Fully automated luxury communism A manifesto

Bastani (an independent scholar and political commentator) explores the dynamic interaction of broadly based, accelerating technological change, elite versus worker-oriented politics, and potentially catastrophic ecological transformation. He has both a pessimistic and an optimistic view. His pessimistic assessment of the future relates to employment and is based on a projected collapse in employment opportunities for those with relatively poor labor skills. Countering this pessimism is his title reference to a possible Utopian outcome of this transformative dynamic in the form of a "fully automated luxury communism." Bastani's vision entails a positive epochal evolution of human societies from those dominated by unequal wealth distribution to societies in which wealth distribution and access to advanced technologies, including health care, become the new normal. In a world in which the ecology is seriously challenged, in which technology is disrupting labor and other markets and threatening to displace millions of workers with fully automated production ("peak human"), Bastani projects an optimistic outcome. He views continued technological advance, particularly of artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and other life-altering technologies, as providing a basis for an ultimately wealthier, more egalitarian human society, a society in which humans will not only survive but thrive. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Satyananda J. Gabriel, Mount Holyoke College