*(Karl Marx & Freidrich Engels, The German Ideology)
Although, Marx entirely meant "destructive forces" as in money and machinery, this quote represents two things:
Delving into the context of the quote, what Marx means by "destructive forces" is money and machinery. This money and machinery were supposed to be part of the preconditions of revolution, as capitalism, to Marx, creates its own gravediggers from the destructive effects money and machinery has on social qualities of production- something that is debated amongst Marxists as an inherent contradiction of capitalism. Whether that contradiction is really the exploitation caused by money, or the value form itself defining how capitalism is uniquely oppressive and the internal component that will cause change, again, is debated. Ultimately, the common position is something along the lines of the idea that the productive forces of capital carries within it the kernel of revolutionary change from its destructive qualities on labor and the worker. Although this is a major part of Marxist thought, and commonly, the thing that interests many people in changing the system, there is a reality that I am going to address in this article where the development of the 'destructive' forces has ripened those very revolutionary conditions and failed horrifically. At the same time of revolutionary fervor of the 20th century, we also had begun to move beyond these revolutionary conditions into the throes of counter-revolution internationally. And ultimately, my entire argument here will lay out how nature has 'caught up' with the social condition, that is to say, the impending climate crisis which is no longer a theoretical, haunting spectre above our social forms, instead it is a reality, a real crisis caused by this barbarism.
This crisis of barbarism has manifested into the ecological collapse of climate change. Climate change is not a future talking point anymore: It is a lived, real aspect of the crisis of production, the qualitative transformation of production to destruction in only a matter of generations. It is staggering to understand, for most, as we simply cannot fathom the scale of this collapse and its effect on the social condition. Some will reject it, some will push it off until the mythical revolution will come, like judgement day for the religious, some will confront its reality, but with an individualism that neuters and disables ethical quandries, as if one's entire life time can push us towards success- and resisting against any of this will be met with scornful derision. In no way is this article going to address these specific lines of thought, but it will address five things: First, the ecological collapse itself and the lack of any sort of counterveiling narrative about this from the Left. Second, how the communist movement failed, how the Left (old and new) has become an 'identity' above all through its subsumption into capital, and how each tendency/identity of the Left put more efforts into becoming the dominant Left. Third, 'communization theory' and its discussion of the 'coming revolution,' their pessimism regarding the forms and content of the organized Left (and all its tendencies), and how that pessimism calcifies into a nihilism that defines the actual coming crisis. Fourth, the last 100 years of barbarism being entirely built within the suppressive structures of "actually existing socialist" states, global imperialism, and nationalist violence. Lastly, finishing off with understanding what this ecological crisis is.
As of this summer 2026, we have had a devastating El Niño: it has potential to develope into a Super El Niño that will last into the end of the year. It is completely unprecedented in human nature, and its unprecedented nature is entirely attributed to by scientists as a phenomenon worsened by climate change. And yet the biggest arguments of our day and age is not the best way to provide for individuals in society or even the methods by which we will liberate ourselves through abolition of crucial systems and its forms, as it was 200 or even 100 years ago, but instead, a debate about whether Air Conditioning contributes to climate change and if even the entire countries of Europe need them, even when they quite needlessly have hit 60k heat-related deaths across three consecutive summers! The more staggering part of this reality is both the Left and the Right scramble to find a solution to finally not allow the system of production to eat itself alive. One speaks of 'subsidizing' and developing aid packages, while the other concedes, yet again, to the system of production that enslave labor and nature to its valorization process. With no end in sight, thousands still die across Europe over such a lack of depravity, lack of gravity around the situation, that it is commendable in its pathetics!
As of today, the Modern Left continues to squabble over ideological or political content... and it is, of course, all over the place, over splits in parties, over internet drama, over entire states, over entryism, over what type of man-ism exists to advance the Left, etc. instead of recognizing the real struggle that is occurring between human, capitalist production and nature.
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