical Leftists who wish to emancipate humanity via a truly rational application of technology. This means reducing working hours to a minimum (or zero) and liberating people’s time to enjoy their lives as they choose. One way to describe this ideal condition is Aaron Bastani’s phrase: “Fully Automated Luxury Communism.” Now I want to consider some objections to this idea, as well as other perspectives.

We now realize — the long pandemic lockdown drove this point home — that most of the work people are forced to do in this society to survive has no real value for humanity or the planet. In fact, much of it simply adds to the Earth’s ecological burden. In what was previously defined as normal, masses of people drove to offices in their gas-guzzling cars, consumed coffee and take-out lunches from Styrofoam, used paper, plastic, and toner cartridges, to market, advertise, and sell disposable consumer goods. The pandemic seems to have eliminated a lot of this senseless activity. That can only be a good thing.

It does seem that much of what we currently call “work” can be performed by machines, now or in the near future. Self-driving vehicles, for example, would make truckers and cab drivers obsolete. For many people, particularly working class people, this is not something to celebrate, but a horrifying prospect. The tone-deaf way that the Neoliberal “technorati” elites promoted self-driving vehicles and other forms of automation (like automated checkouts at Supermarkets) was, I suspect, one reason that Trump won the election in 2016.

There are more than 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, making it one of the country’s largest forms of employment. Driving a truck remains one of the only decently paid, steady jobs you can get without a degree. For people who drive trucks or taxis, or work as cashiers and clerks at malls and Supermarkets, advanced automation isn’t a promise. It is an existential threat.

This provides another example of our society’s upside down logic. in an ideal world, workers would welcome automation that relieves them of the need to perform repetitive, boring tasks for many hours a day, receiving a small amount of money in return. But they are trapped in post-industrial society’s hamster wheel. It seems cruel to take away what they have, until there is something better to offer them. But capitalism tends to be ruthless in this regard.

I consider it good news that Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reaching the stage where it will make many more intellectual forms of labor as obsolete as truck driving or checking out groceries. This includes many forms of legal work, accounting work, and even certain kinds of journalism. Not only the working class, but many among the middle class are on the verge of becoming dispossessed. This means that a wide range of people, from different backgrounds, will be facing an existential threat and therefore open to new ideas and initiatives to transform society, if it is possible to break the trance-indoctrination of mass media and reach them in their essence.

Anarcho-Primitivism, Techno-Capitalist Utopianism, and “You Create Your Own Reality” New Age Idealism

Objections to a post-work, fully automated future come from opposite ends of the social/political spectrum. On the one hand, there are anarcho-primitivists who believe humanity should return to living in something like small-scale indigenous communities, with minimal technology. On the other, there are those who still believe that Capitalism is a liberating force, that we are still experiencing amazing leaps of progress (such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies), and that technology will continue to evolve rapidly, inevitably leading to a futuristic utopia. Because technological salvation is coming soon, we all need to keep working like dogs as we wait for the Singularity to liberate us.

I also want to consider the largely de-politicized contemporary “consciousness” movement, represented by people like Joe DiSpenza and his followers, much of the yoga world, and the plethora of enthusiastic “life coaches” and lifestyle gurus (Tony Robbins, etc) who relentlessly insist that you “create your own reality.” Often this means repressing negative thoughts and emotions (for instance, rage about social injustice and horror at the ongoing planetary eco-cide) so you don’t create negative outcomes for yourself. Unfortunately, confronting such “inconvenient truths” has a negative impact on sales, which goes against the conscripted Capitalist religion of New Age-ism.

We will look at each of these perspectives in turn.

Anarcho-Primitivism

I identify as an anarchist, ultimately. I believe, in other words, that the ideal form of social organization would be decentralized and peer-to-peer, without borders, states, privileged versus underprivileged classes, irrational hierarchies, and private property. Instead of permanent institutions, we would have voluntary and mutable social orchestrations that change continuously, according to human needs and desires. When I read anarchist texts like Pyotr Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid, Ivan Ilich’s Deschooling Society, or Paul Cudenec’s The Anarchist Revelation, I feel resonance; it is a relief to find these ideas and sentiments expressed so lucidly.

Kropotkin (1842—1921) defined anarchism as “the most complete development of individuality combined with the highest development of voluntary association in all its aspects, in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever-changing, ever-modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constantly assume new forms which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all.” An anarchist society would be one “to which pre-established forms, crystallized by law, are repugnant; which looks for harmony in an ever-changing and fugitive equilibrium between a multitude of varied forces and influences of every kind, following their own course.”

Anarchism sees governments and states as instruments of domination and control. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809—1865) wrote the following in his 1851 book, The General Idea of Revolution in the 19th Century—obviously it is far more true today:

To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue …To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

While I agree with Proudhon and Kropotkin, I don’t believe that humanity, in general, is ready to make the leap to this ideal of voluntary social organization — even if it were possible — right now. Sadly, the vast majority of people have been indoctrinated by mass and social media. As “pre-conditioned receptacles of long-standing,” in Herbert Marcuse’s term, they have internalized the current exploitative, patriarchal system. This causes epidemics of psychological complexes such as neuroses, ADHD, anxiety, and depression, as well as delusional beliefs (such as the delusion that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet, or that technological progress is, somehow, inherently beneficial). People haven’t been taught how to think clearly or how to work harmoniously in cooperatives and communities. This requires a level of self-inquiry, the ongoing willingness to be wrong, along with detachment and surrender of the ego-ic desire to compete and control.

I don’t think it is possible to jump from a system based on domination and control to a liberated society without intermediate steps.

What I do believe we can do is identify and define the ideal social conditions we agree would be preferable, develop a strategic action plan to move civilization in that direction, and then execute on that plan, while staying flexible and responsive to changing conditions. By “we,” I mean a coalition based on shared agreement, consensus, about what can be done, and how to accomplish it. I will delve into this later, in depth, when I consider how to pursue pragmatically what Nick Srnicek, in Inventing the Future, calls a “counter-hegemonic” project.