Socialism Or Extinction: Climate, Automation and War in the Final Capitalist Breakdown - Abridged

Download or read book Socialism Or Extinction: Climate, Automation and War in the Final Capitalist Breakdown - Abridged written by Ted Reese and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-25 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socialism or Extinction: Climate, Automation and War in the Final Capitalist Breakdown is a systematic theoretical/Marxist analysis of the unprecedented crises engulfing humanity, arguing:* that capitalism per se - because its ever-growing dependence on exploiting labour and expanding commodity-production makes the labour-intensity of extraction-based production increasingly necessary - is the cause of and can only continue to accelerate the climate crisis;* that the overall rate of profit is trending historically towards (a permanent) zero and that the final expression of this is the tendency towards fully automated production, which is eliminating the sole source of profit/surplus value - the exploitation of commodity-producing human labour;* that, drawing on the work of Karl Marx and Henryk Grossman, capitalism is heading unavoidably, in purely economic terms, towards a final, insurmountable breakdown that is destined to strike much earlier than a zero rate of profit - and, indeed, that the next, looming crisis will at some point see all fiat currencies collapse against precious metals, ie worldwide hyperinflation. It is also argued therefore that a digital (non-transferable) voucher system, whereby exchange-value/value creation is based on utility-production instead of commodity-production, is becoming an economic necessity for the first time;* that the accumulation crisis is forcing the world's imperialist powers into direct confrontation, meaning humanity faces not one extinction threat, but two;* that the solution to the climate crisis requires: value-creation to become based on utility-production instead of commodity-production, ending the absolute economic need to plunder the environment; an incentivised transition towards a communal system of living in order to achieve massive resource efficiency gains; a green industrial revolution that is actually green (hemp-based)* that the productive forces, in line with their historical development, now demand democratic central planning of the economy as a whole - ie a public monopoly - meaning the all-socialist state and a Communist International remain necessary during the transition to (global, stateless) communism, a borderless world of equality and relative abundance for all.