3 August 2019 | New Scientist | 31Joanna Kavenna's new novel Zed is
published by Faber & FaberDon’t miss
Listen
Chris Stringer’s research
is one big reason why we
think humans originated
in Africa. Hear him in
conversation with the
Financial Times’s science
editor Clive Cookson at
The Royal Institution in
London on 5 August
at 7 pm BST.Read
The Mosquito:
A human history
of our deadliest
predator by Timothy C.
Winegard (Dutton)
reveals how a small
and insubstantial insect
triggered the rise and fall
of empires, and killed
nearly half of humanity
in the process.Last chance
Entangled Realities at
the House of Electronic
Arts Basel, Switzerland,
is a group exhibition
exploring the social and
personal challenges of
artificial intelligence. Can
human and robot minds
coexist? If so, at what
cost? Ends 11 August.
TOP: GERBIL; BOTTOM: ANNA RIDLER, DETAIL OF BLOEMENVEILING AUCTION,201Can we trust autonomous robots?
Find out from roboticist Subramanian Ramamoorthy
For more details newscientistlive.com/trust-robotschange, with whose consequences
poverty is intimately connected”.
Atkinson considers various
definitions of poverty, but his
fundamental argument is that
the free movement of capital,
combined with governments’
failure to regulate and tax
multinationals, has led to the
loss of employment and to
insecurity among workers and
their families in many countries.
He agrees with Blanchflower
and Bastani that this is a failure of
the learneds: “Our governments
have lost sight of their obligation
to act on behalf of all their citizens;
they have allowed them to become
subservient to economic forces.”
And he argues that “we need to
return to a situation where ‘the
economy’ is a means of fulfilling
the life hopes and ambitions of
people, not vice versa”. Wise
words, but is anyone able to listen?
Atkinson and Blanchflower find
that people want to work to earn
money, and that having decent,
fulfilling jobs makes people
happier. Bastani argues that people
would be even happier if they
didn’t work at all. He proposes
that we need to move from crisis
to utopia – to “a world beyond
jobs, profit and even scarcity”.
This is the “fully automated
luxury communism” of his title.Bastani evokes Karl Marx’s
idea that automation will create
“a society in which work is
eliminated, scarcity replaced by
abundance and where labour and
leisure blend into one another”.
Robots will do physical tasks such
as driving and delivering things.
We will “mine the sky” thanks to
Elon Musk’s innovations in
conquering the final frontier. Life
expectancy will be enhanced by
gene therapies. Our expanding
population will be fed by cultured
meat. The new populism will be
“luxury populism”: socialist and
environmentally aware.
In Bastani’s view, Marx was
let down by the technological
insufficiencies of every era prior
to ours; this is the first time our
technology has been sufficient
to give rise to a post-scarcity
economy, if we want it, and a realm
of plenty “beyond imagination”.
What Bastani doesn’t quite
imagine, however, is a world in
which people might actually enjoy
their work. Where in Bastani’s
utopia is the place for someone
whose version of socialismis more William Morris than
Karl Marx, someone who values
work as an end in itself?
Like Blanchflower and Atkinson,
Bastani identifies elite learneds as
the source of our ills. And for his
luxury communism to work, these
elites have to agree not to pocket
the trillions they stand to make
but, instead, to share the profits.
What happens if Musk doesn’t
“want it”? Maybe he is happy with
the way things are. Regardless,
there will be no storming of the
Winter Palace in Bastani’s utopia,
because, he writes, his politics
“recognises the centrality of
human rights, most importantly
the right of personal happiness”.
Bastani’s future is interesting:
“a figurehead of possibility forged
for a world changing so rapidly
that new utopias are needed –
because the old ones no longer
make sense”. It is a dream to
replace the bankrupt capitalist
dream, and to counter the dark
fantasies of non-luxury populists.
These authors understand that
there has been a lot of talk already.
They believe we need better talk.
They are all highly intelligent
people who are trying to
understand why the situation
in which we find ourselves is
so stupid. Their books all have
virtues, but if you can only face
one, then, for mea culpas and an
honest if demoralising insider
view, read Blanchflower. For
devastating statistical analysis,
read Atkinson. For riotous
techno-optimism, read Bastani.
It is a wonder Bastani missed
the opportunity to call his theory
Totally Automated Luxury
Communism, or TALC. TALC,
which we could liberally sprinkle
across our broken world. TALC to
mitigate all the TALK. ❚“ How can we have
hope about the future
when policy-makers
haven’t learned from
their mistakes?”