So, I feel like certain conversations have been circling around the "Breadtube" project since it's inception: Having an understanding of left-politics through theory vs. watching video essays for lefty talking points, focusing one's efforts on left-unity vs. making sure the "right" brand on leftism wins out in the end, embracing utopianism vs. focusing on "reformism", etc. and so on, I could go on all day.
But, I feel like today's topic intersects neatly with all of those conversations since it offers anyone who has an opinion on any of those topics an opportunity to think critically about the media they consume. And, hopefully, you guys will walk away with a more robust perspective on left analysis than you originally started out with.
Well, let's get into this shit already and stop stalling:
Okay... what's you pet issue for the day ?
One thing's really been bothering me about left-politics in recent years: since I'm a person who's more along the persuasion that "utopia" or "utopianism" is attainable through the means and technologies that exist today, I sorta get the feeling that most left projects have essentially given up on embracing big ideas.
I mean, this mood isn't exactly unfounded. Bernie's campaign has been absorbed back into the zeitgeist of America's unflinching and sclerotic political system. Jeremy Corybn over in the UK lead his party to an absolutely historic defeat through no fault of his own simply because the media slandered his positions and assassinated his character to the point where they public actually started believing the bullshit said about him. Tie all of that with the fact that we aren't moving nearly as fast as we should be to avoid climate breakdown, and, the covid pandemic turning into one clusterfuck of a protracted culture war that's predicated on making personal sacrifices for "the greater good", I can't help but to think that there's this aura of defeatism surrounding any type of "out-of-the box" political project.
Mainly due in part to the fact that fellow leftists aren't exactly making things easy on ourselves in an effort to have the "right" opinion.
Great, bravo, dude. Just get to the reason why you wanna #CANCELRenegadeCut already so you can go back to being irrelevant
A couple of months ago, on August 10th, of 2020, Anarchist youtuber Renegade Cut posted this video using the recent Star Wars trilogy as an allegory to "critique" the concept of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, which, for the uninitiated among you, is the ideological offshoot of the internet meme "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism". This newest strand of leftism basically says that, by utilizing and reworking the tech that already exists now in the interests of all people, instead of private capitalists, humanity can live a post scarcity society (keeping the definition at it's most basic).
Post-scarcity societies have been theorized/advocated for by people from all along the political spectrum. Yet, it seems like Aaron Bastani and (FALC) get extra shit from critics just cause it's newer, so, is basically seen as more "naive" or "unrealistic". I'd have to say that I feel as if this perception is happily being helped along by critics such as Renegade Cut who aren't really interested in giving the idea a fair shake since it doesn't line up 100% with their specific brand of leftism, or, they literally haven't even done their proper homework on the subject.
You might wanna back that argument up with some evidence, cause it kinda seems like you're just trying to start shit with a content creator for no reason
Thankfully, to help illustrate my point and make this whole process 1000x easier, I have a personal copy of Bastani's book (I mean, since he's the dude who popularized the phrase in the first place) where he fleshes out the concepts he's been boosting since his time as a student protestor in a bit more detail. We'll go through R.C's video and compare his criticisms of the theory vs what Bastani actually says in his text:
Ton of red flags pop up immediately in your head if you've actually read the text. First off, it's kind of a red flag in and of itself if you take the time outta your day to publish a nine minute video about something but it takes more than half of the video's runtime to awkwardly jump to your point. Red flag #2 that jumps out at me is just the overall fact that it's so blatantly obvious R.C. didn't actually do his homework on the topic before he decided to make a video about FALC, because, Bastani doesn't argue this... like, at all..
In chapter 3 of the book titled: "What is Fully Automated Luxury Communism?", after, explaining some of the basic principals behind the idea, Bastani writes the following, trying to explain how and why capitalists want to prevent a post-scarcity society from arising:
[quoting economists Larry Summers & J. Bradford DeLong] If information goods are to be distributed at their marginal cost of production - zero - they cannot be created and produced by entrepreneurial firms that use sales from consumers to cover their costs. If information goods are to be created and produced... (companies must be able to anticipate selling their products at a profit to someone.
Remarkably, two of the most esteemed economists in the world were conceding a quite remarkable truth: the price mechanism had broken down for what should be the most valuable part of a commodity - it's [data content]. Economics, for so long obsessed with dealing with the issue of scarcity, began seeing glimpses of something beyond it - the only problem being this broke down the system of incentives by which people are meant to create things under capitalism, namely profit.
Their proposed solution - of exclusion and creating artificial scarcity - was sketchy but reveling. This would be achieved through creating closed voluntary architectures (as Apple would later pursue in their products for example), changes to copyright law and the active promotion of monopolies - something previously viewed being at odds with functioning, healthy markets. [The economists] even conceded such a point when they wrote that:
[quoting Summers and DeLong again] temporary monopoly power and profits are the reward needed to spur private enterprise... the right way to think about these complex set of issues is not clear, but it is clear that the competitive paradigm cannot be fully appropriate... we do not yet know what the right replacement paradigm will be.
I really don't understand how someone could read that passage and unironically interpret it as an embrace of capitalism. Well, as I'll show you guys.. as the video goes along, it's increasingly apperent that they didn't actually bother to read the book.
I'll emphasize, again, the fact that, if R.C. actually did his homework he'd know that back in chapter 1 of the book literally titled: "The Great Disorder" Bastani touches on similar themes scattered throughout the chapter. While he doesn't touch upon technology just yet, he compares the few hundred people killed attempting to cross the Berlin Wall, which existed as a symbolic symbol of division during the Cold War, he compares that figure to the countless thousands of men, women, and children who've died trying to cross the Mediterranean attempting to flee war torn countries or climate breakdown. He then goes on to illustrate the contrasts of our times by outlining how in "rich" countries like the US & UK, 1 in 9 Americans collect food stamps and food bank use in Britain has increased 74% between 2015 and 2020 respectively.
R.C. is literally arguing some of the same points Bastani is, yet, he's portarying his comment as some sort of critique that Bastani doesn't address... Are you guys starting to think that they maybe didn't actually read his book yet?..
6:22 Another criticism of the theory of fully automated luxury communism is that such a future is so far away and that capitalism is literally destroying the world right now!
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