--- schema_version: "library-reader-v1" source_type: "original_book" title: "Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto" author: null edition: null publisher: null year: null isbn: "9781786632623" library_document_id: "6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea" source_sha256: "1abf214ba80dbc1c2c27dfbaa4c324d483354085cfb676f2df827d68fa33ed6f" pdf_physical_page_count: 288 pdf_physical_page_index_base: 0 range_start: 60 range_count: 10 html_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea?start=60&limit=10" markdown_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea.md?start=60&limit=10" previous_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea.md?start=50&limit=10" next_url: "https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea.md?start=70&limit=10" --- # Fully Automated Luxury Communism A Manifesto > 页码规则：PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX 是从 0 开始的权威文件物理页索引；PRINTED_PAGE 是页面中识别出的印刷页码，可能为空，二者不得混用。 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=60 | PRINTED_PAGE=51 the possibilities arising from the Third Disruption, with the emergence of extreme supply in information, labour, energy and resources, it should be viewed not only as an idea adequate to our time but impossible before now. FALC does not underpin the trends of the Third Disruption – it is their conclusion. If we want it. Future Shock 1858 However people respond to the word ‘communism’, the word is associated with one person in particular – Karl Marx. It was he who claimed to see the contours of a new world at the precise moment industrial capitalism burned at its brightest. That is not to say Marx was unique in thinking capitalism would end, nor that it would transition to something else. Indeed in this respect he was joined by, among others, two thinkers of the twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes and Peter Drucker, who despite being critics of his held similar views on how capitalism might lead to a system beyond it. By placing Marx alongside both thinkers, examining how each viewed the relationship of scarcity to capitalism and utopia, we can begin to create a clearer picture of what he meant by communism. An aspect of Marx’s thinking which remains underemphasised is how he recognised capitalism’s tendency to progressively replace labour – animal and human, physical and cognitive – with machines. In a system replete with contradictions, it was this one in particular which rendered it a force of potential liberation. This is most clearly laid out in the ‘Fragment on Machines’, a short but important excerpt within the much larger Grundrisse. The reason you’ve likely never heard of either before, unlike the better-known Communist Manifesto or Capital, is that the Grundrisse was unpublished in German until 1939. Worse still, the text wasn’t translated into English until 1973. As a result, its prescient observations exerted little influence over communist projects in the twentieth century. What Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism? 51 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=61 | PRINTED_PAGE=52 That was a tragedy, because within the Grundrisse we not only encounter the first analysis of technological evolution under capitalism, but also the opportunities that creates. As Marx so memorably put it in the ‘Fragment’, Capital employs machinery, rather, only to the extent that it enables the worker to work a larger part of his time for capital, to relate to a larger part of his time as time which does not belong to him, to work longer for another. Through this process, the amount of labour necessary for the production of a given object is indeed reduced to a minimum, but only in order to realise a maximum of labour in the maximum number of such objects. The first aspect is important, because capital here – quite unintentionally – reduces human labour … to a minimum. This will redound to the benefit of emancipated labour, and is the condition of its emancipation. Marx could not have been any clearer: competition compels capitalists to innovate in production. This leads to permanent experimentation with workflows and technologies, all in the pursuit of ever-greater eficiency. The logic of market demand means capitalists must produce goods and services as cheaply as they can, forcing them to constantly reduce overheads, in turn creating a never-ending cycle of automation, encompassing tasks and even whole jobs – substituting workers with machines. While generating huge amounts of sufering and exploitation under capitalism, under another system this represented a momentous opportunity. 52 chaos under heaven ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=62 | PRINTED_PAGE=53 In 1987 the US National Academy of Sciences published a report titled Technology and Unemployment. In it, restated almost word for word, is Marx’s criticism of technological change under capitalism, the key diference being the report’s authors consider such change to be wholly positive: Historically and, we believe, for the foreseeable future, reductions in labour requirements per unit of output resulting from new process technologies have been and will be outweighed by the beneficial employment efects of the expansion in total output that generally occurs. So while production becomes ever more eficient, and leisure is valued as a social good, increased productivity doesn’t lead to more free time but simply the production of more goods and services. In fairness to those defending it, such a view was not only founded on economic orthodoxy but also two centuries of observable change under capitalism. The diference with Marx in the Grundrisse is he thought there was an alternative, and that only in pursuing it could humans achieve freedom. Communism: A World beyond Scarcity While the average political commentator likes to cast Marx as an idealistic dreamer, the man himself repeatedly stated his distaste for describing what communism might actually look like – what he termed writing ‘recipes for the cook-shops of the future ’. While admirable in its humility, that is also irritating because one of the greatest minds to describe the shortcomings of the emerging system was well placed to at least suggest what might replace it. Marx’s view, however, was that workers in struggle were uniquely positioned to arrive at concrete solutions. What Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism? 53 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=63 | PRINTED_PAGE=54 He was certain about some features of the new society, however. One was that the arrival of communism would herald the end of any distinction between labour and leisure. More fundamentally, it would signal humanity’s exit from what he called the ‘realm of necessity’ and entrance into the ‘realm of freedom’. But what did that mean? For Marx the realm of necessity was where we ‘wrestle with nature to satisfy our wants and to maintain and reproduce life ’ – in other words it was a world defined by scarcity, something which had confronted us since the time of our hominid ancestors. In Marx’s day it formed the central question of classical political economy: how do you eficiently and equitably allocate resources in a world where they are limited? For Marx the realm of necessity was so far-reaching that it even included socialism. That was because, like capitalism, it had features such as work and scarcity – although as a system subject to democratic control these were rationalised and more socially just. While certainly preferable to capitalism, and something to be actively struggled for, socialism for Marx was a stepping stone to something else: communism and the realm of freedom. This, by contrast, was marked not only by an absence of economic conflict and work but by a spontaneous abundance similar to the Golden Age of Hesiod or Telecleides, or the biblical Eden. Unlike in classical Greek poetry or religious scripture, however, for Marx this was a project to be aimed at rather than a legendary past to be revered. A realm of plenty beyond imagination wasn’t something to recall or enjoy in the afterlife – it was a political project to aim for in the here and now. It was communism. 54 chaos under heaven ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=64 | PRINTED_PAGE=55 Despite the claim that Marx favoured violent revolution, the truth is he never believed the transition beyond capitalism would be an exclusively political process – something so simple to achieve as to merely require replacing one group of rulers with another. It certainly entailed class struggle and the working class gaining political power, but it also needed new ideas, technologies and social relations. Marx considered the working class to be the key to a future society, but only because its revolution was uniquely able to eliminate work and thereby end all class distinctions. Thus despite repeated calls for the working class to liberate itself, Marx did not believe that work makes us free – nor that the society of work expands the scope of human possibility. To the contrary, his view was that communism was only possible when our labour – how we mix our cognitive and physical eforts with the world – becomes a route to self-development rather than a means of survival. Marx viewed this as contingent on technological change: the more developed the forces of production, the greater their capacity to ofer a new kind of society where labour and leisure would blend into one: In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life ’s prime want … and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! With the arrival of communism any distinction between mental and physical labour would vanish, with work becoming more akin to play. This also meant a society with greater collective wealth, where all essential wants as well as creative desires are satisfied. Which is where luxury comes in. The concept, under conditions of scarcity, expresses that which is beyond utility, its essence an excess beyond the necessary. So as information, labour, energy and resources become permanently cheaper – and work and the limits of the old world are left behind – it turns out we don’t just satisfy all of our needs, but dissolve any boundary between the useful and the beautiful. Communism is luxurious – or it isn’t communism. What Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism? 55 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=65 | PRINTED_PAGE=56 Post-Capitalism without Communism: J. M. Keynes Marx was far from alone in claiming that capitalism creates the conditions for a society beyond it. Indeed, he was joined by the most influential economist of the twentieth century: John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was by no means a radical, let alone a revolutionary. And yet in 1930, in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash and the start of what would become the Great Depression, he penned the most optimistic tract of his age, Letter on the Economic Possibilities of Our Grandchildren. In this short, self-assured essay Keynes outlined a new society which he viewed as not only desirable, but inevitable. Like Marx in the Grundrisse he believed such a shift would prefigure a world unrecognisable from his own, yet also express its fullest development: I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not – if we look into the future – the permanent problem of the human race … thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well. 56 chaos under heaven ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=66 | PRINTED_PAGE=57 Keynes was an open critic of Marx despite also claiming to have never read him. And yet here one sees remarkable parallels between the two. For Marx, communism was a condition of abundance, a society where labour and leisure dissolved into each other, and where our natures were developed in a manner consistent with play. This was a world where scarcity – or as Keynes refers to it, ‘the economic problem’ – would finally be vanquished. In 1930 Keynes speculated about something remarkably similar and, amazingly, even had the confidence to put a date on it – foreseeing the arrival of postscarcity as soon as 2030. Other than Keynes’s stated disdain for Marx’s class-based politics in ‘preferring the mud to the fish’, what was it precisely that separated the two? The answer is the relationship between progress and politics. Unlike Marx, Keynes viewed capitalism as inevitably shifting to greater abundance, this resulting from its ability to become ever more productive over time while reducing the demand for labour. In Economic Possibilities his claim was that this would translate to a shorter working week, with improvements in productivity as technology progressed benefitting workers. In other words, leisure time was destined to increase while the need to work would slowly fade from view. Marx, who likewise insisted on capitalism’s ability to improve productivity, did not believe this benefitted anyone but the wealthy under the status quo, despite the possibility to do so. While Marx observed the same tendency to potential abundance, he viewed this as politically contested – with the spoils only going to the majority of society if they successfully fought for them in the struggle between classes. What Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism? 57 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=67 | PRINTED_PAGE=58 The history of the twentieth century appeared to confirm that Keynes was right. In the five decades following 1927, despite the Great Depression, the real wages of unskilled workers in US manufacturing increased by 350 per cent, while pay for skilled labour increased by a factor of four. This, as we now know, was the golden age of capitalism, with productivity gains and high growth leading to rising wages and shorter working hours. Whether you were an employee or an industrialist, it was in your rational interest to protect the system. This ended abruptly in the early 1970s, when wages decoupled from improvements to productivity – which now only fed the incomes of the very highest earners. This phenomenon extended beyond just the US. A 2014 report showed how real wage growth in Britain has been on a downward trend for forty years, with wages increasing an annual 2.9 per cent in the 1970s and 80s, 1.5 per cent in the 1990s, and 1.2 per cent in the 2000s. Since the 2008 crisis that incremental decline has gone into free-fall, with real household wages in Britain falling 10.4 per cent between 2007 and 2015, something entirely without precedent. That already dire situation is only set to further deteriorate. After the release of the 2017 Autumn Budget, the Resolution Foundation, a London-based think tank, predicted that the 2010s would be the worst decade for UK wage growth since the late eighteenth century. In other words, Britain now faced a stagnation in living standards unseen since the rise of the Second Disruption. While Keynes was right to note the possibility of capitalism creating such abundance as to potentially nurture a system beyond it, he predicted none of this. 58 chaos under heaven ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=68 | PRINTED_PAGE=59 That is because he did not think his vision of a society beyond capitalism – of high productivity, automation and leisure – was internally contradictory. So where Marx saw an intractable problem, between a system based on work and market rationing on one side and abundance on the other, Keynes saw an easy procession from one world to the next. With each passing day, particularly since the 2008 crisis, it seems ever more obvious that Marx was right. The five crises of this century are either an existential threat to humanity, or the birth pangs of something better. Despite what Keynes predicted, neither is inevitable. Post-Capitalism and Information: Peter Drucker Unlike Marx and Keynes, Peter Drucker was not a political economist but a theorist of management. Like them, however, he believed that capitalism was a contingent, finite system with a distinct endpoint. He called that endpoint ‘post-capitalism’ and, as in the thinking of Marx and Keynes, it represented the full development of modernity. At virtually the same time that HTML was publicly released, Drucker identified how information had become the primary factor of production – more so than the historic trio of labour, land and capital. As he wrote in 1993, ‘that knowledge has become the resource rather than a resource, is what makes our society post-capitalist … it creates new social dynamics. It creates new economic dynamics. It creates new politics.’ Drucker believed that society went through such rearrangements regularly, with Western history showing a ‘sharp transformation’ every several hundred years. All of which meant that within a few short decades, ‘society re-arranges itself – its world view; its basic values; its social and political infrastructure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world’. Drucker believed the shift to post-capitalism to be one such transformation. What Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism? 59 ## PDF_PHYSICAL_PAGE_INDEX=69 | PRINTED_PAGE=60 In Drucker’s periodisation of history, disruptions are viewed as happening more regularly than understood here, with the implications of each being less far-reaching. Nevertheless, his view of historic change, where the material relations of society inflect ideas and social reality, undeniably resembles that of Marx. Below are Marx’s words, written in the mid-nineteenth century. They could just as easily have been uttered by Drucker in the early 1990s. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production … then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. Taylorism and the Productivity Revolution For Drucker, knowledge and its application changed significantly with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, after which it went from being a private good to a public one, something applied to doing rather than being. With Watt’s steam engine and the new society it fostered, the meaning and the purpose of knowledge fundamentally changed. As it was applied to tools, processes and products, the notion of technology as a distinct field began to emerge. By the 1870s it was this relationship between knowledge and technology which drove what Drucker labelled the ‘Productivity Revolution’. The father of this revolution was Frederick Taylor, an American mechanical engineer and pioneer in scientific management. Until Taylor, whose professional life took of in the 1880s, the scientific method had never been applied to the study of work in order to maximise output. Yet within a few short decades this became a dogma – massively expanding productivity and improving the standard of living for the average worker. After the rise of ‘Taylorism’, at least according to Drucker, value became more about the continued refinement and application of information than about labour, land or capital. 60 chaos under heaven 下一段：[继续读取](https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/6dfd053e-a721-41da-a147-63bee43ea5ea.md?start=70&limit=10)