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puyple 's review for:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism
by Aaron Bastani
I am a fan of Bastani’s optimistic goal in the broader sense, but how he gets there is far from ideal.
I don’t typically quote other reviews, but this person said it better than I could have and echoes my feelings on the matter:
“While on the surface Bastani’s book reaches for a different horizon he clearly has no serious issue with capitalism and at no point takes issue with it as a mode of production; instead, he focuses more on the ‘challenges’ it has brought rather than seeing capitalism as the problem. Dedicating an entire chapter on the need to break with neoliberalism, he takes on social democratic solutions and negates any potentially revolutionary ones. The potential role of unions and politics outside of the electoral system in order to build the conditions in civil society for FALC is completely left out. Devoid of class struggle, Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism appears as misguided as Karl Kautsky’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat – as Lenin might have put it, Bastani has become ‘a mere sycophant of the bourgeoisie.’[6]” (Brant Roberts)
Basically, this book is not as revolutionary as it makes itself out to be. It is lacking in any kind of race or gender analysis to boot. Where is the acknowledgement that racism is coded into the technology that exists today? Where is the justice for those who would supposedly benefit from FALC the most? Not to mention that the practice of slavery is reduced to “an increase in economic productivity” on page 95. Yikes.
I also have an issue with his idealistic view on tech meat, which is not the answer to our consumption’s effect on climate. His example of “cellular agriculture” is Impossible Foods, which, as a booming, billion-dollar corporation is supposedly ideologically opposed to his project, but he does not frame it as such. Why not turn to locally-sourced food and more thoughtful consumption? It seems like Bastani took the easy way out with that particular chapter. (I recommend anything by Alicia Kennedy on this topic, particularly this article and her forthcoming book: https://inthesetimes.com/article/22309/corporate-fake-meat-wont-save-us-impossible-burger-beyond-meat-greenwashing)
I wanted to like this more than I actually did, but I couldn’t buy it the way it was delivered. Two stars for effort, I guess?
I don’t typically quote other reviews, but this person said it better than I could have and echoes my feelings on the matter:
“While on the surface Bastani’s book reaches for a different horizon he clearly has no serious issue with capitalism and at no point takes issue with it as a mode of production; instead, he focuses more on the ‘challenges’ it has brought rather than seeing capitalism as the problem. Dedicating an entire chapter on the need to break with neoliberalism, he takes on social democratic solutions and negates any potentially revolutionary ones. The potential role of unions and politics outside of the electoral system in order to build the conditions in civil society for FALC is completely left out. Devoid of class struggle, Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism appears as misguided as Karl Kautsky’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat – as Lenin might have put it, Bastani has become ‘a mere sycophant of the bourgeoisie.’[6]” (Brant Roberts)
Basically, this book is not as revolutionary as it makes itself out to be. It is lacking in any kind of race or gender analysis to boot. Where is the acknowledgement that racism is coded into the technology that exists today? Where is the justice for those who would supposedly benefit from FALC the most? Not to mention that the practice of slavery is reduced to “an increase in economic productivity” on page 95. Yikes.
I also have an issue with his idealistic view on tech meat, which is not the answer to our consumption’s effect on climate. His example of “cellular agriculture” is Impossible Foods, which, as a booming, billion-dollar corporation is supposedly ideologically opposed to his project, but he does not frame it as such. Why not turn to locally-sourced food and more thoughtful consumption? It seems like Bastani took the easy way out with that particular chapter. (I recommend anything by Alicia Kennedy on this topic, particularly this article and her forthcoming book: https://inthesetimes.com/article/22309/corporate-fake-meat-wont-save-us-impossible-burger-beyond-meat-greenwashing)
I wanted to like this more than I actually did, but I couldn’t buy it the way it was delivered. Two stars for effort, I guess?