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 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 global digital currency whereby exchange-value/value creation is based on labour's use-value instead of its surplus value – ending the exploitation of labour – is becoming an economic necessity;
• 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 use-value instead of surplus value, ending the absolute economic need to plunder the environment; an incentivised transition towards a communal system of living in order to achieve massive efficiency gains; and the end of the alienation capitalism imposes between man and nature, in large part by ending the international prohibition of hemp, nature’s most prolific and versatile crop – and the key not only to reversing desertification and stabilising the climate, but to the next stage in technological and industrial development, ie a green industrial revolution that is actually green;
• 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, s
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