Jake Sweet

Fully automated luxury communism (FALC) advocates a post-capitalist utopian vision in which technological automation eliminates the need for drudgery, abundant material goods are universally available, and economic planning is algorithmically assisted and democratically guided. While objections to FALC often focus on the (in)feasibility of its goals, this paper follows recent critiques of FALC in shifting the focus to desirability: should we want a world structured around full automation, universally accessible luxury, and AI-augmented democracy? This paper first outlines FALC’s theoretical foundations before developing a semi-detailed model of a FALCist society (FALC-S). Then, employing a pluralistic evaluative framework, it provides reasons to affirm FALC-S’s desirability across five key dimensions: freedom, equality, well-being, solidarity, and security. It also addresses major objections, including concerns that FALC would deprive humans of labor and the meaning it provides, as well as critiques of its commitment to luxury from anti-consumerist and eco-aesthetic perspectives. FALC-S is well-positioned to satisfy the normative criteria for a highly desirable political future. While broad in scope, this analysis is intended as preliminary rather than definitive, laying the groundwork for further exploration of FALC in debates on utopianism, technology, and post-scarcity within Marxist discourse.

Claims that socialism is infeasible are pervasive in everyday political discourse. These claims warrant close scrutiny, as they often rely on or suggest implicit arguments that are defective and ideologically loaded. This paper systematically reconstructs and critiques five common types of defective anti-socialist feasibility arguments (DAFAs) found in ordinary communication. In addition to analyzing their argumentative flaws, the paper argues that DAFAs function ideologically in the Marxist-critical sense: they distort social reality such that, in effect, they advance and sustain ruling class interests. Relying on fallacies, unsubstantiated claims, and conceptual imprecision, DAFAs misleadingly cultivate the perception that socialism is definitively unachievable and unworthy of deliberation or pursuit, thereby discouraging collective efforts toward emancipatory change. The paper offers analytical tools for identifying and countering such arguments, equipping radicals to more effectively challenge this form of capitalist ideology.

The notion of a distinction between merely formal freedom and real, substantive freedom is common in both philosophy and political rhetoric. However, Ian Carter contends that this distinction faces coherence and usefulness problems. Contra Carter, I argue that it is coherent, meaningful, and clarifies significant philosophical disagreements about the right to freedom. I define the formal-substantive freedom distinction by outlining a non-univocal conception of each term, then explain why the distinction so conceived is both philosophically and practically significant. I review Carter’s arguments, extract two potential objections to my account, and offer my replies.