Is Fully Automated Luxury Communism Desirable?

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.