KategorijaThe Last Revolution

Naturality is man’s relation to himself as an emancipated natural being; a relation between people as emancipated natural beings; and man’s relation to nature as a life‐ generating entirety.

Man’s body represents his immediate nature, his elementary and natural existence, and the basic possibility for his achieving unity with nature, his „anorganic body” (Marx). In modern society, the relation to the body is mediated by the capitalist universe (industrial mimesis, the principle of rationality and efficiency, destructive instrumentalism…), which appears in the form of a technical sphere, alienated from and dominant over man, an immediate living environment that imposes the logic of living. It is by way of this sphere that capital rules man and nature. Just as in antiquity man’s enslavement to the ruling order was rationalized by the polytheistic realm of the Olympic gods, so under capitalism is man become the slave of the ruling order by way of science and technology. The instrumentalization of the body is based on the capitalist division of labor, that is, on specialization and, thus, on man’s mutilation. Marx speaks of man being transformed into a freak by the processes of industrial production, brilliantly illustrated by Charlie Chaplin in his movie „Modern Times”. The capitalist form of alienated labor transforms the body into a technical (working) tool, and reduces the mind to a functionalized intelligence. A capitalistically degenerated body has dulled senses and diminished motor‐skills. The dominant characteristics are that the bodily mechanism, the precision of movement, and aesthetics of the machine are deteriorated; there is hypertrophy of some and atrophy of other functions, creating mindless body movements; instead of the ancient principle of metron ariston, an aggressive muscular body prevails; the principle of optimum effort is replaced by the principle of „greater effort”; the prevailing character is (self) destructive, and the prevailing movement is adjusted to the capitalist rhythm of reproduction; etc. Thus, it is not about a humanization, but about a technologization of the body (nature). The capitalist way of industrial production has transformed man into a robotized freak. It can best be seen in sport, in the principle „Record‐holders are born in test‐tubes!”, where a robotized body is the highest aesthetic achievement.

Merleau‐Ponty claims that the body is a „way of appropriating the world”, but the body of today’s man has already been appropriated by capitalism and corresponds to the capitalistic appropriation of nature: it has an instrumental and destructive (denaturalizing) character. The relation to the world through the body is the relation of a capitalistically degenerated body (man) to a capitalistically degenerated world. An unreflective „naïve touch on the world” (Merleau‐Ponty) is determined even before birth – and it is not „naïve”. By the very nature of modern conception, more and more frequently carried out as a technical insemination of an ever‐less fecund woman with increasingly weakened male seed, a being is created that, while still in his mother’s womb, is exposed to the lethal influences of the environment. Man is not „thrown into the world” (Heidegger), but is begotten in a moribund world and inevitably acquires the features of that world. Man „enters” a degenerated world as an already degenerated being: a woman’s delivery of a child is only the manifest form in which the world delivers a man. Subjectivity is essentially determined before man has become aware of himself as a personality, before he has become a self‐conscious subject. It is precisely at the level of physicality or unreflective perception that a child unconsciously adopts the life‐style and value‐models that determine his future behavior: the body is the repository of the unconscious. The relation to the body in childhood largely conditions the development of the personality, affective nature, mind, behavior… The „embryology of the human mind” (Piaget) is conditioned by physical development and the environment in which it occurs. The way in which a child is delivered, its first contact with the world, its mother, light, the environment in which it grows, the movements it masters, the things it touches, sounds, smells, food and the rhythm of feeding, physical contact, surroundings, ways of dressing, the air, diapers, water, the movements around it, a restricted living space, toys, the relationship of its parents, tension, the aggressiveness of the environment – the entire living environment has a specific character and predetermines man’s relation to the world. In a child’s growing there is no spontaneous behavior that represents the pulsing of the original rhythm of man’s natural being; the dominant rhythm is rather that of repression, which „draws” man into the existing world by suppressing and degenerating man’s original nature and turning him into a pathological person. Already, in early childhood, the seed of evil has been sown into man, and the way it will develop and manifest itself is a matter of social circumstances, actual life and personality. The so‐called „aggressiveness”, which directly affects physical growth, does not stem from „man’s animal nature”, but is a pathological (psychological and physiological) reaction to the repression to which man is exposed from his earliest years. When it is „spontaneous”, it is a compensatory behavior that does not remove the causes of discontent, but exacerbates them.

The most immediate form of nature‐humanizing is body‐humanizing. To compete successfully with the capitalist world, dominated as it is by the dehumanization and denaturalization (robotization) of man, demands the humanization of man’s natural being, or in other words, the liberation of the body (nature) from the destructive ruling order, and the promotion of a humanized genuine natural motion for man, within which his libertarian creative essence is expressed. „Immersion in nature” is an illusory alternative to living in a „technical civilization“. What occurs here, in fact, is that man immerses himself in the existing world to a „lower” level of civilization – the way it happens in the physical culture of the Far East where man, as an emancipated personality, who, as such, in his relation to the world, tends to create a new world in his own human (libertarian and creative) image, does not exist. „Naturalism” is a sidetrack in a struggle against the „technical world”. The humanization of natural motion and not the naturalization of technical motion is what we are talking about here. „The liberating transformation of nature” (Marcuse) requires artistic motion and, therefore, a developed artistic being. Playing a violin does not merely require attaining dexterity of the fingers, hands and arms (technique of motion), but also the development of an artistic (creative) being. In that sense, human dexterity requires a creative body: the development of an aesthetic attitude is the basis for the development of sense‐based motion. It is a natural motion humanized by the emancipating legacy of human cultural and, thus, by his playing being, which manifests itself in relation to repressive (destructive) behavioral forms imposed by „technical civilization”. Play becomes the utmost form of man’s „embracing” the world and his most immediate relationship with his own natural being, as well as with nature in general. Man does not „return” to his natural being by means of play as a specific sphere, but by transforming his entire life into a humanized natural life: the „humanization of nature” is achieved through the totalization of the world by man’s playing being.

Creation must be distinguished from imitation. As with many other „naturalists”, Hebert rejected the emancipating legacy of physical culture and reduced body movement to an imitation of behavior, as in the case of the Brazilian Indians. Instead of humanizing the body and the body’s movement through the cultural (emancipating) heritage of modern society, „naturalizing” the body and its movement occurs through a re‐introduction of „primitive” movements that represent spontaneous expressions of its original naturalness, and are not limited by any imposed stereotypes that sap man’s vitality – as happens with the aristocratic and Christian physical cultures. This also applies to copying the movements of the Indians, who are reduced to being „savages”, taken out of their original historical environment (living conditions, hunting, war, religion, customs…) and are, thus, deprived of their cultural contents, and reduced to technical movements that are assigned the dimension of „naturalness”. Man cannot attain his own naturalness by imitating the movements of animals or those of the natural environment, but by means of culture, in a word, by means of a creative activity in which man’s concrete historical (social) movement towards another is dominant. Instead of „melting into nature”, where man loses individuality, development of humanness, which corresponds to creative discontent, should be the goal. Instead of immersing oneself into the existing world, a new world must be created.

A distinction should be made between civilizing and cultivating the body; between disciplining and humanizing the body; between a repressive and a libertarian pedagogy… Man as a universally creative being „corresponds” to a creative body. Instead of acquiring skills for performing certain motions (exercises), to attain the ability to create motions, to give meaning to such a body and such abilities as enable the articulation of man’s creative (playing) personality – this is one of the most significant challenges for libertarian play. In playing, the dynamics of biological rhythm obtain a human and, consequently, a cultural, that is, a libertarian (visionary) dimension. The rhythm of motion becomes a spontaneous expression of man’s creative impulse and, as such, a non‐replicable indicator of humanness, its „trademark”. In lieu of the ideals of strength, speed, rigor (which are oriented towards the creation of a liege/performer nature and consciousness that should eventually transform man into a „lethal flesh” and a vehicle for the destruction of life), the challenge should shift towards mobility, softness, coordination, self‐control, intention, spirituality, tremulousness, movement towards man and nature, harmonious development of the entire body – which corresponds to man’s universal creative potentials and to his human (individual) complexity. Creative mobility is a basic aspect of a healthy body. It requires surpassing the artistic motion as a way of producing artistic forms and sensuous effects (object, color, sound…), and affirming the genuine playing motion that represents the creation of humanness in an immediate form. Physical movement becomes an expression of man’s playing nature, meaning that its essence consists of man’s movement towards another. Man’s relationship with his own body, as an immediate nature, is possible exclusively through another human being.

Development of a universal creative body with a richness of motion is the basic condition for the development of mind, man’s libertarian and creative personality – which is one of the key objectives of libertarian play. This represents an essential difference between physical culture and sport, the latter requiring an ever‐earlier specialization that disfigures not only the body, but also the mind. Rousseau was one of those who perceived the existence of a conditioning link between the development of sensory‐based movement skills and the intellect. In his developmental psychology, Jean Piaget has indicated the fact that the achievement of sensory‐based movement is the first stage of the development of the intellect: based on concrete, action‐related operations, the body attains knowledge that becomes the foundation for all cognitive development. From this it can be concluded that stereotypical models of motion limit the development of intellect. Imposing a definite behavioral model is, at the same time, the infliction of a definite model for thinking (a stereotyping and maiming of the mind), as well as for interpersonal relations, ideas of the world and man’s place in the world. This is most clearly expressed in Pierre de Coubertin’s „utilitarian pedagogy”, which is a modern Procrustean bed. It should not be forgotten that the „physical education” dominant in the 20th century was born of the grayness of the military gymnasiums and was, thus, limited to mere physical drills. Libertarian play is an integral part of the overall culture of man as a universal freedom‐creating being. There is no cultivated body without a cultured man – there is no free movement without a free man. The intention of libertarian play is not to limit and deform man’s instincts through aggressive exercise, nor to create escape‐valves for the release of these mutilated energies as violent and destructive behavior, but to help these in‐born tendencies attain their refined expression while respecting man’s individual personality. It is, therefore, not a matter of developing a model for (physical) movement that is to be imposed on man, but to encourage the creation of motions that enable each individual to express his own specific and unique personality.

Man’s need for another is the basic quality of his life‐creating being. Therefore, man’s motion towards another, as a humanized motion of one living being towards another, is the essential motion of man as a specific natural being and, as such, is the basis for life‐creation. Eros, as a synthesized life‐creating energy, is the most important impulse motivating one being towards another, and from which life as play can be developed. Love play between a man and woman is the supreme form of play, where the unrestrained playing being is expressed, in other words: „production” of humanness in its most immediate form. It is the supreme form of the humanization of man’s natural being. Life‐creativeness is the essence of erotic union, with erotic play as its nature and basis. Without it, enjoyment of the erotic relationship is merely compensational and of an adaptive nature. Already in antiquity, with homosexual (paedophilic) relations, a neutering of man’s (society’s) life‐creating ability took place with the segregation of the erotic from natural reproduction (fecundity). In the homosexual relationship, Eros loses its life‐creative propensity and turns into an anti‐ existential principle. Narcissistic and homosexual Eros clashes with man’s natural life‐ creativeness and, therefore, eliminates the likelihood of the erotic producing a humanized natural relationship. The option of love play as a life‐creating play between genders is disappearing, and the life‐creating sexual relation is being reduced to a technical fertilization of women – to a mechanical production of children. Giving birth and raising children is the most original form of man’s life‐creating practice. Without birth and child rearing, all other forms of life‐creating practice are worthless and meaningless.

Man’s natural being is the basis for the development of genuine humanness. One of the basic criteria for determining the correctness of human practice is whether it humanizes man’s natural being. A humanizing relation to nature results in the development of man’s playing being and of society as a community of emancipated playing beings. Considering the consequences of capitalism, man’s primary objective must be to make himself natural and to humanize himself, and thus to establish the basis for his evolution as a humanized natural being. The creation of a specific human cosmos by enlivening the life‐creating potential of matter, a living nature, society and man, himself – is the highest achievement of man’s life‐ creating practice. Communism is a social order that will enable limitless space for man’s evolution as a humanized natural being. Nature will no longer be an obstacle, but will become a challenge for man to create his own world. And man will no longer be the enemy of his fellows, but will become his support in the fight for a humane world.

Man experiences nature in one way as its sheer organic part, and in another way as an emancipated human being. By man’s becoming an authentic creative being, nature ceases to be a mere living environment and the object of labor. A genuine humanization of nature implies such a transformation of nature through a humanized creative practice as that nature becomes for man an existential, social, historical, aesthetic, libertarian, visionary space… Man’s humanizing creative practice should enable nature to realize its life‐creating potential. In this way, it becomes a specific cosmos. The most important form of a life‐ creating practice is the one that eradicates the causes of the destruction of life on the Earth. The abolition of capitalism, as a totalitarian destructive order, and the establishment of a rational and humanized relation to nature is the basic precondition for re‐establishing the ecological balance and restoring man’s natural being. The fight for the world’s humanization is at once the fight for nature’s naturalization and cultivation. Neither humanness nor naturalness can be realized through an escape to nature, but only through a fight against the ever more threatening ruling order. Without a fight against capitalism, naturalist movements become a sidetrack in the fight for humanity’s survival.

By destroying natural and humane living space, capitalism creates a technical living space. Just as the capitalist time is a dead time, so is the capitalist living space a dead space. It is about a privatization and instrumentalization of natural and social space, man’s creative faculties, conquered natural forces and matter’s emancipatory potential for the purpose of ensuring the development of capitalism – at the cost of destroying humanity’s emancipatory potential and nature as a life‐creating whole. The Eiffel Tower was a precursor of the capitalist degeneration of man’s living space. It symbolizes the victory of technical civilization over the emancipatory legacy of national cultures, imposing a capitalist vision of the future. It removed Notre Dame and Montmartre, the Louvre, bridges over the Seine and all that represents French cultural heritage from the horizon of Paris. Modern architecture, like traditional architecture, has a political (ideological) nature and represents the creation of a living space suited to the nature of contemporary capitalism. It has become the means for the capitalist degeneration of humanity’s living environment. Architectural visions are not humanist or natural, but technocratic in character. They are the products of a technically totalized world. Contemporary capitalism is dominated by a dynamic rather than a static monumentality, as the expression of capitalism’s „progressive” spirit, the strivings of capitalism to transform the world through new building materials and techniques. „Unusual” building forms, with a technical character and spectacular dimension, replace those forms that express a humanist vision of the world and a humanized nature.

Manhattan is the most authentic example of a capitalistically degenerated living space. Monumental constructions, artificial materials, unnatural forms, a „defeat” of gravity… „Progress“ is indicated by the height of the buildings and number of technical innovations. Just as the ruling oligarchies during the Middle Ages sought to build as higher buildings of worship as possible and, thereby, to demonstrate their earthly power and acquire supremacy, so today the most powerful capitalist clans seek to build as higher skyscrapers as possible and thus demonstrate their power and sustainability of the ruling order. Just as the monumental places of worship were not spiritual but rather of a political or propaganda nature, the monumental capitalist „towers” are not of a humanist but an economic and advertising nature. The power of capital must have an impressive dimension and dominate the world and the people. The ever‐higher buildings are an expression of the megalomaniacal ambitions of powerful capitalists and their mercenary architects. They are built for the „business elite” that rules the world and are symbols of an order that „supersedes“ a natural and humane world. They indicate the exclusivity and self‐sufficiency of the ruling class. Automation, controlled climates, pools, gardens… All that is built into a virtual world towering above the „ordinary“ world, turned by capitalism into a wasteland. From the point of view of an „ordinary” citizen, the buildings resemble space ships ready to leave the Earth. And their stadiums are temples to capitalism meant to oppose man’s historical and live‐creating being. A stadium symbolizes man’s complete enclosure in a capitalist space, where time is not life’s natural and historical measurement, but a capitalist deathwatch.

From being a mere matter and object of transformation, nature became an aesthetic phenomenon once man developed his aesthetic being, once he became capable of perceiving and experiencing nature as a life‐creating whole. By acquiring an awareness of the aesthetic, man gained the potential to perceive nature’s original beauty. So through man as an emancipated natural being, nature, likewise, acquired aesthetic self‐consciousness: nature in itself has become nature for itself. What makes nature beautiful is nature’s life‐ creating force. Nature contains an endless number of life‐creating forms that are man’s potential aesthetic inspiration and have a symbolic dimension only if man perceives and experiences nature as a life‐creating whole. Only as an emancipated life‐creating being can man absorb the life‐creating beauty of nature. It enables man to humanize himself by attuning his senses, his visionary imagination, by coming to love life… Man’s physical and mental health is immediately conditioned by living in a healthy and humanized natural environment: homo sanus in natura sana. The concept of beauty can today be appreciated only in relation to a degenerated world, in relation to the destructive ugliness produced by capitalism. What is beautiful is what gives forth a life‐creating force that enables humanity to survive and create a humane world. The art that creates „beautiful sights” by turning global death into an aesthetic challenge has an escapist and anti‐existential nature. A spectacular aestheticization of the world through increasingly sophisticated technical means conceals the nature of a dominant destroying nothingness. Capitalism destroys natural and human beauty by destroying the life‐creative quality in nature and man. The more dazzling the artificial light of the „technical world“, the duller the life‐creating light emitted by man as a human and natural being.

Fromm’s idea of „biophilia“ is of an abstract character. A love of the living nature is a love of people as human, as emancipated, natural beings. What makes man interested in the survival of life is his need for another human being. If man does not feel that he belongs to the human community, if he is deprived of any sense of humanness, the issue of humanity’s survival becomes for him a mere technical matter. Immediate experience of another’s misfortune sets off man’s humanness, and a fight for social justice and freedom enables him to realize his human being. When man is no longer moved by another’s misery, he has ceased to be a man. A capitalistically degenerated man, rather than feeling a need for other people, regards them as enemies or as a means to the fulfillment of his private interests and pathological needs. This conditions his relation to nature: he is not capable of experiencing nature as a life‐generating whole, but regards it as an object of exploitation. For him, a forest is not an organic part of the living world and, as such, an irreplaceable condition for his own survival as well as that of all other living creatures, it is trees, wood, timber that will bring him profit. „Everything has a price!” – this is the essence of capitalist „biophilia”.

The numerous militant movements for the „protection of animals” are based on a petty bourgeois need to escape loneliness and the responsibility for the destruction of the world. „Humanness” is demonstrated by a concern for stray dogs and cats, while support for a capitalist order that with increasing intensity destroys life on the Earth and condemns tens of thousands of children daily to death from hunger or disease is never questioned. Who in the West cares about the fact that in Vietnam, following years of American carpet bombing with the herbicide „Agent Orange“, hundreds of thousands of grotesquely malformed children were born and tens of thousands more died in infancy? Who in the West cares about the children of Iraq, Serbia, Bosnia, Libya, Afghanistan, who are dying from leukemia and other malignant diseases caused by America’s „humanitarian interventions”? Man should not be inspired to fight for the survival of a living world by some abstract love for living things, but by the real suffering of a growing number of people and the increasing threat to the survival of humanity. A fight to eradicate the causes of global destruction, that is to say a fight against capitalism, is the way a love for the living world should be expressed.

Historically perceived, man was becoming human primarily through confrontations with existential challenges. The nature of those challenges conditioned the way they were resolved and, so, had an immediate impact on the development of man. The existential challenge capitalism poses to man is the greatest and the most dramatic he has ever faced. Never in history has man been faced with a task like that of the preservation of life on the planet and the prevention of the annihilation of humankind. It is a challenge that surpasses the classical humanist anthropologic definition of man as a universal creative being of freedom. A specificity of capitalism as an order of destruction conditions both the specific nature of the man that defends it, and the specific nature of the man who attempts to oppose it. Capitalism generates a destructive man who becomes a vehicle for the development of capitalism, that is, for the destruction of life. Concurrently, capitalism produces the increasingly militant anti‐capitalist man who identifies the meaning of life in destroying capitalism and preserving life on Earth through the creation of a new world. An increasingly intensive destruction of life results in a more and more ruthless conflict between these two types of man, which actually describes the contemporary class division of the world: a class of destructive capitalist fanatics versus a class of reasonable and uncompromising combatants for the survival of humankind. The turning of capitalism into a totalitarian destructive order conditions man’s becoming a totalizing life‐creating being – a being for whom the emancipatory (libertarian, cultural) heritage of humankind represents the basis for a critical self‐consciousness and a creative (life‐creating) will. In the struggle for the preservation of life and the creation of a new world, man will become a true man. He is not some mythological man who, like a present‐day Phoenix, rises from the ashes of capitalism, his wings unharmed. He is a concrete man who experiences the destruction of nature with his entire being, for he represents its organic part. Therefore, the creation of the new world requires man’s (self‐)purification and (self‐)development – man is becoming a humanized natural (life‐creating) being. In place of that cosmic energy (Nietzsche) that is a mere metaphor for monopoly capitalism’s driving impulse, the life‐creating forces of humankind will flow. „The will to power” will turn into a desire for freedom and survival.

Historically perceived, every ruling order has sought to create man according to its own image. As far as capitalism is concerned, the period of initial capital accumulation was marked by diligence and thriftiness and a corresponding type of man. At the time of laisser‐ faire capitalism, man was reduced to a beast (homo homini lupus) and human society to a menagerie, where every man is an enemy to his fellow man (bellum omnium contra omnes). Liberal capitalism metastasized into monopolistic capitalism, ruled by the principle „Destroy the competition!”, where man is reduced to the impersonal storm‐trooper of capitalist corporations. „Consumer society” represents the final form of capitalism’s denaturalization and dehumanization of the world. It is about the creation of a „technical civilization” and a corresponding man.

Humanness no longer finds its social and historical meaning only in opposition to non‐freedom and injustice, but now also in opposing the destruction of life. To ensure the survival of humanity is a basic criterion of authentic humanness. Capitalism has, in fact, transformed all social institutions, unto the entirety of life, into means for the growth of profit, for the destruction of life. In order to survive, man can only ask for help from another man: sociability is an existential imperative. In the dialectic sense, man as a fulfilled social being becomes a totalizing life‐creating being – in relation to capitalism as a totalizing order of destruction. In that context, one of Marx’s basic theses from Тhe Communist Manifesto, claiming that „the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all”, could be restated. Considering that the whole of humankind is threatened when the life of any man is threatened, one can posit that the survival of each represents a basic condition for the survival of all.

The body is the elementary form of the existence of man as a social being. Physical community is the elementary form of the existence of society as a human community. Man perceives his body as a human body and relates to it as man through other people. Human society is an organic community of people dominated by man’s movement towards another individual. An emancipated relation to the body, as immediate nature, is possible only on the basis of emancipated sociability. The dehumanization of the body is concurrently the destruction of society as the community of emancipated people. The cultivation of the body is not possible without the cultivation of man’s natural being, of interpersonal relations and of man, himself. The body at play is the highest form of the cultivated body. The liberation of his body is one of the most important ways by which man liberates his personality. Man’s historicity implies the historicity of the human body. Above all, it implies a body cultivated through humanity’s emancipatory (cultural and libertarian) legacy, and becoming an emancipated human body. The struggle for man’s freedom implies the struggle for a free body. Instead of a toiling, athletic, technical or consuming body, libertarian play will develop a creative body and an abundant mobility enabling the realization of man’s creative being. It is not only about the struggle to preserve humanity’s cultural heritage and man as a cultural being, but also about the struggle for man’s survival as a natural and playing being. Libertarian play should enable the revival and development of those emancipatory achievements of physical culture that had been destroyed by „technical civilization”. Instead naturalizing a body that has been reduced to a machine, man should seek to cultivate his natural being through the development of his playing being, through a creative art that develops man as a whole being (physical, intellectual, erotic, social…). Ultimately, authentic body movement is the most elementary form of the creation of society as a community of physically emancipated human beings. Society should become an organic community of emancipated bodies united in free and creative body movement.

Endeavoring to create genuine play is not an attempt to establish a separate social sphere existing „parallel“ to the „work‐a‐day world“ (like Fink’s „oasis of happiness”), where man futilely strives to fulfill his needs for play and express his energies therein, but is rather an attempt to create a truly human world where life itself represents the realization of man’s playing being. A critique of established play (world) is not the expression of a longing for „free play”, but of an aspiration for a life that is manifested in the fulfillment of the universal creative (playing) forces of man as an emancipated member of the human community. For libertarian physical culture play is not a separate area of life, but represents the entirety of human existence within which man strives to realize himself as a playing (libertarian/creative) being. Since living is carried on as a series of interpersonal relationships, we are concerned here with a totalizing man who interacts with others not from separate areas of his life (work, science, philosophy, play…) but from his fundamental humanness: man’s life‐creating need for another human being represents the basis of man’s motion towards another individual. Life as play demands the resolution of man’s duality as both social being and „player”, insisting that man, as a concrete social being, realize his own playing being – the representation of his original social being. A sensibility for play is the supreme form of the realization of a sense of humanness, of man’s ultimate and most complex ability to experience another human being. It requires not only a creative body, but also a (life) creative mobility. The procreation of man as a playing being is the highest human act and requires the reproduction of the society as a community of free creative personalities. Man’s need for another human being, from whence derives man’s original playing motives towards another, represents a genuine scheme for play and the authentic basis for establishing a society as a human community: homo homini is a mirror of humanness.

The contemporary world is dominated by a vision of the future reduced to the development of „technical civilization”. It is interpersonal relations, rather thаn technology and material goods, that make up the human world. The most important humanist criterion for measuring a society’s development is the extent to which interpersonal relations have developed. The struggle for a new world should create the sort of relations that enable man to express his specific humanness in an authentic and complete way. The abundance of forms of play is a function of the abundance of interpersonal relations. The importance of playing is not in the production of objectivity or form, but in the immediate development of humanness. The abundance of forms of play indicates an affluence of genuine interpersonal relations. By means of playing, man’s creative being is fulfilled in such a way that a need for artistic expression, as a compensation for non‐expressed (non‐fulfilled) humanness, is superseded. From the sphere of production of works of art by isolated individuals, who displace their own desires for humanness through their works, play establishes the immediate relations between people, within which the wealth of man’s playing (creative) being is realized. Play, as an interpersonal relationship, requires an emancipated man for whom „the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all”. This does not refer to people who know what „freedom” signifies, but to those who experience other people as their kin, in every sense of the word. Play is the supreme form of expressing humanness – the utmost human act of which the immediate result is a contented man. The attempt to preserve „humanness” in the form of normative confinement, or in some artistic form, is an expression of no confidence in human beings and the possibility for human freedom. Replacing the „imperfect” normative conscious with a „perfect” one does not imply the creation of the „perfect” man. The normative sphere is not the one that must be changed. The sphere of fundamental interpersonal relations, that is, the ruling order, is what must be changed.

In a world of fulfilled humanness, it is futile to establish normative criteria upon which human existence is to be determined. In it, there is no longer a dualistic approach to man, where the real and the ideal worlds coexist, and a model of man – a projection of life alienated from man ‐ has been eliminated. In a society where man is genuinely happy, it is absolute nonsense to determine the ideal of „happiness”: life itself becomes the actualization of the ideal of humanness. In the same way, the „aesthetic sphere”, which counters the un‐aesthetic (ugly) world, is disappearing. Instead of striving for „perfection”, for a constrained world, the development of an unconstrained humanness becomes the supreme challenge. This requires the abolition of separate spheres, including the sphere within which the novum is sought. Homo homini represents the supreme challenge for libertarian play and is, as such, a mirror of humanness, and not an idealized (abstracted) „man” that represents an incarnation of the „future” society for which struggle is waged. So, not a yearning for „the future” as an abstraction, or even as a real utopian project confronting the existing world on an intellectual level and turning it into a certain normative idea of the future, but the life‐creating need of one man for another, a necessity being developed in response to an increasingly dramatic destruction of life, becomes the basis for the creative life that will generate the future. In play, what man can be is being fulfilled: man’s becoming a human being is the criterion for genuine progress. Only when the development of his playing being becomes the „measure” of humanness will the real development of man’s universal creative powers take place – something that today we can only look forward to. The „tenseness” of which Marcuse speaks will always exist, because man will always strive to be more than he is, and will always have a critical/transformational‐ aspiring attitude towards the world in which he lives with an eye toward the creation of a new and better one. However, the nature of this „tenseness” will be conditioned by the fulfillment of two key preconditions of freedom: freedom from natural imminence (natural forces overcome) and freedom of man from man (abolition of class society and of exploitation). The third precondition for freedom still remains the liberation of man’s universal creative powers – which will be dominant in a future society and which requires humanization of nature and the development of interpersonal relations. „Tenseness” in play does not result from the development of the theoretical mind, but from man’s striving to realize his own freedom and his own creative universality – through the superseding of forms of play in which limitations imposed on man by the existing order are manifested. Aspiration towards play, in its essence, represents an impulse for the free expression of humanness; basically, it is the supreme form of determination for being man – the creation of humanum in an elemental form. Freedom, creativity, humanized naturalness and sociability – these are the characteristics of playing and of play. Man’s authentic nature is the genuine origin of authentic play.

In libertarian play, skill does not present itself as independent from man, from the (objective) social sphere, but rather as a form of specific (individual) human expression. Skill and the way of playing do not derive from play as a separate social sphere that possesses its own mechanics of development and its own rules, but from a spontaneous, creative relationship between individuals, where one man is another’s inspiration for play. In this context the playing skills developed in sport (giving up the ball, dribbling, etc.) can be productive. Genuine playing skills require the supersession of the technical sphere as an intermediary in fulfillment of man’s playing potential, in the context of a surmounting of institutional (repressive) intermediation between men. The range of creative spirituality, a wealth of sensuality and of interpersonal relations based upon solidarity and tolerance – which means a fullness of man’s playing being – this represents the basis of the playing skills and playing manner. Instead of „motion control technique”, body, glance and vocal conversation should be introduced… The acquiring of skills through (body) motion control requires the development of human powers, of a rich and unique individuality, and, thus, the satisfaction of individual predilections, and not the pushing (destroying) of humanness into the background and the adaptation of man into a „model citizen” mold. Development of playing skills becomes a function of the development of man’s universal creative (playing) powers. Genuine human motion is aimed at the great many impediments to man’s conquest of the existing world that restricts, shapes, and degrades him… This represents the basis for the development of the creative physical activity that finds its expression in physical movement. Health, spirituality, harmony of motion – all are comprised in physical mobility as the supreme spontaneous interaction of nerves, muscles, tendons, joints, heart, lungs… Genuine physical motion requires a genuine engagement of the organism. This does not merely mean „the exertion of a large number of muscles”, but rather the harmonious activity of the entire body, from whence derives the „softness” of motion which determines physical „elegance” or grace. The ideal of harmonious physical development corresponds to man’s creative universality.

Man’s prolific creative life should become the basis for the development of his playing being. No free and contented personality can exist if man does not liberate his body and his movements from the destructive capitalist civilization. The supremacy of libertarian and creative (playing) motion must be established, and this motion turned in favor of man and a living world (nature) that has no intermediary but represents man’s genuine necessity for others. Development of playing skills is manifested as openness to the future, as creation of novum, and not as „improvement” of a playing model composed of ritualized expressions of submissiveness to the ruling order, within which man is reduced to a mechanical doll. The most important task of libertarian play is to enable physical motion, through the development of man’s artistic being, to become the playing motion by means of which man will attain „unity” with himself as an whole creative being, and society will become a playing community. Schiller’s position that „education by means of art is education for art“ is one of the most significant postulates of libertarian play, because education by means of libertarian play is education for a free society.

Regarding the universal grammar of motion (skills), it provides the possibilities for establishing a comprehensive approach to physical exercise, while at the same time enabling the creation of an artificial body language that is more of a technical (strictly defined motions, repetition, „objectivity” of form being developed as an area alien to man, space defined in advance…) than a cultural nature. Instead of assigning a distinct model of body and motion, which is, in essence, of a repressive nature, a spontaneous motion that is expressive of man’s playing being should be sought: richness of motion is conditioned by richness of the playing personality and by the development of interpersonal relations.

Play is not an immediate relation of man with himself, but requires the existence of a playing community of emancipated, creative personalities, where the movement of one man towards another dominates, and where homo homini mirrors humanness. Therefore, the development of interpersonal relations is a conditio sine qua non of play. The playing disposition is potentially a human disposition that can be actualized exclusively within a community of free and creative personalities. Giving up the ball is not the act of throwing an object from one position to another, an action that has an „objective” form and a technical character, but is a humanized (by means of cultural heritage) gesture by one man towards another and, as such, establishes human community in an immediate form. This is what constitutes its concrete historical (social) nature and endows it with a „soul”. Play is a result but, at the same time, also a supreme spontaneous form of man’s self‐creation and a supreme mode for forming society into a community of free people. The spontaneity of play requires an emancipated personality. If this is lacking, the effort to express uniqueness leads to extremism, narcissism, aggression, destruction… Richness of personality is a basic precondition for the richness of interpersonal relations and vice versa. Each new friendship opens up a new human space inside man, develops his sense of humanness, in the same way a developed aesthetic sense provides opportunity for distinction in music or painting, the experience and creation of an abundance of tones, forms and colors. It is essential to develop a communal spirit while developing, rather than destroying, individuality. The immediate goal of libertarian play is not to set records, improve playing techniques, develop play as a normative sphere and create a healthy body, but to create a healthy society within which creative personalities will be developed.

A distinction should be made between playing as fulfillment of man’s playing being (the act of playing) and play as behavior in accordance with imposed norms. Play as a normative constraint has no tendency towards the improvement of man and interpersonal relations, but tends to reduce („discipline”) him to the model of a usable citizen (subject). It is a matter of striving to preserve the ruling order and to reduce man to the „dimension” that corresponds to that order. The ruling historical forms of play are behavioral forms deprived of humane (playing) content, alienated from man. They are reduced to a behavioral model that is, in fact, a form of play in which the ruling relations are being manifested. Playing is reduced to an action that is most consistently mimics the consensus model of play, the rules of which should not be violated at any cost. Therefore, play’s „immutability“ (Huizinga) becomes its crucial feature. The ideal of „perfection”, by means of which „cultural” legitimacy and the infinity of the ruling forms of play are provided, is reduced to the complete submission of man to the rules of play, as well as to the imposed aesthetic pattern – which represents the „décor” of the ruling order. Man’s longing for another is mediated by relations that alienate man from others and reduce him to a role imposed on him from outside. A typical example is the „sport play”: it becomes a mechanism by which man is made to express the non‐liberty of others. The intellectual sphere cannot be man’s compensation for the senseless life he lives; in the same way a love song cannot make up for a lack of human closeness. Instead of trying to define the concept of a genuine life, which is the typical reaction to a false life, a genuine human life must be lived.

In a repressive society play is a form of repressive normative confinement that impedes the fulfillment of man’s authentic playing being. Attempting to get through to the essence of humanness and to „catch” it by fixing human existence at the level of certain forms, structures, spiritual formations – inevitably leads to the preservation of the world in which such forms and structures are possible. The expression of play has to be of such a nature as to enable man to realize his own playing being. Genuine creativity does not go into the creation of playing forms, but into the enrichment of the human personality and development of interpersonal relations. Play is neither transcendental nor trans‐subjective, but an immanent and inter‐subjective phenomenon: it is an immediate interpersonal relation and, as such, represents the supreme form of establishing a society as a community of free persons, in a word, the creation of the humanum in the untainted sense. Commitment to play means a struggle for the fulfillment of man’s need and capability for play, and not just becoming skilled and imitating the imposed model of play – which appears as the „supreme human challenge”. Instead of play as a „cultural form” representing the basic possibility of playing, there is man as a cultural (playing) being: the authenticity of play is the expression of the authenticity of man. Play is not a criterion for determining a playing disposition and playing, reduced to the transcendental normative form, but the free realization of human playing (universally creative) powers. Play is the highest and the most immediate form of experiencing the world through creating it, which means that it represents the most immediate and the most authentic form of man’s becoming human. In genuine play the dualism between the „being” (Sein) and the „should” (Sollen) has been resolved. Nothing is before man, above man or outside to man. The so‐called „universally human” does not exist outside of man anymore (as an imposed or transcendental sphere); it is no longer the image of „man” for which man longs and exclusively within which he can distinguish „his own (human) look” – but man as a free and dignified person becomes the creator and the „image” of humanness. Instead of being the model of „perfection”, the free man becomes a source of aesthetic inspiration: freedom is the substance of beauty. Schiller indicated the correct path: instinct for play is the instinct for freedom. Playing turns into the awakening of the lethargic (deterred) playing being, „enlivening” the senses, surmounting anxiety and shedding the snakeskin of the (petty) bourgeois. Instead of giving vent to the deterred being, spontaneity in play requires breaking through the barriers that constrain man. What develops the playing disposition is not play per se, but the humanness that develops as man faces the limitations, misfortunes, and challenges imposed by life. A rich creative life is the basic precondition for the development and improvement of the playing being. Genuine play extends the horizon of the freedom achieved, of the enthusiasm for life, and is the consummate expression of man’s life‐creating powers. The joy of play comes from the contentment of an engagement with living; intimacy in play is possible only because of the closeness that comes from the process of struggle for a new world: man’s movement towards another is, at the same time, man’s movement towards new worlds. The actual outcome of playing is not play, but an enrichment of man’s spirit, emotions, sensuality, and the improvement of his interpersonal relations. The completed experience of humanness represents the „measure” of the richness of playing.

A distinction should be made between man as being at play, and man as playing being. In the first case he is the object, while play is the subject; in the second case he is the subject, and play is a result of the fulfillment of his playing being. Huizinga’s homo ludens is not man‐as‐player but man‐as‐toy of superhuman forces. It is exactly the same with antique and Christian man, as well as with Nietzsche’s Übermensch: he is a toy of cosmic forces. With Fink and Gadamer the notion of play is being used to reduce man to a phenomenological abstraction which is merely a masque behind which the concrete man, reduced to a toy of capitalism, is hiding. The emancipated playing personality requires a man as a unique life‐ creating being, and, as such, a creator of his world – and, thus, a self‐creator. Through playing, the playing disposition turns into play that becomes the basis for identification of the limitations of playing and of the possibilities for its development. Instead of the development of play as a separate social area, we should be moving toward the development of the playing disposition „inside man” and, on that basis, toward establishing society as a playing community, where (potentially) each form of human activity is at the same time an expression of his playing being. Libertarian play attempts to eliminate the fragmented man that has been degraded by the requirements of a fragmented world, where a need for „synthesis” is reduced to the development of technical expressions that seek to impress with their lavish color, sound and form, and become a „compensation” for an increasingly impoverished humanness. It is a matter of superseding the world divided between „misfortune” and „happiness”, and a matter of „restoring” to man his powers from the alienated social spheres and of establishing the human Ego as an integral core of man’s relations toward the whole world. Along these lines, man should not seek to cultivate technique through art, but to cultivate man through the development of his universal creative being, thus abolishing technique as a mediation with nature that has been alienated from him, while art remains a separate social sphere. Instead of a relation between alienated social spheres, people should develop immediate relations as emancipated playing beings. The world as a work of art – this is the purpose of the struggle for the future.

Libertarian play rejects competition that is reduced to personal combat aimed at preserving and developing the ruling order, and advocates out‐playing (similar to the „out‐ singing” common to traditional folk music) that, in essence, represents a struggle against the established order of destruction and for the development of man’s universal creative powers. In out‐playing, man is inspired by others, suggesting that man’s movement toward another person is dominant in it – which is only possible because of man’s need for another individual. In this context Rousseau’s principle homo homini homo attains its true value. Out‐playing requires striving to supersede what has already been achieved (for creation of a novum) through the development of interpersonal relations, and not through clashes between individuals based upon the Social Darwinist principle of bellum omnium contra omnes and the progressistic principle citius, altius, fortius. Its internal principles of domination and elimination have been abolished and replaced by the principles of tolerance and solidarity, and all that creates life is in opposition to whatever destroys life and restricts freedom. Instead of striving for record‐breaking victory, out‐playing calls for working to „enlarge” humanness and to create a new world. The key issue here is not how much, but by what means – where the starting point for defining humanness is not the repressive aesthetic stereotype that tends towards „perfection”, but man, himself. Development of the „quality” of play requires a development of rich individuality and of interpersonal relations. In this context, the skills are not manifested in relation to man as an independent („objectivized”) force (reduced to a dehumanized and denaturalized „playing technique”), but as a specific (individual) human expression. Out‐playing in the elements of play, where the playing of one individual becomes the inspiration for the playing of another (like in traditional folk dances, jazz, love play…), creates the possibility for anyone freely to express his own playing being. Spontaneity, creativity, imagination – are all expressed as a playing uniqueness, as an originally human uniqueness.

Instead of the martial contests that dominate sport, life‐creating competition should be introduced based upon out‐playing, where there are no winners and no losers, and where a physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually enriched man is being created. It is not the intention of out‐playing to eliminate the „weak” and celebrate the „strong”, but to yield up a humanized man, an individual who experiences himself in his own way, developing his own individuality. Instead of escaping into himself, man should aspire to enrichment the contents of interpersonal relations. Life as play means that creation of interpersonal relations is the supreme manifestation of the playing disposition: man’s social being becomes the fulfillment of his playing being. The joy of creative fulfillment, attaining true respect through companionship (playing), is demonstrated in relation to the „ecstasy”, which is, in the existing world, the highest expression of slavery’s passing for an illusionary „spontaneity”. Physical and mental activities, without which no play can exist, require creative efforts: creativity determines the rhythm of play. It is aimed at establishing and developing interpersonal relations and represents the basis for attaining (self) respect. Play turns into midwifery – delivering humanness through creative effort, that is, through the most immediate form of man’s self‐creation. The specificity of play as creativity is, in its being, based on man’s spontaneous, unconditioned and unmediated need for another human being. Genuine play is based on the authentic love developed in creative (libertarian) exaltation, rather than the petty bourgeois love that comes from a place of struggle for money and power, where, instead of human symbols, status symbols incarnating the prevailing values are dominant. The development of a need for man, a true belief in man, the opening of new spaces of the mind, the development of a creative personality – these are all impulses toward genuine play. Homo homini homo becomes the supreme challenge, rather than a mere vehicle for the fulfillment of pathological „needs” imposed by capitalist civilization. Man’s experience always returns to an option for the new, the more complete, the more beautiful… Human intimacy becomes the source of life’s warmth. Cohabitation has no temporal and spatial limitations, only a human dimension. Instead of being an escape from nothingness, play becomes an eruption of unrestrained humanness.

Through playing, man’s external‐reality the world is disappearing and becoming man’s self‐existence. The variety of forms in the exterior world is no longer a challenge but is being replaced by the richness of the interior and the interpersonal… The world is what man carries inside himself and what he can establish together with other people. Authentic creativity is the „transformation” of the outer world into an experience of human intensity, happiness… Instead of the world of misfortune as a negative basis for play, which is, therefore, an expression of a hopeless attempt at escaping society, the world of happy people will become the grounds and inspiration for the development of a rich playing personality. Genuine play is not merely man’s supreme intellectual relation with the world; it does not only represent man’s self‐knowledge and self‐expression; but also his self‐ creation, and is, as such, the most comprehensive form of experiencing the world. No more will man live in a world he refers to as something (im)posed and extra‐human (alien). Instead, he will perceive the world as his own creation, in a word, as his manifested (and not „infested”) humanness. This is not a question of a simulated totalizing of the world by means of simple subjectivism, as is the case with romanticism, but of totalizing the libertarian (creative) activism from which is „produced” a society that is a community of free people. Playing becomes the supreme form of man’s „appropriation” of the world, and eventually represents the „appropriation” of himself without „residue”. Man will not achieve „unity with the world“ through labor, technology, play, art… – but will make the world: the creation of the world will become man’s self‐creation; „unity with the world” will become the „unity“ of man with another human being. The development of man as a universal free creative being and the advancement of interpersonal relations will become the „measure” of the development of the world. Life, itself, will become the supreme symbol of humanness.

In the capitalist world, play is a vehicle for sucking the repressed working „masses” into the spiritual orbit of the bourgeoisie and, so, has a „classless” determination – clearly expressed in the well‐known maxim „sport has nothing to do with politics”. Libertarian play is not apolitical, but represents an inherent part of the political struggle against class society. According to Nietzsche, play is a vehicle for the creation of a „new aristocracy” in an exclusive organic (class) community. So at issue is the creation through play of an organic community of free creative personalities. The new society cannot be created solely by means of play but requires political struggle. However, there is no true political struggle without a concurrent struggle for the liberation and development of man’s playing being. Schiller’s fascination with play was directly encouraged by the French Revolution, which opened the gates to the new era. Likewise with Goethe, Klopstock, Fait… The struggle of the oppressed and the awakened and, in that context, the belief that man is capable of realizing his libertarian being, give meaning to play. Without the struggle for a free world, play remains an escapist and empty form.

In a humane society, every word will mirror the human. As the poet says: „ … but one day where heart was, Sun will stand and human speech will no longer have words which poem would deny, everyone shall write poetry, truth will exist in all the words, in the places where poem is the most beautiful, the one who started it first will retreat, leaving the poem to the others…“ (Branko Miljković) Not only shall everyone write poetry, but everyone will sing poetry – each in his own way. Man will become a song‐bird, and society will be a flock singing on its way to the future. Singing is the most authentic way for man to realize himself as a social being. It is genuine speech because it comes from the very essence of man as a human being. There is an old saying, „The one who sings does not mean evil!” Singing is the most authentic call to humanness. It is the highest form of a cultured nature and a cultivated sociability. Through singing, birds express their essence as natural beings; through singing, man expresses his nature as a cultivated, natural and human being. Just as tone is a sound cultivated in a human way (John Blacking), so is singing a tune cultivated in a human way. A singing speech is the most authentic way of producing a cultivated sociability and, as such, should become an integral part of pedagogical work with young people.

Interestingly, it did not occur to bourgeois anthropologists when considering man’s need and ability to sing, to proclaim man a song‐bird, instead of a wolf – who does not sing, but howls, barks and growls. In ancient mythology, sirens gained control over mariners with their song, and Orpheus gives the world its true form and meaning through his singing, setting animals in motion and stopping the flow of rivers, bringing his beloved Eurydice back from the dead… Religious communities have long known the magic of singing. A prayer, when sung, penetrates deep into the human heart and becomes a way of rising above earthly life and spiritually connecting with what is beyond the phenomenal world. Even without words a song sends an intense message. It is the language of the emotions. Through singing, man emanates his humanness – it is the most authentic human way in which the aura of Walter Benjamin is created. Man’s emotional being, cultivated in aesthetics, enables man to grow his natural capabilities (vocal cords, nervous system…) and sing. Singing is the most authentic way of creating sociability. It abolishes all forms of man’s alienation and establishes an immediate relation between individuals at the level of their essence. An authentic song is the most efficient way to man’s purification and the most humane way to man’s cultivation.

The growing threat to the lives of more and more people is the impetus for humanity’s integrated fight against ecocidal capitalist barbarism. In the struggle for the preservation of life on Earth with the creation of a new world, humankind will be so united that it will obviate all forms of mediation that have kept man separated from his fellows and turned him into a „tool” of „superhuman” forces working for anti‐human goals. Instead of moral principles, upon which a repressive normative consciousness is being developed and used for the preservation of the ruling order, man’s essential and existential need for another will become the motive for making interpersonal connections. Instead of living the life of the chosen, as with Nietzsche, the pinnacle of life will be to live as free, creative people; instead of the plutocracy as an organic community united by parasitism and by existential fear of the laboring many, the man’s overriding goal will be the formation of society as an organic community of free creative personalities; instead of having to hide the repressive normative confinement and the repressive aesthetic canons (by means of which the elitist class status is rationalized), man’s physical and spiritual need for another like being will predominate; instead of the child’s subordination to repressive normative stereotypes, that children be educated by allowing them to live as free creative personalities will become the basic pedagogical principle… It is an matter of superseding the „fragmentized” and attaining the „synthesized” man who represents a unity of Apollonian and Dionysian, that will not be, as with Nietzsche, a privilege of the „new nobility”, but a basic human right.

Creativity is the basis and the result of the historical development of society. It is the expression of human authenticity. Creativity is the common denominator of man’s general life‐creating activism. Creative efforts are the most authentic form of realization of his life‐creating energy. Unless it is realized in a humane way, man’s creative power can become a fatal anti‐humane and anti‐life force. In that context, the expression „evil genius” represents the glorification of creativity as a destructive power, which for a capitalistically degenerated man is the highest challenge to his life and values. By becoming a totalitarian destructive order and by depriving man of the possibility of realizing his creative potentials in everyday life and in a humane way, capitalism produced the most atrocious crimes. Capitalism deprives man’s creative power of its human dimension by giving it a technical character. Capitalism destroys the existing world through the creation of a technical world. Destruction through creation – this is the basis of the dialectics of capitalist progress.

The emergence of Nazi Germany is a historical example of how man, through his creative powers, can be integrated into an order that can turn those powers into a totalitarian criminal practice. One of the most important reasons why the Nazi regime had, up until its downfall, the support of the vast majority of Germans, is that the Nazis managed, through labor and other „constructive” activities, to „mobilize the masses” and thus make them identify with the ruling order. „The Father” of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, in praise of Hitler, pointed out that the greatest success of the Berlin Olympic Games (of 1936) is that the Nazis „managed to mobilize the entire German nation to participate in the preparations for the Berlin Olympic Games”. From there, Coubertin proclaimed Hitler „one of the greatest builders of modern time”. By engaging citizens in the „building” campaign, the Nazis managed to make the Germans perceive Fascist Germany as their own creation. What the Nazis managed to do with their „building” euphoria, contemporary capitalism has done with its „consumer” euphoria: it has integrated workers into its value and existential sphere and made them accomplices in global destruction.

As for Christianity, according to official Christian dogma, labor is a „curse”, and the worker is, accordingly, a cursed man. On the other hand, according to the Christian „doctrine of creation”, labor, as a creative activity, represents the very origin of the cosmic mystery from which life on the Earth derives. Through creative work, the life‐creating potential of the cosmos has turned into man’s life‐creative power. Creative work has brought about the emergence of the world, whereas the shaping of matter and its being brought to life through reason has enabled man to become man. „God” was originally humanized as the being that created the world through labor. „God” did not create the world by waving a magic wand or pronouncing magic words, but rather „He labored for six days” so hard that on the seventh day „He had to rest“. „God” is a laboring‐creator and, consequently, all creation is a divine activity. It is the umbilical cord that links man to „Тhe Creator”. „The divine within man” is his ability to create the world through his creative activity and in his („divine“) image. In his endeavors to create a new world, man should take „God” as his model.

By becoming a totalitarian order of destruction, capitalism has given faith in „God“ an existential dimension. Those who believe in „God” should insist that all living beings on Earth are „God’s creatures” and should fight to protect them, as such, from capitalist calamity. The idea of „the second coming of Jesus Christ” implies the struggle for survival of living beings. Where will Christ „return” if capitalism destroys life on the planet? Who will be there to greet him? The skeletons of the children scattered by desert storms and the frozen corpses of capitalist monsters?

Today, authentic creativity is defined against the growing probability of global destruction. Hence, its essence is life‐creation. To create is the purpose of genuine human practice, and the creation of a humane world while increasing the certainty of its survival is its immediate and highest outcome. It is in this context that creative work should be perceived. It supersedes the classical division of labor and the fragmentized man reduced to a „specialized working force”. Instead of being reduced to the instrumentalized intellect, to a technological means for the production of „innovations” and capital accumulation, the creative mind should become the basis for creative work toward social integration. It involves not only the production of creative goods, but also of the visionary: the creation of humanum becomes the creation of novum and vice versa. Creative work involves realizing the human in a human way and providing livelihood through the cultivation of nature in a way that does not spoil it and that humanizes man’s natural being. A need for work becomes a need for the development of creative energies and interpersonal relations. It overcomes a stunted man, and it promotes the integration of humanity around a creative mind. Ultimately, labor becomes not just a way of providing existence, but also a way of enriching interpersonal relations, and it implies man’s return to his human essence. Creative work is the immediate form of the reproduction of society as a community of emancipated individuals with a creative and totalizing sociability. The results of creative work are immeasurable. They cannot be private property, but are the „property” of humankind. Creative work is by its nature limitless both in terms of the development of man’s creative powers and in terms of its influence through time and space. It does not involve only the creation of useful goods or of man as a universal creative being, but is also the creation of a human world.

With the introduction of automation, conditions have been established for eliminating repressive and degenerating labor, and for introducing creative work that offers opportunities for the development of man’s playing being and, thus, creating possibilities for the refinement of his natural being. On the basis of creative work, which can only come out of libertarian struggle and cannot be a mere consequence of the development of technical processes, a division of labor between intellectual and physical, as well as between „private” and „public” domains, that is to say, between the institutionalized political powers alienated from man ‐ can eventually be abolished. When the rule of creative work is applied, the most important source of the split perception of the world as a „world of dread” (labor, suffering, misfortune) and a „world of joy” (imaginary „play”) disappears. Work becomes not only „life’s prime want” (Marx), but also the human’s prime want, while play ceases to be a compensatory activity and becomes the supreme form of man’s spontaneous creative self‐realization and the supreme form of interpersonal intimacy. Only when work stops being an activity where man is alienated from himself as a creative and libertarian being; when the dichotomy between homo faber and homo ludens is resolved within a creative man; when creative work becomes the affirmation of human freedom ‐ only then can man’s playing being be liberated from all forms of compulsions and only then does true play become possible. It is a matter of the „atonement” of the playing being, playing and play – in a free, spontaneous and creative endeavor, that is, of play as a realization of the playing disposition through a creative effort – through the comprehensive self‐creation of man (human community). With creative work, man transforms not only his own existence, but at the same time he regenerates himself as a creative and social being. Creative collectivism represents the basis of playing collectivism.

Humanness is the genuine basis for the development of man’s creative being. Children should be encouraged with love, from their earliest years, to develop their creative being. Creativity is the basis of true sociability. An upbringing suffused with creativity is an upbringing for a creative society. Without humanness, creativity becomes a technical capability and, as such, a potential source of atrocious crimes. It is no accident that the most important creative power of capitalism is not poets, but the technological intelligentsia. It is about specialty‐idiots deprived of a historical self‐consciousness and a humanist vision of the future. The true result of creativity is not the creation of objects, but the development of humanness, which involves the development of the creator’s individuality and the begetting of a society as a brotherly community of free people. The principle of the aura has become the principle of the beacon: the emanation of humanness appears as a light indicating the true nature of the existing world ‐ it awakens humanness and illuminates the road to the future.

Man cannot revitalize his genuine human needs from an abstract anthropological model of man as a universal creative being of freedom and the visionary consciousness derived from it. As a concrete human being, he can realize his genuine human needs only in relation to the lethal consequences of capitalist „progress”. More precisely, man can develop his genuine human needs and faculties only when he confronts the immediate existential threat posed by capitalism and when he restores that natural being crippled by capitalism. Man cannot become an authentic creator as long as he faces the (ever more certain) possibility of global annihilation. Only when he frees himself from the deadly capitalist embrace and heals the consequences of capitalist destruction will man be able to realize his universal creative being and transform life into a work of art.

The emergence of capitalism was a turning point in the development of humankind. Capitalism rendered production for meeting human needs passé and introduced production aimed at creating profit. In so doing, capitalism has led humankind into an existential cul‐de‐ sac. It has created an economic mechanism, the market economy, which has turned man’s creative potential and his productive practices into the ultimate threat to the survival of humankind.

Capitalism released the productive forces of naturalistic mysticism and localism and put them to work for profit, preventing them from developing any humanist and existentialist criteria. Profit has become the unchallenged measure of the meaning and value of human practice. Through the capitalist economic sphere, the process of the recreation of the world has obtained an irrational and destructive character. Capitalism’s development of the productive forces has turned man’s creative powers and the forces of nature he has captured into the means for his and nature’s annihilation. Instead of a humane and humanized natural world, capitalism has created a „technical world”, with a corresponding technocratic religion, which pins man down to the existing world and destroys any humanist vision of the future.

Capitalism is based on destructive mindlessness. There are no reasonable limits that can restrain the capitalist exploitation of man and nature from reaching destructive proportions. Capitalistically degenerated reason has become the instrument by which an apparent „ratio” of destructive processes is created. Its „regulatory principle” is based on the ruthless fight between capitalist corporations for domination and survival. Capitalist „planning” is nothing but a form in which an instrumentalized and technologized reason has become the means for stabilizing and accelerating capitalist reproduction. By destroying life and reason, capitalism prevents the establishment of a reasonable life and, thus, of any philosophy of freedom as promoted by the thinkers who created the concept of the modern world. Capitalist truth has a mindless and anti‐existential character.

The maniacal pursuit of new records in sport has clearly demonstrated the anti‐existential nature of capitalist progress. From a humanist and existentialist aspect, the record breaking mania, based on the absolutized principle of quantitatively measurable performance (citius, altius, fortius), leads to the destruction of man as a human and natural being. However, since a record reflects the market value of an athlete’s performance and, as such, an authentic expression of the absolutized principle of profit, it cannot be disputed. Its purpose is not to develop human powers and interpersonal relations, but to ensure the progress of capitalism at the cost of destroying man as a human and natural being. Instead of being the beneficiary of competition, man has become simply the means by which new records are achieved.

Capitalism has degenerated authentic human needs, making the need for destruction somehow „primal”. At the same time, the awareness that capitalism might easily destroy the world forces man to confront capitalism and those needs programed into his body and sub‐conscious mind, needs he experiences as vital. The existential neurosis is based on man’s attempts at keeping those ingrained needs from being met, since their fulfillment would lead to the destruction of his human and biological potential, as well as all life on the planet. It is about the suppression of the sub‐conscious based on the mutilated humanness and the elimination of the ambivalence that results in a conflict between desire and the will. By developing a critical mind and fighting for a new world, man can prevent the evil seed planted in him in early childhood from growing so great as to erase all his human qualities. Man will continue to fight the evil within him until the evil in society is eradicated and humanity is allowed to become the singular source of his authenticity.

In light of the lethal consequences of a destructive capitalist irrationality, which is the basis of the capitalist economy and capitalism’s relation to nature and man, the principle of a planned economy, which was affirmed in the October Revolution, takes on a supreme political and existential significance. In the article entitled „Why Socialism?”, originally published in the first issue of the magazine Monthly Review in May 1949, Albert Einstein criticizes capitalism and advocates the establishment of a planned socialist economy, guided by genuine human needs and based on reason and solidarity: „I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate the grave evils (of capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow‐men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”

When we speak of a particular historical order, we should bear in mind the unrealized potential of that order in terms of the creation of a future. The specific historical aspect of the „socialist” order is that the development of the productive forces was not based on the market and profit, but on a planned economy, which had a rational character. In the contemporary world, this aspect of „socialism” has taken on a primary importance in contrast to capitalism’s destructive irrationalism. Production aimed at satisfying human needs, directed by rational and social beings (in solidarity with one another), whose relation to nature is aimed at its humanization rather than its devastation, represents the basis for a planned economy. Under the specific historical conditions that existed during the development of the Soviet Union, а planned economy could reach neither its existential nor, more specifically, its emancipatory potential. Today, there are objective conditions in order for the existential and humanist potential of a planned economy to be fully realized. Most importantly, the concrete potential of a planned economy should be perceived in relation to the destructive practices and destructive potential of capitalism. The realization of the emancipatory potential of a planned economy has become the basic prerequisite for ensuring the survival of humanity and life on the planet. The elimination of the „consumer society” and the establishment of rationally based production, which aims at meeting genuine human needs, would bring about the Earth’s ecological revival.

The „participation in the factory management” and the „seizure of factories” by the workers are obsolete tactics in the fight for a future because they are based on a market economy, on the principles of productivism and profit‐making. Workers’ control of the factories does not bring about any substantial change in existential terms if it is not accompanied by the abolition of the market economy and the establishment of production for the meeting of human needs, growing out of a humanized relation to nature as a life‐ creating whole. In a market economy, workers inevitably end up as slaves to managerial groups, which mediate between workers and the market and reduce „workers self‐government“ to a formal principle.

A planned economy is the most important manifestation of the need for a rational world, a fundamental existential principle. However, the concept of a planned economy presents the inherent danger of being reduced to a technical project, with society becoming a technologically perfected labor camp managed by a technocratic „elite”. The genuine potential of a planned economy is realized only if the citizens, as emancipated, rational and political beings, are directly involved in the creation and realization of the process of social reproduction. Without direct democracy, a planned economy can lead to a new totalitarianism.

Capitalism has fully captured the political sphere into its existential orbit. Man’s political being has been alienated from him and absorbed into a „public sphere” that is now the private property of corrupt party oligarchies. The „public sphere” has become a vehicle for eliminating sociability, with its implications of a community of emancipated political beings. The citizen is reduced to a part of the voting machinery, with „elections” providing a „democratic” legitimacy to the ruling order. The political sphere has become a political circus, and the „political struggle” between parties is now a struggle for power between the most powerful capitalist groups. The elections are always won by capitalism, while workers remain defeated.

The economic sphere of capitalism has become the undisputed totalizing power over all social life. It confronts the citizen as a constitutive agent of (bourgeois) society and reduces him, through the „consumer” way of life, to a depoliticized and depersonalized subject. A vast majority of citizens in the most advanced capitalist countries live in debt‐ slavery. What „freedom” can man enjoy if he is literally a slave to the banks and thus to the current capitalist order? His life, as well as the life of his family, is immediately conditioned by his „indebtedness”. For millions of citizens in the most developed capitalist countries, „freedom” is just the choice between prison, begging and suicide.

The destruction of nature and its transformation into man’s enemy constitutes the destruction of humanity’s emancipatory legacy, the possibility of creating a humane society and developing man as a humane and natural being. By destroying nature, capitalism makes man increasingly dependent on it and thus reduces the existential space necessary to realize the emancipatory potential of civil society. The increasingly dramatic destruction of the fundamentals of human existence leads to the rise of new forms of totalitarianism. The creation of a „new world order”, under which the most powerful capitalist concerns intend to destroy the institutional structure that enables citizens to express their sovereign political will and defend their existential interests, is brought about by capitalist destruction. The rise of totalitarianism goes hand in hand with the destruction of life: capitalism destroys democratic institutions and the germ of a novum created by bourgeois society and establishes a global fascism based on an ecocidal terrorism. In this context, the political struggle of the oppressed is degenerated with their criminalization, with their resentment over being coerced into large‐scale, murderous violence. By destroying the emancipatory legacy of civil society, capitalism destroys the critical‐changing and visionary mind, moral reasoning, spirituality, man’s erotic and social being – all the qualities that make man human ‐ and, thus, calls into question the very existence of the visionary and changing practice necessary to realizing the objective possibilities of creating a new world.

„Indirect democracy” implies intellectual elitism and thus an intellectual „elite” that mediates between man and the world and makes the decisions that determine the future of humanity. The members of the French Enlightenment and Classical German philosophers, as well as the philosophers belonging to the school of English Liberalism, maintained that the world should be pervaded by the mind through the rule of an „enlightened elite” over „common citizens”. They sought to shape modern reason as the expression of an idea of the world of the newly elevated bourgeois class that will mediate between man and the world, and as an undisputed criterion for determining „truth” and „correct conduct”. Reason can no longer be the privilege of the intellectual „elite”, it must become man’s basic right. All the more significant was the intention to „return” reason to the people by eradicating the class order, for man’s ability to relate to the world and the future in a reasonable way is not only a basic preconditions of human freedom, but also a basic preconditions for humanity’s survival.

Instead of a new „great philosophy”, which would mediate between man and the world, thereby forming the basis of human self‐consciousness and the starting point for social practice, people must develop a way of thinking that will lead their thinking about vital existential and essential issues and enable them to develop a combative sociability to bring an end to capitalism and create a new world. Only within a political struggle can reason take on a changing dimension. Without everyday political engagement, reason, in itself, regardless of its „quality”, can only hinder the struggle for survival and freedom. In this context, people should not use philosophy to mystify and defend the ruling order. Reasonable people should become the leading force in the demystification of capitalist „progress” and the creation of a vision of the future. It is in this context that Marx’s XI Thesis on Feuerbach, together with the idea that the „correct theory is the consciousness of a world‐changing practice”, reveals its true value.

The increasingly dramatic threat to man’s immediate existence is the basis for the integration of the objective and subjective factors of changes. Capitalism’s existential menacing, perhaps, explains a concern expressed by Martin Jay to Marcuse in The Dialectical Imagination: „Indeed, to make this short digression, the key question of the possibility of a change in a society that controls the consciousness of its members remains in the major part of Marcuse’s later work, especially in One‐Dimensional Man, as a disturbing issue.“ (31) Capitalism can control the consciousness of its citizens and depoliticize them only as long as it offers them the possibility of participating in the development of a „consumer society”, as long as it can reduce them to a „consuming mass”. The development of „consumer society“ is immediately conditioned by the severe devastation of natural resources and the creation of climate changes that seriously threaten the survival of a growing number of people. These processes will inevitably call into question the consumer fanaticism and conformist consciousness, which are, in actual fact, the most important instruments available to the ruling order for pulling citizens into the spiritual and social orbits of capitalism and keeping them under control. In this context, a call for „justice” takes on a new relevance. It implies the right to a healthy environment, to clean air and water and healthy food… The immediate existential threat caused by the destruction of nature, as well as the deepening economic and social crises that affect an ever larger number of „middle class” citizens, undermines the petty bourgeois spiritual sphere that „protects” man from any responsibility for global demise and leads to the development of a critical thinking and increasingly radical forms of struggle against capitalism. A positive aspect of the development of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order is that it imposes the existential necessity for a reasonable alternative, forces man to become a totalizing life‐creating being, and, as a global order, leads humanity to integrate its efforts to create a reasonable and humane world.

All forms of mediation between man and (his) world will be obviated by man’s becoming an active participant in the management of social processes. As an authentic being, man should, in close cooperation with other people, become the creator of his own world. It is about the affirmation of existential humanism, based on a life‐creating relation to the world as the basis for determining man’s being. In spite of the increasingly aggressive brainwashing man undergoes on a daily basis, the growingly acute existential crisis compels people to turn to essential issues and begin to think in a serious, that is, a reasonable way. The immediate threat looming over the lives of more and more people enables the broadest layers of society to be pervaded by reason and to take control over their social lives. The ever‐deepening crisis of capitalism creates concrete social conditions under which the critical and visionary mind can become a concrete possibility for „ordinary” people, those whose existence is ever more directly and dramatically jeopardized by capitalism. Only a reasonable man can foresee and prevent the consequences of the development of capitalism, and only a reasonable man can create a reasonable world. The a priori character of a possible socialist revolution gives reason a superb political significance.

Capitalism  has  brought  humanity  to  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  rendering the „traditional“ theoretical discussions meaningless. It confronts man in the most direct way, compelling him to grasp the essence of capitalism without a mystifying theoretical mediation. Conditions have been created for discarding the way of thinking and the ideas that serve to relativize destruction and turn concrete issues into theoretical questions – thus mutilating the active power of a changing intention. The only meaningful thought is the one that directs man to fight for survival, whereas the creation of a new world involves a confrontation not only with capitalism, but also with the consequences of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. The increasingly threatened and thus increasingly dangerous environment leads to the experience of a global demise becoming the driving force of political practice, thereby replacing theoretical considerations. Capitalism has discarded all ideological masks and demystified the truth. Man no longer needs science or philosophy in order to understand that capitalism destroys life along with man as a human and biological being. Capitalism, itself, as a totalitarian destructive order, has created an excellent starting point for a critique of capitalism that, at the same time, represents an undisputed guideline for the political struggle: the truth has become survival, while the struggle for the truth has become the struggle for survival. This immediately conditions the relation between theory and practice. The increasingly dramatic destruction of global life means that „changing of the world” amounts to preventing its destruction. Social phenomena obtain a concrete (affirmative and negative) meaning only in terms of efforts to stop the destruction of life and to create a new world. Only a political practice that eradicates the causes of global destruction is legitimate, only the practice that abolishes capitalism. When the relation between theory and practice is viewed in this way, to increase the certainty of human survival becomes a necessary, though insufficient, condition for verifying the correctness of political practice. This qualification is necessary because the destruction of „superfluous” populations, as advocated by representatives of the contemporary „new world order”, cannot be accepted as a way to increase the certainty of human survival.

A difference should be made between naive and realistic optimism. A naive optimism has a fatalist character and is based on the principle of tout va bien, which implies existential apriorism and an idealized conception of man. A libertarian optimism, based on existential apriorism, is a side‐step in the struggle for a future. It offers false hope and, so, masks the true nature of capitalism, hindering the struggle for survival. It posits that though capitalist globalism has its bad sides, it will nevertheless result in a better world. A realistic optimism is based on a realistic analysis of the tendencies of global development and man’s will to create a humane world. It appears in relation to the destructive tendencies of capitalist development and is based on a reasonable man’s struggle against capitalism to create a new world. The mounting destruction of life and the rapidly approaching deadline for preventing global extinction abrogate a naive optimism and produce, on the one hand, a capitulating consciousness, coaxing humanity toward death, and on the other hand, an increasingly radical consciousness that refuses to reconcile itself with global annihilation. This consciousness is not humanist in itself, that is, it does not appear only in the form of a leftist movement that seeks to abolish capitalism; it rather appears in the form of a rightist movement that seeks to preserve capitalism at any price and sees the „solution” to the survival of humanity in the destruction of „superfluous” populations (the theory of the „golden billion”).

By dramatically threatening human survival, capitalism poses increasingly difficult existential and essential challenges to humanity. Contemporary visionary consciousness is not solely based on the nature of man as a universal creative being of freedom and on an emancipatory potential for the creation of a new world, derived from bourgeois society; it is created, above all, response to the consequences of the development of capitalism as a destructive order and its destructive possibilities. This informs a concrete vision of the future. In this context, the fatal character of the theory of „scientific socialism” becomes obvious because it does not regard capitalism as a concrete historical phenomenon. In other words, if socialism is a „necessity”, then capitalism cannot be a destructive order. The theory of „scientific socialism” only contributes to the development of a fatalist consciousness based on existential certainty. The demise of capitalism is a necessity, but it not certain to lead to the creation of a humane world. The demise of capitalism can be the introduction to the creation of a new (communist) society, but it can also bring about the destruction of the entire world. Ultimately, a humane world is possible only as a result of the political struggle of the working class and young people. This struggle opens future horizons.

In view of the fact that „indirect democracy” has become an anti‐libertarian and anti‐existential order, there is a need to create a political system that will be based on direct political involvement of the citizens. Direct democracy in the form of self‐government, as the broadest social movement, is the only existential and, as such, the only authentic political alternative to capitalism ‐ though not as an expression of the political voluntarism of a bureaucracy (as was the case in „socialist” Yugoslavia), but rather as a concrete historical alternative to a destructive capitalist totalitarianism.

The increasingly dramatic ecological and economic crises in the most developed capitalist countries are producing new political movements that, despite lacking a clear class leadership or anti‐capitalist direction, contribute to citizens’ political activism and, in so doing, create the possibility for their direct involvement in the management of social processes. A growing number of citizens’ initiatives are incipient forms of a political struggle whose ultimate aim is to abolish the alienated and corrupted political sphere and introduce direct control over social life by citizens acting as emancipated political beings. For now, these movements do not have the political strength and intensity necessary to bring down capitalism, but their spread indicates that growing number of citizens have come to realize that capitalism is an obsolete order and the creation of a new world is necessary.

The following are the principal ideas that offer humankind the possibility of survival and to create a humane world: direct democracy; production for meeting genuine human needs; a radical reduction in labor time; the development of man’s creative being; the development of interpersonal relations and the establishment of a humanized relation to nature. These ideas constitute an integral part of modern visionary thought, and their substantial relevance today lies in their opposition to the totalitarian destructive order that is capitalism, their relation to the very real possibility of global annihilation. They are no longer a libertarian challenge, but, instead, have become an existential imperative.

The notion of violence has a historical nature. In modern times, it is determined according to the basic human and civil rights, proclaimed in the French Revolution, which form the basis of modern humanism. Concretely, the nature of the ruling order conditions the nature of the prevailing violence. In liberal capitalism, the prevailing violence was based on the principle bellum omnium contra omnes. In monopolistic capitalism, the prevailing violence is based on the principle „Destroy the competition!”. It is not characterized by a struggle between citizens, who are reduced to atomized private subjects, but by a struggle between gigantic corporations. The prevailing contemporary violence results from capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order.

From the historical point of view, violence has an emancipatory dimension. Departing from the American and French revolutions, Marx came to the conclusion that „violence is the midwife of history”. From the onset of capitalism, bourgeois theorists insisted on the right to combat the prevailing violence, including the armed struggle. Locke and Kant share the view that free citizens not only have the right to oppose the violence threatening their freedoms, but that the opposition to violence is their most important civic duty. For Njegoš, „to place a foot upon tyranny’s neck, this is the most sacred of man’s duties”. Following in the footsteps of this emancipatory legacy, Lenin put forward a theory of „unjust” (conquering) and „just” (liberating) wars. According to Marx, violence in a proletarian revolution is not the aim, but the means for doing away with capitalist tyranny. With the development of political institutions, revolutionary violence has become one of the available means for abolishing capitalism. Engels’ insistence on a „dictatorship of the proletariat” is meaningless, because, after a (true) socialist revolution, classes will no longer exist, and there will only be free people whose livelihoods will derive from their own work.

In the contemporary world, the violence directed towards the capitalist order and contemporary imperialism is referred to as „terrorism”. Following the class and the colonial principles, the ideologues of capitalism do not make a distinction between the struggle for freedom and terrorism; more precisely, they equate the workers’ struggle against capitalism and the struggle of oppressed peoples against imperialism with „terrorism”. In conquered countries, colonial masters refer to those who fight against the colonial yoke as „bandits”, „murderers”, „thugs”… The notion of „terrorism” comprises all traditional qualifications of fighters against the class order and colonialism. At the same time, it also involves the spontaneous opposition of enraged young people to the capitalist order, which has deprived them of their future.

It is not „terrorism” when capitalists, guided by greed, cause accidents in nuclear power plants, with lethal consequences to the living world; when they start thousands of fires in the Brazilian jungles every single day; when they contaminate the soil and water with poisonous heavy metals dropped from aircraft; when they empty thousands of nuclear waste containers into the oceans every single day and contaminate the seas and the coastlands with oil, killing millions of animals; when they burn entire towns with phosphorus bombs and contaminate rivers and the Earth with projectiles tipped with depleted uranium; when, thanks to economic fascism, they force people to produce and consume contaminated food and genetically modified crops; when they fire millions of people from work and force women to undergo sterilization in order to get a job; when the most developed capitalist countries, through economic measures and political and military pressures, destroy the economies of less developed countries, causing suffering and death to tens of millions of children; when people are pushed into debt‐slavery and deprived of their basic human and civil rights; when American capitalists provoke wars and create a war hysteria in order to ensure the survival of the American military industry; when the CIA forms terrorist groups to incite civil wars and destroy existing states… However, it is „terrorism” when a group of dissatisfied young people from the Parisian suburbs, who live on the margins of society, smash the windows of limousines or of the shops in posh areas, or throw stones at armored police vehicles and heavily armed police forces, which protect the ruling order, which creates social poverty and destroys life on Earth.

Capitalism is opposed to the emancipatory legacy of bourgeois society and produces forms of political struggle with a destructive character. Contemporary „terrorism” is a capitalistically degenerated struggle against capitalism, namely, a destructive violence that uses the capitalist means and methods and thus further intensifies the process of destruction. It is a manifestation of the ruling spirit of destructive capitalist irrationalism. It does not seek to create a new world, but to destroy the existing one. That is the basic difference between a revolutionary struggle and terrorist acts. Terrorism is not marked by a visionary consciousness, but by fanaticism, as a result of the increasingly ruthless destruction of entire nations by the most powerful capitalist corporations.

The ever‐deeper existential crisis in the world creates conditions for the development of religious fanaticism, with a fatalistic and destructive character. For fanatics, who glorify an illusory world „in the heavens”, this world is but a springboard for their departure into „eternity”. By killing the „infidels”, they acquire their tickets for „The Pearly Gates”. Terrorism, under the veil of religious fanaticism, is based on anti‐existential nihilism. However, only a naive person can believe that the eradication of religion would bring the eradication of violence. Over 99% of young „terrorists” have not read a single religious book, a fact Michel Onfray, in his Atheist Manifesto, claims is the source of their violent behavior. At the same time, the main „spiritual sustenance” for almost all „terrorists” in the West is the products of the capitalist entertainment industry: Hollywood films, „video games” and sports, where violence acquires a spectacular dimension. Onfray „overlooks” the most important point: young people’s violence results from their positions in society and the nature of the ruling order. It is the consequence of reducing young people, particularly those living in ghettos, to „hooliganism”. Onfray’s intention is clear: by shifting the responsibility to religion, he relieves the ruling capitalist order of any responsibility for the increasing violence in society. At the same time, he does not see the difference between the violent character and the violent consciousness. He also does not make any distinction between the violence of the young, who just mimic the model behavior, and the violence used to express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. The destructive behavior of the young is a capitalistically degenerated expression of their justified dissatisfaction with their life and the world in which they live. Just as do existing religions, Onfray conceals the true nature of monopolistic capitalism and resorts to an „anthropological argument”, which holds man at the social‐Darwinist level that characterizes liberal capitalism. Onfray: „The primitive still exists in the post‐modern, the animal still endures in man, the beast still lives in homo sapiens …” (30)

It does not occur to Onfray to show that rather than opposing the violence, the state and the legal system, as well as other institutions of capitalist society, are regulatory mechanisms of capitalism as a violent (destructive) order. A typical example is the rules of fair play in sport. The „violence in sport” involves behavior that crosses the established limits of a „sporting fight”. It is not considered violence if a boxer, „in a proper manner”, kills his „opponent” by hitting him in the head, but it is considered violence if he kicks his bottom. In the first case, he will be declared „champion”; in the second case, he will be disqualified. Violence is not the behavior that threatens man’s freedom and life, but it does threaten the ruling order. Sport is the best promoter of destructive violence and, as such, is a call to violence. „Top sportsmen”, who use the worst forms of destructive violence, have become the „idols” of the young. Sport destroys interpersonal relations based on solidarity, as well as visionary consciousness, drawing the young into the world of capitalist values. It is no accident that sport is the dearest child of capitalism.

The „war on terrorism” is just an ideological mask used by American imperialism and resembles the Nazi „struggle against Judeo‐Bolshevism”, which was used as a cover for annihilating the Jews and the Slavs and conquering a „living space” (Lebensraum) for German capital. It is an excuse for establishing a „new world order” based on American imperialism. Those who terrorize the world, under the pretext of a „war on terrorism”, seek to do away with anyone who can stop their endeavors to turn the world into a concentration camp. The „fight against terrorism” is, actually, the fight by the West to acquire a monopoly on violence, which means that terror would become the exclusive means by which the West will rule the world. The „protection against terrorism” that they offer is a sort of mafia racket: those who do not accept the steel embrace of the „world police” shall be subjected to horrendous terror. „Global terrorism” is becoming the „main threat to humankind” – this slogan is repeated over and over again by the proponents of American policies all over the world, who try to ingratiate themselves to their masters. The relation towards terrorism reveals the true ambitions and reach of American politics: the „fight against terrorism” does not have anything to do with forming a new block or with any ideology, it has a global and anti‐existential character. At the same time, capitalists in the most developed Western countries use controlled media to spread existential panic so that citizens will unquestioningly accept their „protection against the terrorist threat”, which means being deprived of their basic civil and human rights. This is a totalitarian „integration of society” dominated by the most reactionary political forces. Tens of millions of cameras, wiretaps, micro‐chips implanted in citizens, similarly to dog chipping and cattle branding, unwarranted intrusions, kidnapping, torture, „silent” liquidations, total control over the media, deployment of special military units in cities, erection of concentration camps… The „fight against terrorism” is, actually, the form in which capitalists carry out an open dictatorship.

Ecocide is the most detrimental form of capitalist terror. This type of violence has an annihilating character. „Consumer society” is the highest stage in the development of capitalism as an ecocidal order. In the „consumer” stage of development, destructive potential of capitalism has reached the metastasis and capitalism has turned into a totalitarian destructive order. Each segment of social life and each segment of nature are subjected  to  the  destructive  process  of  capitalist  reproduction.  Actually,  life  itself, conditioned by capitalism, has become terror over people. When life itself became a terror, then any attempt to define terror at the normative level and to regulate it legally becomes meaningless.

The view of Oskar Negt that „time for going to the barricades has passed” only contributes to the depoliticization of the oppressed working people at a time when capitalism has entered the last stage of its combat with life on the planet, and when, consequently, the fight against capitalism has become an existential imperative. In Negt, instead of a critique of capitalism and the forms of political struggle against capitalism being conditioned by the trends in its development, capitalism is conditioned by an „enlightening” (pacifistic) political option. In that context, the discussion ignores all questions about the true (destructive) nature of capitalism, addressing only those questions that do not devalue the given political option. Concretely, workers and their children should be „taught democracy”. Ultimately, the primary concern of Negt’s concept is not to question the economic and political stability of Germany, which means that workers should not start an open class struggle. In practicality, his option serves to preserve the capitalist order with its „bearable” exploitation of workers and the „welfare state” that enables the unemployed to keep from starving and maintains „social peace”. Workers’ political struggle has been abolished, while their „class struggle” is reduced to the struggle of trade unions, whose aim is to sell their labor at the highest price. It is a typical social‐democratic option, which at the time of the Weimar Republic enabled Hitler to come to power, whereas today it enables capitalists to destroy nature and threatens the biological survival of European nations and the emancipatory potential of civil society.

Capitalism as a destructive totalitarian order and, consequently, as destructive of the emancipatory legacy of bourgeois society and man as a humane and biological being, must be the starting point in a critique of capitalism and the political struggle against capitalism. Criticism of capitalism cannot start from a political analysis of possible social developments. Such an approach is unacceptable not only for reasons of truth, but, above all, for existential reasons. Notwithstanding a possible action at a particular political moment, a critique of capitalism must start from the nature of capitalism. The „storming of the barricades” is not a product of the „voluntarism of a radical political consciousness” (Negt); it is rather the result of the increasingly dramatic capitalist destruction of life, and is a legitimate form of political struggle against capitalism. Without the willingness of the working class to stand at the barricades, all other political options are nothing but a political clamor, which cannot produce any essential changes. The militarization of the working class and the young that results from the struggle for survival and is based on the humanist visionary consciousness is of utmost existential significance. Instead of a pacifistic upbringing, the young people should develop the will to fight against capitalism and to create a humane world. Considering the fact that the economic crisis of capitalism is affecting an increasing number of people, leading to the biological demise of peoples living in the most advanced capitalist states, the „postponement” of a radical political option can result in a „political climate” that can give rise to a new fascism. At the same time, without political organization and the political engagement of workers on a daily basis, storming the barricades cannot have a true revolutionary, which means a visionary character, but just a rebellious and destructive one. A revolutionary fight is not only a fight against the ruling order, but also a fight for a humane world.

The notion of revolutionary violence should be determined by the principle that concrete humanity can be reached relative to concrete inhumanity. In other words, the nature of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order conditions the nature of the struggle against capitalism. If we ignore that, advocating „humanism” becomes an empty „humanistic” rhetoric. In the contemporary world, the concept of violence exceeds the framework of morality and politics and appears in the existential sphere. The humanistic ideals of modern society, which were affirmed in the French Revolution, can no longer be the starting point in the fight against capitalism. Also, a contemporary criticism of capitalist violence cannot be limited to class and human relations, but must consider the survival of humankind. Capitalist inhumanity has an anti‐existential character. Hence, contemporary humanism cannot only have a libertarian, but, above all, must have an existential nature. As a destructive totalitarian order, capitalism has given a new quality to the development of society: the possibility of man’s concrete freedom no longer appears in relation to slavery, but in relation to the ever more realistic possibility of global annihilation. The fight for man’s freedom has become the fight for the survival of humankind.

Capitalism brought humankind to the edge of the abyss and thus abolished the space for political games intended to buy time for capitalism. The increasingly ruthless destruction of life compels man to make his best efforts to prevent global destruction. That man is the victim of capitalism can also be seen from the fact that capitalism forces him to use, in his struggle for survival, the means which are alien to his humanity, as well as to the vision of a humane society. The increasingly dramatic destruction of the world means that revolutionary violence is becoming less and less an ethical issue and more and more an existential issue of primary importance.

On  the  last  historical  battlefield  there  remain  only  two  mortal  combatants: capitalism and humankind. Capitalism has long been waging an all‐out war of annihilation against humanity. It is about time to start a total war against capitalism, which involves the use of all forms of struggle that can contribute to its final destruction. 

Marx’s critique of capitalism is, in essence, the thought of a socialist revolution. It is the fundamental idea for determining the integrity and relativity of the „Marxist” attribute’s authenticity. The view that a „correct theory is the consciousness of a world‐changing practice” is the self‐consciousness of Marx’s revolutionary thought. Based on this self‐ consciousness, and relative to it, Marx’s own thoughts acquire a Marxist legitimacy. Marx’s views do not all correspond to his theory of revolution. Marx’s thought was not the theory of a socialist revolution from the very beginning, it became so later, with the development of capitalism and the workers’ movement. Marx’s thought became the theory of a socialist revolution  when  the  proletariat  in  the  most  developed  capitalist  countries  in  Europe became a political force capable of changing the world.

According to Marx, the existential and, thus, the general social crises are the result of the economic crisis of capitalism when the relations of production (proprietary relations) become obstructive to the development of the productive forces. This is clearly indicated by Marx’s view in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, the founding stone of his theory of revolution: „At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, which turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.” (29) The working class is „wedged” between productive forces and productive (proprietary) relations. Class consciousness tells the worker not to try to abolish capitalism as long as it continues to develop its productive forces and thus enables his existence. Since the capitalist mode of developing the productive forces is progressive, the workers’ struggle against capitalism, as long as it continues to develop its productive forces, hinders progress and is therefore unacceptable. At the same time, a socialist order, as the final overcoming of capitalism, can be created only when capitalism  has  exhausted  its  potential  for  development.  Without  such  conditions,  a revolution is not based on objective historical conditions, but on political voluntarism. The elimination of the bourgeoisie from the political arena by the proletariat is historically legitimate only when the bourgeoisie becomes a reactionary force, precisely, when capitalism has exhausted all potential for the development of productive forces and when the bourgeoisie, through repression, struggles to safeguard private ownership, which hinders further development of productive forces. According to Marx, the proletariat can become the „grave digger” of capitalism only on the basis of the economic and the resulting general social crises, which cannot be resolved without a radical step out of the capitalist world.

By overlooking that capitalism is essentially a destructive order, Marx overlooked the specificity of capitalist dialectics. According to Marx, the development of capitalism involves the development of conflicts between the productive forces and productive (proprietary) relations, but not between the capitalist development of productive forces, on the one hand, and nature as a life‐creating whole and man as a natural and human being, on the other. In spite of Marx’s critique of the plundering and destructive capitalist relation towards the soil, according to Marx, capitalism is progressive as long as it continues to develop its productive forces. Actually, for him, the problem is not in the productive forces of  capitalism  and  the fatal consequences of their development,  but in the limited possibilities presented by the relations of production, that is to say, by private ownership, which will stop further growth of the productive forces, „compelling” capitalism to „self‐ destruction”. It turns out that it is precisely the development of productive forces based on private ownership that leads to the increasingly dramatic existential and, thus, the general social crises, as they arise from an mounting destruction of nature and man as a human and biological being. The increasingly dramatic destruction of the world indicates that capitalist „progress” and the survival of humankind are antagonistic to one another. Marx’s view of soil exhaustion suggests that the survival of humankind is threatened precisely by the economic development of capitalism. It follows that workers should fight against the economic development of capitalism, which means against the capitalist mode of development of productive forces, and not „wait” for productive (proprietary) relations to become an obstacle for further development of productive forces. A contemporary socialist revolution can result from the existential crisis caused by capitalism, but it can also serve as a bulwark preventing capitalism from destroying the environment and climate to such an extent  that  life  would  be  impossible  on the planet. A contemporary socialist revolution cannot be of an aposteriori and essential character, but, rather, of an apriori and existential character.

With capitalism becoming a destructive totalitarian order, Marx’s conception of socialist revolution has become obsolete. Marx does not arrive at the concept of socialist revolution relative to capitalism as a destructive totalitarian order, but relative to capitalism as an exploatitory order with a „revolutionary” character. For Marx, a socialist revolution is the last revolution in the history of humankind and therefore the final act in man’s struggle for freedom. At the same time, by sticking to existential apriorism, Marx does not regard the socialist revolution as the beginning of a decisive struggle for survival, but as the end of the historical process of man’s bonding with nature and the beginning of the true history of humankind.  Following  that  idea,  Gajo  Petrović,  one  of  the  most  distinguished representatives of Yugoslav Praxis philosophy, regards Marx’s notion of the revolution as the overcoming of the social and political moment and the final resolution of man’s relation to nature and to himself as a natural being. In those terms, the socialist revolution is the „essence of being” (The Thought of Revolution). However, the concrete „essence of being” cannot be acquired from an abstract notion of nature and man, but only in relation to the totalitarian and destructive practices of capitalism. Capitalist „progress” has brought humankind to the brink of an abyss and thus „resolved” all contradictions within it and completed the critique of capitalism. Capitalism does not liberate man from his dependence on nature. It rather makes him, through its destruction of nature, more dependent on it. Not only does it not create the possibilities of „leaping from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”, it creates a new – destructive and, thus, totalitarian realm of necessity. A socialist revolution can acquire its concrete historical dimensions only in relation to the lethal consequences of the development of capitalism and with respect to its destructive potential. Rather than being the beginning of man’s true freedom, it is the beginning of a decisive struggle  for  the  survival  of  humankind,  which  will  alleviate  the  consequences  of  the capitalist destruction of nature and man and open the possibilities for man’s liberation from the natural elements and class society, enabling him to realize his universal creative powers and turn society into a familial community of free people.

Marx arrives at the idea of a socialist revolution by departing from an idealized anthropological model of man as a universal creative being of freedom, and not from the concrete historical nature of capitalism as a destructive order and, in that context, from the need to prevent the destruction of life on the Earth. The character of the proletarian revolution is no longer determined by humanist ideals, as is the case with Marx. It is, rather, conditioned by the existential challenges that capitalism, as a destructive totalitarian order, poses for humankind.  Since the early days of capitalism, destruction has been its immanent feature, but, with the development of „consumer society”, it has become its dominant characteristic. There is an increasing possibility that annihilation of humankind and of the living world will become the „collateral damage” of capitalist „progress”. It is in this context that the development of the contemporary workers’ (socialist) movement and the strategy and tactics of the struggle against capitalism should be considered. It is one thing when revolution is conditioned by economic crisis, but completely something else when revolution is conditioned by an increasingly lethal ecologic crisis. The awareness of the destructive nature of capitalism has become a necessary condition for the development of the contemporary global anti‐capitalist movement. The increasingly dramatic ecological crisis creates conditions for a more radical critique of capitalism and for a more radical political struggle for the survival of the planet and the creation of a new world. So, it is of utmost importance to  develop  a  life‐creating  consciousness,  one  which  will  initiate  a  political movement capable of doing away with capitalism before it manages to degrade nature to such an extent that humankind will not be able to establish the ecological balance necessary for its survival. Given the fact that capitalism is by its nature a destructive order, it can be concluded that the time for doing away with capitalism and creating a new (socialist) order does not come when productive relations become an obstacle to the development of productive forces, as Marx contends in departing from pre‐capitalist history, but with the onset of capitalism. This is clearly indicated in Fourier’s critique of (capitalist) progress, which suggests that capitalist development is based on the destruction of the living (natural) environment, i.e., that it has an anti‐existential character.

A contemporary critique of capitalism and the political struggle against capitalism should deal not only with its current but, above all, with its potential threats to the survival of humankind. If we wait for the planetary eco‐system to be degraded to such an extent that it becomes an immediate threat to the survival of man, then the fate of humankind is sealed.  In this context, we can clearly see the fatal consequences of „ecological movements” that seek to alleviate the effects of capitalist „progress” by technical means and in a mechanical way. Ultimately, they serve to suppress the anti‐capitalist movement struggling to eradicate the causes of global destruction and erase the illusion that, based on capitalist progress, the survival of nature and humankind can be achieved by scientific and technical means. The technical devices of the „ecological” movement have become coins for buying time for capitalism and thereby reducing the period within which the ecological balance can (still) be re‐established   to   prevent   the   destruction   of   humankind.   At   the   same   time,  man’s „adjustment” to artificial climate conditions causes such changes in his organism that he no longer has the ability to survive under natural conditions. For a capitalistically degenerated man, a healthy natural environment becomes anathema.

Economic crisis can accelerate the dissolution of capitalism and prevent it from debasing life on the planet so much that man’s survival becomes impossible. However, economic crisis by itself does not necessarily breed a revolutionary consciousness at the levels of the oppressed workers. The most compelling example is the creation of fascism in Germany and other European countries spurred by the capitalist economic crisis of 1929. Ecocidal capitalism has created the possibility for a new fascist barbarism, which, guided by the logic of „It’s either them or us!”, could destroy billions of „superfluous” people in order for the most powerful capitalist corporations to gain control of the globe’s raw materials and energy resources. The theory of the „golden billion” indicates the way in which the most powerful capitalist clans are planning to „solve” the increasingly dramatic economic and ecological crises. Similarly, to believe blindly that the economic crisis by itself could incite workers to start a revolution may result in the workers being destroyed, as natural and human beings, before they can even take their place on the last historical battlefield, where the destiny of humankind is to be decided.  One of the most important tasks for leftists is to organize  working  people  in  such a way as to prevent the dissatisfaction created by capitalism from becoming the means for establishing a capitalist dictatorship – as was the case in Europe at the time of the great economic crash of  1929.

With its growing destruction of life on the planet, capitalism increases existential anxiety that, unless a new order based on a rational treatment of nature is initiated, becomes an existential panic causing man to support any measures, regardless of their validity or justification, that he believes (being convinced by the ruling propaganda machinery in which he has been terrorized into placing his faith) will enable him to survive. The ruling order manipulates its subjects with the fear of a „perceived threat”. Capitalists actually use this existential fear to provoke conflicts among people, races, nations, religious groups… The Nazis used the same kind of manipulation. The fear of existential uncertainty caused by the capitalist economic crisis was turned by the Nazi propaganda machinery into a fear of „Judeo‐Bolshevism”. Through propaganda, the destruction of „Judeo‐Bolshevism” was made an obsession: by destroying the „enemy”, man can „free” himself from the existential  fear  caused  by  capitalism.  It  is  a  targeted  sublimation,  where  the  „enemy” acquires certain characteristics that most efficiently provoke a desired reaction through the activation of two of the most important instinctive drives: existential fear and suppressed sexual energy. The very sight of Hitler triggered in the Germans a hysterical reaction of an orgasmic quality. Today, this fear is all the greater since we are facing the biological demise of the white race, ever deeper economic crises and ever harder struggles for employment, fatal climate changes, exhausted energy resources and raw materials, reductions in commerce, and the disappearance of the „American dream”, which demands a constant rise in the consumer’s standard of living…

Capitalism in the most developed capitalist countries may also deprive people of their humanity to such an extent that they come to regard the destruction of other nations as the only „solution” for their own survival. This will come to be the basis of the collective counsciousness: a struggle for survival by technical means used to annihilate billions of people. An increasingly hard life and the immediate existential threat looming over entire nations deprive man of humanity and thus of compassion for and solidarity with other people and nations. Just as contemporaneous with Hitler’s „thrust toward the East” (Drang nach Osten) the German petty‐bourgeoisie did not want to know about the atrocities committed by the German army, so today’s petty‐bourgeoisie in the most developed capitalist countries close their eyes to the everyday atrocities of capitalist companies and their mercenaries (united in NATO) and consciously blend into the dull dissonance of the destructive capitalist chorus – submissively reconciling themselves to the loss of their elementary human and civil rights and passively accepting the creation of a police state. The „consumer society” is for the petty‐bourgeois the only world in which they can live and the only world they can fantasize about. The ever deeper crises of capitalism do not bring people who have been degenerated by a „consumer” way of life to fight against capitalism for a humane world, but, rather, to fight for their own consumer standards at the cost of becoming, themselves, capitalist executioners. The immediate reaction of a petty‐bourgeois to the decline in consumer standards is not to wish for change in the ruling order, but, instead, to plunder and destroy other people. They are well aware that the story about „terrorism” is but a mask hiding the strivings of the most powerful capitalist corporations to conquer the world, but they accept this fable as a sedative to appease their consciousness, since the ruling order (still) provides a relatively high standard of living to the „consumer”. The capitalist petty‐bourgeois continues to be one of the pillars of fascism. The systematic reproduction of technical and biological means of mass destruction is indicative of the true intentions of the most powerful capitalist groups in the West. One of the most horrible truths, which demonstrates the utter monstrosity of capitalism, is that the survival of over six billion „superfluous” people is not based on thousands of years of civilization and „democratic values” in the West, but on the fact that Russia is capable of annihilating Europe and the USA within twenty minutes.

The collapse of „consumer society” leads to a decline in the purchasing power of working people and grossly increased unemployment. There is a need to stabilize capitalism at a lower production‐consumption level, while with the growth of overall capitalist reproduction, with further the development of science and technology, the „white collars” will become predominant. The working „masses” from the traditional lines of production are no longer the means by which the reproduction of capital will be accelerated, but they are, in fact, a burden on and an increasing political threat to the ruling order. Instead of integrating workers into capitalism through the consumer way of life, the strategic landmark of the ruling order is the elimination of the „superfluous” population. With the ever  deeper economic  crises of  capitalism,  an  growing  number  of workers  become  the mortal enemies of capitalism, and the ruling order will employ any available means (criminalization of society, narcotics, alcohol, contaminated food and water, lack of medicines and medical services, deadly viruses, sterilization and the like) to eliminate the „superfluous” and ensure survival. This is one of the causes of contemporary fascism, whose contours are most visible in the USA. It is the realization of the idea of the „golden billion”, which,  with  the  demise  of „consumer society”, will have an effect not only on the populations in the countries on the „margins of capitalism”, but also on an ever‐broader spectrum of working people in the most developed capitalist countries. The increasingly threatened existence of humankind creates the conditions for radical implementation of the social‐Darwinist concept according to which only „the strongest will survive”, while science and  technology  become  the  exclusive means  for  ensuring  the  dominant  position  of capitalism and for the creation of artificial living conditions that will protect these survivors from increasingly dangerous climate changes. That is why the Western rulers from the shadows try to use science and technology to create a „new man”, one who, with his artificially created „genetic qualities” and thanks to the military techniques at his disposal, will be capable of exterminating the surfeit of the „unfit” and establish global domination. The „terminators”, „Rambos”, „predators” and similar Hollywood freaks, glorifying the destructive power of the capitalistically misused technology, clearly show the psychological profile of contemporary capitalist fanatics. The power to rule becomes the power to destroy.

The plight of the bourgeois class is the best indicator of the tendency of capitalist development. The development of capitalism goes hand in hand with the development of the bourgeois class; when the bourgeois class starts to perish, so does capitalism. In the West, the general social crisis acquires a pre‐revolutionary character.  The bourgeois class is disintegrating and, in so doing, is creating a society where fewer and fewer people can become rich, while the number of poor people is increasing. We are witnessing the proletarization of the bourgeois class and the fascization of the capitalist class. Consequently, the emancipatory heritage of civil society is being destroyed and the space for pacifist political options diminished.  The biological demise of the European peoples is gaining momentum, becoming one of the most important sources of fascistoid hysteria.  At the same time, we see the rise of technocratic utopias and apocalyptic consciousness: the myth of the omnipotence of science and technology, idea of the man‐cyborg, the idea of leaving the planet… Due to the global „balance of fear”, based on the nuclear arsenals of the USA and Russia, a new global war to revive the living potential of capitalism becomes impossible. The political stability and economic development in the East are becoming extremely important, as they prevent the increasing crises in the West from breeding a new fascist beast that could destroy the Slavic and Asian peoples. Political and social conditions are being created that could resolve the crises in the West by abolishing capitalism and creating a true socialist society.

The existential crisis is the basic precondition to the struggle for a new world.  Just as the Great War fully revealed the contradictions of capitalism and led to the existential crisis that caused the workers’ rebellion, directed by the Bolsheviks and leading to the creation of a socialist order, the existential crisis brought about by contemporary capitalism should be directed towards the creation of a communist society. Capitalism manages to alleviate, by way of technology, the immediate effect of the ecological destruction of the planet and to dampen the power of reasoning, marginalizing the existential issues through a consumer life style and the entertainment industry. The ever more dramatic consequences of capitalist destruction force man to develop his mind and his universal creative powers, since they are the only way to mitigate the consequences of capitalist destruction and create a humane world.

The struggle for the development of the mind is, actually, a political struggle, as it enables the development of libertarian humanism, which is at the heart of man’s refusal to come  to terms with the existing world and the source of a visionary consciousness. Similarly, capitalism creates the possibility of establishing a rebellious sociability. Increasingly difficult living conditions force people to leave their solitary hide‐outs and unite in the fight for survival. With capitalism threatening the survival of mankind and causing ever greater poverty, the increasingly serious ecological crisis could become the immediate cause of a socialist revolution. A severe accident in one of the nuclear power plants in Europe, as was the case in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, could trigger a revolutionary wave, which might mark the end of capitalism.

The increasing contamination of the environment; the ever wider social differences and the growing impoverishment of the working classes; the conversion of the state and other social institutions into the means for servicing private capitalist business interests; the alienation through privatization of the political sphere from the citizenry… – all this creates conditions for the development of a broad political movement with the possibility of overcoming traditional class divisions and class struggle and preventing a dilution of the struggle  against capitalism, a struggle that redirects this energy for potential change towards „ecological projects” in an attempt to lessen the deleterious consequences of capitalism and contribute to its „perfectioning”. The „anti‐globalist movement” is one of the potential forms of the struggle against capitalism. It has the potential to unite the global political forces and movements opposed to contemporary imperialism, with its genocidal and ecocidal character. At the same time, it could have a corrective effect on the development programs which are based on the destruction of nature and the development of a consumer mentality.

The most important result of the economic crisis of capitalism in 2008 is that the working class in the West has shown that it is still alive as a political force and that the struggle against workers as a potentially revolutionary force is still the primary concern of capitalists. The economic crisis of 2008 showed that class war in the most developed capitalist countries is not over and that, after a long futile experience of „consumer society”, the working class is still capable of doing away with capitalism and creating a new world.  In the light of new developments, it turns out that one of the most invalidating „oversights” of the Frankfurt philosophers was their dismissal of the working class as a possible agent of social change.

By becoming a destructive totalitarian order, capitalism „has overcome” both the principle of progress and the principle of social justice, making the principle of struggle paramount for the survival of humankind.  It is no longer about man being threatened just as a citizen and a worker, but also as a human and natural being. Capitalism has „transformed” the historical being of the working class in such a way that its main historical task is no longer to abolish class society and liberate workers from oppression, but now it is to prevent the destruction of life and save humankind from destruction. The struggle against capitalism as a destructive order should become the basis for the political integration of workers and their cooperation with the social movements fighting for the survival of life on the planet. Since the issue is global ecocide, there is a need for a global struggle against capitalism. It is the most efficient and most humane way in which humankind can become united. The struggle against capitalism enables the working class to „come of age” in every corner of the world and to become part of a global anti‐capitalist front. With capitalism becoming a worldwide destructive order, the distinction between center and periphery has become irrelevant. Every corner on this planet where the struggle against capitalism is being carried out has become the center of a global revolution.

Considering Marx’s notion of history, are the socialist revolutions that took place in the 20th century still historically legitimate? According to Marx, not every existential crisis of capitalism presents a historical an opening door for a socialist revolution; it is more likely to be that crisis that presents the productive (proprietary) relations developing as obstacles to the development of the productive forces with fully developed capitalist contradictions. Social conditions are neccesary but insufficient precursors to a revolution. Socialist revolution is possible only upon the creation of appropriate historical conditions. According to Marx, a possible socialist revolution in the Russian Empire would have had historical legitimacy solely if it had been the spark that ignited the fires of socialist revolutions in the most developed capitalist countries of Europe. In other words, it is only through the emancipatory legacy of the most developed capitalist countries, those brought to full expression by a socialist revolution, that a revolution in under developed capitalist countries could acquire the character of a socialist revolution.

In view of Marx’s notion of a socialist revolution, the Russian Empire in 1917 had none of the historical conditions for a socialist revolution, possessing only the historical conditions for a civil and anti‐colonial revolution and the social conditions for a workers’ and peasents’ uprising. In the Russian Empire, the existential crisis did not occur because productive relations had become an obstacle to the development of the productive forces, and, above all, because of the war. Instead of the capitalist contradictions reaching their full intensity in the economic crisis of capitalism due to a halt in the development of productive forces, these contradictions resulted from a general social crisis brought on by the war. The war, as the most lethal form of class exploitation of workers and peasents by capitalists, made  the class struggle so acute that it became a class war. The deaths of millions of workers and peasents, military defeats, poverty and mass starvation, brought about the existential crisis that led to a general upheaval of the peasents and workers, directed by the bolsheviks towards revolutionary changes. In the Russian Empire, swept by the storm of the First World War, there were no pertinent historical conditions, but there were existential conditions, and they created the political conditions for a socialist revolution.

The Russian Empire was not destroyed by the Bolsheviks. The October Revolution was not the cause but the consequence of the fall of the Russian Empire, just as the Munich Revolution was not the cause but the consequence of the fall of the German monarchy. The defeat in the war with Japan, just as the bourgeois Revolution of 1905 that was drenched in blood by the Romanovs, foreshadowed the collapse of the Russian Empire in the First World War and the bourgeois Revolution which broke out in February 1917. The Bolsheviks did not build the Soviet Union on the foundations of the Russian Empire, but on its rubble.

Since  for  Marx  the   most   important   criterion   for   determining   the  historical legitimacy of any order is whether it advances the development of the productive forces, the October Revolution has the utmost historical legitimacy. In the Russian Empire, capitalism did not develop autonomously. The Russian Empire was a Western colony, and its economic development depended on the economic expansion of the West. The anti‐colonial character of the October Revolution was of crucial importance since it enabled the independent development of the Soviet Union and, thus, the development of education, science, the economy, military and industry. It enabled the Soviet Union to go from being a backward agricultural country to being a developed industrial country. By relying exclusively on its own forces and in complete economic isolation, the Soviet Union, 20 years after the October Revolution, became the first scientific and the second economic power in the world. During the Second World War (in spite of over 25 million war dead) it was the strongest military power in the world, which destroyed over 75% of Nazi Germany’s military assets and captured Berlin.

With capitalism becoming a totalitarian destructive order, the October Revolution acquires a new dimension. If the historical development of humankind is viewed in an existential context, and bearing in mind that the development of capitalism is based on the destruction of nature and the entire human race, the October Revolution has a supreme historical legitimacy. Its most important quality is that it abolished capitalism and, with it, the colonial domination of Russia by the most developed capitalist powers. In Russia, as well as in other countries where workers’ revolutions broke out under its influence, the full development of the contradictions of capitalism was halted as an ecocidal and genocidal order, the capitalist destruction of the natural environment in Russia and of its population was stopped. Without the October Revolution and the Soviet Union’s economic, scientific and military potential, the Slavic (and Asian) peoples would have faced the same destiny in the 20th century that befell the original North American peoples in the 19th century. Hitler’s Drang nach Osten was but a continuation of the genocidal march by the capitalist West on the East, beginning in the second half of the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution in Germany, then with the First World War, and continued after the onset of the October Revolution.  The  western  interventionist  troops  in  WWI  did  not  „defend“  the  Russian Empire,  they  rather  used the uprising of the Bolsheviks as an excuse to deal with the creative potential of the Russian people (and, in that context, with the Russian bourgeoisie), in order to prevent Russia from becoming a power capable of opposing the West in the struggle for global domination. Ultimately, the interventionist countries did not seek to preserve the Russian state, but rather to divide it into protectorates, just as they have done in China, in the Arab world, in Africa, Central and South America, and in the Balkans. The relation of the West towards Russia was based on the ruling principle of monopoly capitalism „Destroy the competition!“, as it had an ecocidal and genocidal nature. The same can be seen today. The West supports only those political powers in Russia which seek to turn Russia into  a  colony of the most powerful  capitalist corporations in the West, those whose intention is to destroy the biological, creative and libertarian potential of the Russian people.

As far as the humanist legitimacy of the October Revolution is concerned, the Revolution enabled free education for all, resulting in the eradication of illiteracy, which, at that time, afflicted over 80% of the population; universal free healthcare; full employment, the eight‐hour work day and the humanization of working conditions; equal value to male and female work (something still non‐existent in the most developed capitalist countries); sufferage and other political and civil rights for women; free housing…  Most importantly, child labor, which in the Russian Empire as in the West, was exploited up to 14 hours a day, was also abolished. During the industrialization of England, the USA, France, the Russian Empire and other capitalist countries, tens of millions of children died in factories and mines from exhaustion, illness and starvation. As far as the humanist legitimacy of bourgeois revolutions is concerned, the French still celebrate the French Bourgeois Revolution today, although the number of its fatalities far exceeds (in percentage) that of the October Revolution, with over 36 000 members of the French aristocracy being  publicly guillotines! And what about the First World War, provoked by capitalists in order to „overcome” the economic crisis of capitalism, in which over 20 million workers and peasants were killed, with the same number wounded; in which millions of children died of starvation and diseases, and whose direct consequence was the „Spanish fever” causing the deaths of over 20 million people? Is this not the crime of capitalists? Another humanist characteristic of the October Revolution was the fact that it pulled the Russian people out of the slaughterhouse of the First World War and, thus, prevented the deaths of millions of people.

In the 1930s, Leon Trotsky, commander of the Red Army, published the book The Revolution Betrayed, in which he questioned the socialist character of the post‐revolutionary Soviet Union for having departed from the revolutionary ideals of the October Revolution. Trotsky does not question the historicity of the Revolution, and he deals with the political voluntarism of the Party leadership that led to the perversion of ideals and compromised the goals of the Revolution. The October Revolution, according to Trotsky, had historical legitimacy as a socialist revolution because it was a mass workers’ revolution, while in the post‐revolutionary period the goals of the Revolution became distorted by the Party leadership’s seizing the power that the workers had won in the Revolution and becoming a power alienated from the workers. Trotsky does not understand that the nature of the Revolution conditioned the nature of post‐revolutionary developments. It does not mean that there were no alternative political ideas, only that there were no political forces strong enough to redirect the course of events. The Kronstadt rebellion is a typical example. By viewing the event through an ahistorical lens, some theorists oppose a revolutionary romanticism to the voluntarism of the Party leaders and turn the Soviet working class at the beginning of the 20th century into a mythological power that embodies not ony the emancipatory  legacy  of  the  workers’  class struggle in the most developed capitalist countries, but also the humanist ideals set forth by Marx as the guiding idea for the workers’ movement. According to these ideal, by being able militarily to defeat the bourgeoisie (and the interventionist Western powers), the workers and peasents were able to create a socialist society. Actually, the seizure of power by the workers was only a first step toward the development of the socialist society that was supposed to eventuate from the socialist revolution.

The „Cult of the Party” and the „Cult of the Leader”, which were created during the Revolution, were possible because there were no historical conditions for a true socialist revolution. There was a revolutionary Party, but there was no revolutionary working class. The uprising of the workers and peasents started from „below”, but the Revolution started from „above”. The fanaticism of revolutionary voluntarism was based on the human endeavours needed to bridge the gap dividing a backward Russian Empire from the developed industrial West. Lenin maintains that: „Socialism is electrification plus industrialisation!”. The reality of the undeveloped Russian Empire, devastated by the First World War and then the civil war, had to be „adjusted” to the historical conditions neccesary for a socialist society to be created (and to survive). Socialism in the Soviet Union did not occur at the peak of the development of capitalism or as a product of a historical, and in that context, a general social development; it was rather a politically founded „project” that was to be realized by the Party. The Party leaders literally acquired the status of „social engineers” whose task was to „build socialism” in the Soviet Union, while the „working masses” became the means to that end. One of the most important of Lenin’s theses from that period was that of „taking from capitalism everything that enables the development of socialism”. The mechanicistic nature of this way of thinking indicates the ahistorical nature of the „building of socialism” in the Soviet Union. The voluntarism of the Party leaders, instrumentalised in the apparatus of the state, was primarily conditioned by the fact that capitalism was not eradicated  by  the  Revolution.  The  struggle  against  the  restoration  of  capitalism  was a strategic point of reference for the ruling order up until its downfall.

The ruling order in the Soviet Union had historical legitimacy only until productive forces were sufficiently developed. When state ownership became the chief obstacle to economic development, it became a burden. Instead of a „corrective” socialist revolution, where the workers would seize power from the corrupt bureaucracy and then directly take over production and the overall processes of social reproduction, those with executive power carried out a coup d’Etat that restored capitalism and turned the Soviet Union into the colony of the most powerful capitalist countries in the West. What Nazi Germany failed to do was acomplished by the „red bourgeoisie” embodied in the corrupt and alienated leaders of the Communist Party. Instead of growing the productive forces, the newly established private ownership led to widespread plundering and the economic, scientific, ecological and biological downfall of the former republics of the Soviet Union. The destruction of the Soviet Union and the „introduction” of capitalism without a mass opposition by the working class was possible because, on the one hand, the ruling political structure was entirely aliented from the workers and had unchallenged power, while, on the other hand, workers in the Soviet Union as abstract „citizens” lost their class authenticity and, thus, their ability to have a say in the life of the country as an organized political force. The disintegration of the Soviet Union by the „red bourgeoisie” marked, in fact, the ultimate defeat of the Soviet working class – a defeat from which it has not yet managed to recover. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, along with the dissolution of Yugoslavia, were the final phase in the destruction of the emancipatory potential of the socialist movement and the establishment of a capitalist dictatorship over workers.

In spite of ever more radical demands for change, the growing existential crisis created by capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order, more and more dramatically destroys any humanist vision of the future. Everybody is drawing a sword. Some intent to kill, some in self‐defence. Instead of essence, existence is becoming an unquestionable imperative. The ruling capitalist corporations in the West brought humankind to the brink of the abyss, and the struggle for survival is being carried out on the edge of a cliff.  Those who are the weakest will be the first to fall into the void and perish forever. That is the main reason why in Russia, despite the crimes of the Stalinist regime, the „Cult of Stalin” is being revived. The ever deeper crisis of the West and the increasingly aggressive policies based on it, aimed at destroying billions of „surplus” people and seizing foreign territories, has caused Russia to attach great importance to the historical figures who managed to build its economic, scientific and military power and to oppose the West. Stalin is a symbol of victory, which, above all, is a symbol of the existential power of the Russian people, and this is what makes him popular. The same goes for Lenin. His popularity in Russia, as well as in those countries fighting against contemporary imperialism, is based not only on a social (class) character, but, even more, on the anti‐colonial nature of the October Revolution and the foundations of the economic, scientific and military power established by it. When the Russian Empire is being commended, the periods referred to are mostly those of state formation. In that context, Peter the Great acquires substantial importance.

One of the most important ideas from The Manifesto of the Communist Party called into question by contemporary capitalism is that of capitalism’s being a „revolutionary“ order and, consequently, the bourgeoisie’s being is a „revolutionary“ class. According to Marx, the main historical „task“ of the bourgeoisie is to enable man to gain control over natural laws and thereby free himself from his dependency on nature and exhausting physical  labor,  so as  to enable  him  to  develop  his  universal  creative  powers.  The „revolutionary role“ of the bourgeoisie is to create conditions for a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom“ (Engels). This is the main reason why Marx attaches primary importance to the development of productive forces. At the same time, the bourgeoisie is an exploiting class that becomes reactionary when capitalist private ownership starts to hinder the development of the productive forces. That is the right moment for a socialist revolution.

For Marx, the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is dialectical. The bourgeoisie produces the proletariat as its antipode: the nature of the bourgeoisie conditions the nature of the proletariat. According to Marx, the revolutionary character of capitalism, which, above all, strives for the abolishment of man’s dependency on nature through the capitalist development of productive forces, offers workers the possibility of a revolutionary transformation of society. The conquered natural elements open the possibility of establishing a form of labor that will enable man to realize his creative powers and a social order that will put an end to man’s exploitation by others. For Marx, the most important  task of  the  working  class  is  to  liberate  humankind  from  inhuman  living conditions and the class order. It is clearly stated in Marx’s „categorical imperative”: „ … to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being…” In The Holy Family, Marx writes: „When socialist writers ascribe this historic role to the proletariat, it is not, as critical criticism would have one think, because they consider the proletarians to be gods. Quite the contrary. Since the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete in the fully‐formed proletariat; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman and acute form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through the no longer removable,  no longer disguisable,  absolutely  imperative need—the  practical  expression of necessity—is  driven directly  to  revolt  against  that  inhumanity:  it  follows  that  the proletariat  can  and  must free  itself.  But  it  cannot  free  itself  without  abolishing  the conditions  of  its  own  life. It cannot  abolish  the  conditions  of  its  own  life  without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation.” (26)

Marx points out „social” and „historical” causes that provoke workers to initiate the struggle against capitalism. Paramount among these are the immediate existential (economic) threat, the ruthless exploitation, the inhuman working and living conditions that jeopardize workers’ health,  the  humiliation  to  which  they  are  regularly  subjected… Ecological conditions do not count as the proletariat’s „living conditions”. The proletariat will not be „historically compelled” to stop the destruction of life on the planet and save humankind from obliteration. If Marx had regarded capitalism as an order that threatens nature and man as a human and natural being, then the awareness of the need to preserve life on the planet would have been the basis for shaping the workers’ class consciousness and a signpost in the struggle against capitalism. Marx does not mention capitalism’s destructive relation to nature as a possible precondition for a socialist revolution. His view of  capitalism as a „revolutionary  order”  that  marks  the  end  of  the  „pre‐history“  of humankind and the creation of the „material conditions” for a new society (just like Engels’ view that capitalism creates the possibilities for a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”) indicates his relation to capitalism. Marx’s „categorical imperative”, which is the basis for the formation of workers’ class(self)‐consciousness and as such is the supreme political principle, does not imply the ecocidal nature of capitalism and does not seek to develop in workers an emancipated (belligerent) ecological consciousness. Marx withheld the most important aspect of the workers’ class‐consciousness: the true that capitalism  is  a destructive  order  and  that  capitalist  class  domination  has  an  ecocidal character. According to Marx, capitalism reaches its end primarily by causing the economic crisis that occurs because of the productive relations (private ownership) becoming an obstacle to further growth of the productive forces, and not by the development of any processes that are detrimental to nature and man. The starting point in the struggle against capitalism is not its (potentially) destructive character, because the only force that will bring man to struggle is an immediate threat to his survival. These Marxian views are imbued with political realism. However, Marx’s indication that capitalism exhausts the soil and thus jeopardizes the survival of future generations (humankind) leads to the conclusion that, instead of „waiting” for the productive forces to come into conflict with the productive (proprietary) relations, workers should be moved to start a decisive fight against capitalism by the increasingly dramatic destruction of nature.

The capitalism’s development as an ecocidal order leads to society’s increasing fragmentation, not only along the lines of wealth but also as to the accessibility to protection against more and more lethal climate changes, the pollution of food, water, air… Class divisions within a society have long been defined by natural living conditions and the possibilities for protection against the consequences of environmental degradation. Those most  affected  are  on  the  lowest  rung  of  the  social  ladder  and  on  the  margins of „globalization”.  Workers  and  their  children  are  more  directly  impacted  by  both  the economic  crises  of  capitalism  and  global  ecological  degradation.  Indeed,  in  his  Early Writings, Marx indicates that contaminated water and air have become the workers’ way of life, but he has in mind the daily existence of workers in factories and mines, as well as in the apartment blocks built in the immediate vicinity of industrial and mining sites, and not the planet‐wide ecological pauperism brought about by the obliteration of nature as a life‐ generating whole and the production of a technical world.

Capitalism has a more and more dilatory effect on life, while it produces technical means  by  which  capitalists  and  the  bourgeois  class,  as  the  cornerstone  of  „consumer society”, can create artificial living conditions and thus (temporarily) avoid the immediate injuries of an ever more deadly environmental degradation. In addition, the owners have the privilege to consume food and water that are not as polluted as the food and water consumed by the „masses“; to move from one „exclusive” place to another whenever it suits them; to use special medications and health treatments; to replace organs if necessary; to ensure „immortality” by having their bodies frozen after death until the invention of technical means to „revive” them; etc. Marx’s view that in the struggle against capitalism „the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains” and „they have a world to win” indicates workers’ existential deprivation. In a „consumer society”, workers can lose a degenerated and destructive quality of life and, likewise, the destructor’s role capitalism compels them to assume. Workers should fight against capitalism because they could lose something of vital importance: a world which makes life possible and, consequently, their own lives, the lives of their children, of their friends, of their nation, of all humankind… The working class can no longer be merely a libertarian class; it must become a life‐creating class. Man’s becoming a totalizing libertarian and life‐creating being is the only possible existential and essential alternative to this destructive capitalist totalization of the world. The life‐ creating principle should become the engine of revolutionary practice. This conditions the nature of the contemporary socialist revolution. It does not appear merely in the essential, but, more importantly, in the existential sphere.

In The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx writes about a possible „perishing of classes” as the final result of the conflict between capitalists and workers. Does this mean that there is a possibility of the mutual extermination of classes and of humankind’s fall into a „long period of barbarism“ (Marx)? Here also Marx does not see the destructive potency of capitalism. The nature of the capitalist class is conditioned by the nature of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. In view of that, every historical analogy with the current perishing of classes is out of place. Barbarism gave birth to civilization, while capitalistically conditioned barbarism threatens the very survival the life on Earth. Marx overlooks the fact that, in its essence, capitalism is an ecocidal barbarism, which has a technical form, and that capitalists are ecocidal barbarians.

The crisis of today’s world is likewise a crisis of the proletariat as a revolutionary agent. In considering the current state of the working class in the developed capitalist countries, the ideologues of capitalism seek to „redefine” the nature of the working class by depriving it of its class‐consciousness, which in contemporary terms implies not only a libertarian but also an existential self‐consciousness. The conformist behavior of a large part of the working class in the developed capitalist countries is not the result of the „disappearance of the working class”, but rather of the workers’ integration into capitalism as the working‐consuming „mass” and a systematic analysis by the bourgeoisie of the workers’ class organization, class struggle and class‐consciousness. Workers’ conformism is not a self‐propelled process with a fatalistic character; it is the consequence of bourgeois class domination. The fact that capitalists make enormous efforts to keep workers in capitalism’s ideological „bell jar“, while at the same time doing away with socialist (communist) theories that call for a struggle against capitalism and offer the possibility of a humane world, indicates that this is not the workers’ final integration into the capitalist order, but only a temporary situation. Capitalism’s propaganda machinery seeks to hide the most important point: a fear of workers as a potential revolutionary factor has always been a distinctive characteristic of capitalist political practice.

As far as the contemporary workers’ movement is concerned, Fredrick Jameson argues that Marx’s Capital „is not a book on workers, but on unemployment. Capital, ultimately, shows how capitalism produces the so‐called reserve army of labor, how the very structure of capitalism produces unemployment. I think that this aspect of Capital has not been properly considered, and today it is of utmost importance. It is related to technology, investment in technology that reduces the number of the employed, and it is one of the lessons from Capital that we should learn. Today, when the workers’ movement has weakened, the key question is not how to organize workers, but how to organize the unemployed – there lies the possibility of a global change.“ (27) Capitalists have long managed to divide labor into „blue‐collar” and „white‐collar” workers, and turn the latter into  their „allies“ in the capitalist struggle for survival.  Jameson’s  idea  creates  new categories of workers – the „employed” and the „unemployed”, where only the former are of use to the capitalists. A genuine class organization  of  workers  involves  their  overall organization regardless of whether they are employed or unemployed. Moreover, the jobs of those who are employed are not guaranteed: all workers suffer from existential uncertainty. They  are  reduced  to  a  commodity  on  the labor  market,  and  this  is  what  defines  their concrete social position and existence. Notably, Jameson also does not speak of the ecocidal nature of capitalism nor of the consequent awareness of the importance of the struggle for the survival of life on the planet as the most important segment of the workers’ class‐ consciousness. Jameson claims that the „very structure of capitalism produces solutions for the problems it encounters, which then create new problems that are to be solved, as part of the dynamic movement of capitalism, itself“. (28) This thesis makes concrete historical sense only if we don’t ignore the fact that capitalism has become a totalitarian destructive order. Tendencies of the development of the contemporary world indicate that capitalism can „solve” the problems it creates only by abolishing elementary human and civil rights, the uppermost being the right to life. The concept of the „golden billion”, according to which a majority of humankind is to be eliminated so that the „elite” population in economically advanced capitalist countries can survive, indicates the way in which the „structure of capitalism produces solutions” for the problems it creates. The „dynamic movement of capitalism” is actually its dynamic charge toward the obliteration of global life.

The expression „oppressed” (like the Negri’s „multitudes”, Reich’s „little man”, Standing’s „precariat”, to cite just a few) dilutes the concept of the working class, as well as ideas like class‐consciousness, class organization, class struggle and socialist revolution. Those expressions are the result of the proletariat’s degenerated class‐consciousness and the endeavor to delude the working class into conforming to contemporary capitalism. The social theory developed by Marcuse, along with Adorno and Horkheimer, is typical of how a critique of capitalism that neglects the working class loses its concrete historical and changing potential and becomes a politically sterile theory. The fact that the industrial („traditional”) proletariat is diminishing in size does not change the essence of classes and class struggles; the change is only in the forms of struggle for acquiring and developing workers’ class‐consciousness, as well as the forms of struggle against capitalism. The propaganda of the right persistently tries to abolish the terms „capitalists” and „workers” (imposing on the public the terms „employers” and „employees”) in order to destroy the workers’ class‐consciousness and thus deprive the only potential force that can abolish capitalism and create a humane world of its leadership. The expression „oppressed” is close in meaning to the term „despised” from „The Internationale“, and it is used by Marx and by Marxist theoreticians; they are, however, aware of the essential difference between „the oppressed” and „the working class”. The term „oppressed” has a historical and political justification only if the working class is a central and unifying category. In addition, to insist on „the working class” also means to insist on the emancipatory legacy of workers’ uprisings and revolutions, which is of utmost importance for the development of workers’ historical self‐consciousness, without  which  there  is  no  genuine  socialist  revolution.  „Multitude”, „precariat” and similar expressions deprive the working class of its historical (self)consciousness and revolutionary legacy. The bloodstained banner of freedom was held up in 1886 by workers from Chicago and not by the „oppressed”. The same goes for Heine’s „Silesian weaver” and Svetozar Markovic’s „working man”.

The question of the working class is the central concern in Marx’s dialectics of history as his analysis is founded on labor as the basic means through which man earns a living, liberates himself from his dependency on nature and develops his creative powers. In other  words, the  working  class  is  a  specific  group  of  the  oppressed  and,  as  such,  is  a concrete historical antipode to the capitalist class. It is a class that creates social wealth through labor and thus becomes capable of gaining control of the means of production and governing social life. To proclaim students, women, immigrants, and others deprived of their rights, to be potential agents of a socialist revolution is not only a „technical consideration“, it substantially changes Marx’s concept of revolution. The working class, according to Marx, does not enter the political scene under capitalism. It is created by capitalism as its antipode and, from the class in itself, becomes a class for itself on the basis of the development of the productive forces and a long and strenuous historical fight for workers’ civil and human rights. In the course of that struggle, the working class became capable of fulfilling its historical task: the abolishment of capitalism and the liberation of humankind from oppression by taking control of the entire process of social reproduction. It is no accident that Marx sees the authentic and single possible space for a genuine socialist revolution in advanced capitalist societies.

For Marx, the workers’ relation to nature is mediated by the fall in the rate of profit and  wages,  that  is,  by  their  economic  impoverishment  due  to  the  very  nature  of  the capitalist mode of production, an inevitability. In his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx argues that „the worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces”, i.e., „the worker becomes an ever‐cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces”. Under developed capitalism, an increase in the workers’ purchasing power has become conditio sine qua non for the survival of capitalism. One of the most distinctive features of contemporary capitalism is not the economic impoverishment of the proletariat, but the proletariat’s participation in the development of „consumer society“. „Consumer society” is a way of resolving the crisis of hyper‐production by absorbing workers into the sphere of destructive capital reproduction. Turning the working class into members of the „middle class“  by  way  of  a  higher  consumer  standard  is,  actually,  the  way  in  which capitalism absorbs workers into its existential and value orbit, making them its accomplices in the destruction of nature and humankind. Workers are not integrated into capitalism through their participation in the ownership of the means of production, but by being included in the destructive  mechanism  of  capitalist  production  and  the  destructive mechanism  of consumption. Turning workers into „consumers” is one of the most lethal characteristics of contemporary  capitalism,  which  called  into  question  Marx’s  vision  of the  future  of capitalism and the idea of a socialist revolution. A majority of the working class in advanced capitalist countries has become part of the generation that has destroyed the environment to such an extent that it is highly doubtful whether humankind will ever be able to reset the global ecological balance, without which it is destined for disaster.

According to Marx, workers create social wealth by their labor, the exploitation of which gives them the moral right to fight against the ruling order. As capitalism becomes a totalitarian destructive order, the basis for determining workers’ class affiliation and their social position is no longer their labor’s role in the creation of social wealth, but the role of the capitalists’ efforts that bring about the destruction of nature and man. Workers are provided with their immediate livelihoods in the form of wages paid for their destroying the foundations of humankind’s survival. Production has turned into the destruction of nature and man, with workers turned into consumers who, by destroying commodities, create a new space in the market and accelerate the process of capital accumulation. This is the political essence of „consumer society”: transformation of workers from a potentially revolutionary force to a destructive force. Instead of increasing, by virtue of labor, the likelihood of humankind’s survival and expanding the horizons of freedom, man produces capitalism, which means that he produces the destruction of life. The fact that workers, out of necessity, hire themselves out to the capitalist does not absolve them of the responsibility for their contribution to the destruction of the planet. Without a struggle against capitalism, fighting to secure a job and increase one’s wages is actually a fight to destroy the world.

A „realistic“ political platform is not based on what should motivate workers, but on what will mobilize workers to fight against capitalism. And that is the realization of an immediate existential threat. Capitalism, however, uses technical modalities to alleviate the effects  of ecological  changes,  degenerates  man  and  absorbs  him  into  its  living  and ideological  orbit   and   thus   stops   him   from   confronting   the   lethal   consequences   of capitalism’s development – and this is the greatest threat to humanity’s survival. At the same time, capitalism mediates between man and the world and marginalizes destructive processes through a „welfare state”, a consumer way of life, an entertainment industry, etc… Man will immediately and completely feel the consequences of the capitalist annihilation of nature only when it is no longer possible to prevent a global disaster. 

If the concept of capitalism as a destructive order had become an integral part of workers’ class‐consciousness when the European working class emerged and started to develop its political consciousness, would modern history have taken a different course? Would capitalism, in that case, have managed to integrate workers into its existential and ideological orbit by turning them into a vehicle for obliterating both nature and man?

The critique of capitalism should be based on two methodological postulates. First: the nature of a certain social (historical) phenomenon is determined by the tendencies of its development – of what it is developing into. Second: the nature of a social (historical) phenomenon conditions the nature of its critique. The nature of capitalism, that is, the tendency of its development as a destructive system, conditions both the nature of the critique of capitalism and the political strategy for the fight against capitalism. This is not to suggest the creation of a uniform way of thinking, but a way of thinking that endeavors to ask questions of an existential and essential nature. Such a way of thinking represents a contraposition to the ruling ideology, manifested in the „Coca‐Cola culture” that tends to marginalize the essential in order to assign a spectacular dimension to the marginal.

A concrete critique of capitalism cannot be based solely upon essential humanism; it must also be based upon existential humanism. The ideals of the French Revolution ‐ Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ‐ present a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the future. The struggle to preserve life on the planet and increase the certainty of man’s survival as a cultural (social) and biological (natural) being represents a conditio sine qua non of the struggle for the future. Instead of the Marx’s notion of „alienation” (Entfremdung), the key notion in the critique of capitalism should be destruction. Marx’s revolutionary humanism opposes capitalism as a system of non‐freedom, injustice, and non‐reason, and advocates freedom, social justice, and a reasonable world, which means that it appears in the essential sphere. Existential humanism emerges in relation to capitalism as a destructive order that annihilates nature and man as a biological and human being – and places the struggle for the survival of the living world in the foreground, which means that it appears in the existential sphere. The affirmation of man as a creative and libertarian being is a response to the world where man is alienated from himself as a creative and libertarian being. The assertion that man is a life‐creating being is a response to the world based upon the destruction of life: the struggle for freedom becomes the struggle for survival. The struggle for a reasonable world does not only represent an essential, but also an existential challenge. At the same time, Hegel’s (Marx’s) dialectic can be accepted only conditionally as the starting point for the development of a critique of capitalism, for its (historical) pyramid of freedom is founded upon existential certainty.

The „traditional” Marxist critique of capitalism, from the point of view of what‐is‐ yet‐to‐be (Bloch’s noch‐nicht‐Sein), is of an abstract nature. The concrete nature of the capitalist  positive   also   conditions   the   nature   of   the   negative,   which   is   a  critical consciousness and a political practice based on it. Contemporary man cannot attain an appropriate historical self‐consciousness starting from an absolutized and idealized anthropological model of man as a universal creative being of freedom, but only by starting from the existential challenges that capitalism, as a destructive system, poses to man. Man’s becoming a human being (what he, in his essence, is – a totalizing libertarian, creative and life‐creating being) and the world’s becoming a human world is conditioned by capitalism’s becoming capitalism (that is, its turning into what it essentially is – a totalitarian destructive order). A concrete future cannot be grounded in what man desires to do based on his own authentic human needs, but only in what man must do if humankind is to survive. The essential level of the future is directly conditioned by existential challenges. The development of capitalism has further diminished the chances for the future to be the product of man’s free (visionary) creative practice (Bloch’s „openness“), which is in turn conditioned by consequences generated by capitalism as a destructive order. Objective possibilities for the creation of a new world and the possibility of man’s realization as a universal free creative being are conditioned by the developmental capacities of capitalism as a destructive order. This is the basis for a concrete dialectic of the future. A destroyed nature, a mutilated man, the accumulated destructive powers of capitalism that could momentarily destroy humankind – this also represents an objective situation that inevitably conditions the probability of the future and its planning. It is not man who assigns to himself tasks that, as Marx asserts, he can complete, it is capitalism that imposes a crucial task on man: to preserve life on the planet and to save humankind from destruction. To meet the challenge of the historical task imposed on man by capitalism means to face up to capitalism as an order that destroys life.

The capitalist destruction of nature and man as a biological and human being has not had a significant influence on the development of the left‐wing critique of capitalism, the formation of the proletariat’s class‐consciousness and socialist revolutions. An analysis of capitalism as a destructive order cannot be found in Marxist theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Engels’ view that capitalism creates the possibility for а „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom” suggests a radical break with capitalism, but it overlooks the fact that humanity’s future is directly conditioned by the destructive consequences of capitalism. Bloch’s theory clearly shows the limitations of the Marxist critique of capitalism. It repeatedly associates utopia with „happiness”, „dignity”… Utopia appears essentially opposed to capitalism. When Bloch writes about capitalistically produced „objective possibilities” for the creation of a new world, he has in mind the development of productive forces, but he does not consider the consequences of these productive forces on the environment and man or the potential threats to the survival of man and the living world posed by capitalist technique. His theory is also based on existential apriorism: capitalism is the order of non‐freedom, not the order of destruction. Even in Lukacs (History and Class Consciousness), workers’ class‐consciousness does not include the consciousness of capitalism as a destructive order, so, consequently, workers’ self‐consciousness does not involve the consciousness of the need to fight for the survival of nature and humanity. Adorno’s Negative Dialectics takes up the existing (capitalist) world as a world of non‐ freedom and injustice and not as a world of destruction. This conditions the nature of the „negative”, meaning a critical and changing relation to the existing world, as well as the idea of the future. Even in his later works (published in the West in 1970, and in Serbia in 1978, under the title The Criteria of Time), Marcuse does not write about the destructive nature of capitalism; about the consciousness of the destructive nature of capitalism as an integral part   of   contemporary  revolutionary   consciousness;   about   a   possible   integration   of humanity based on the efforts to stop the destruction of global life… Instead of the destruction of nature, what is emphasized is its „impoverishment” and the need for its cultivation through a cultivation of senses. The main motives for fighting against capitalism are liberation from oppression, women’s emancipation, the establishment of creative work… A strategic target in the fight against capitalism is discerned primarily in its oppressive and not its ecocidal character.  The revolutionary and post‐revolutionary thought in the USSR is dominated by the principle of absolutized productivity („Stakhanovism”), whereas possible global destruction is never discussed. The Yugoslav Praxis philosophy is also not concerned with the development of capitalism as a destructive order, and its relation to capitalism is primarily founded on Marx’s critique and the concept of „alienation”. Its vision of the future, based  on  the  idea  that  man is  a  universal  creative  being  of  freedom,  has  an  abstract character since it does not consider capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. Praxis philosophy is dominated by Hegel’s dialectics, which involves existential certainty and an open  future.  The  capitalist destruction  of  nature  is  not  of  primary  importance,  with emphasis being put on the finite amount of natural resources. The questions asked are essential and not existential. Kangrga’s „speculation”, which amounts to searching for the meaning of life regardless of the trends in the development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction and the lethal consequences of capitalism is a typical example of the abstract relationship of Praxis philosophy to the future. It is no accident that its adherents are not concerned with a critique of sport, which embodies the underlying principles of capitalism and, as such, is an industry of death. At the political level, the Praxis critique is primarily aimed not at capitalism, but at Stalinism and the USSR. This is the main reason why the West held its doors wide open to the Praxis philosophers. Considering that the development of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order remained outside the reach of their critique, it can be said that Praxis philosophy remained historically marginalized.

As far as Antonio Negri is concerned, his view clearly illustrates the essence of his thought: „We cannot return to any other social form, nor can we proceed towards isolation. On the contrary, we must push our way through the Empire in order to reach the other side. Deleuze and Guattari claimed that we must accelerate the process of the globalization of capital and not oppose it. ‘But which,’ they asked, ‘is the revolutionary road? Does it exist? To withdraw from the world market…? Or, perhaps, to take the opposite direction? To go even further, that is, with the market movement, decoding and deterritorialization?’ The Empire can successfully be opposed only at its level of generalization and by pushing the processes it offers beyond their current limits. We must accept that challenge and learn to think globally and act globally. Globalization must be opposed by counter‐globalization, the Empire by counter‐Empire.” (24) What are the „processes” offered by the „Empire” that should be „pushed”, what are their „current limits”, and what is there beyond „their current limits”? Here, Negri comes close to Marx’s view that with the development of capitalism, its inner limitations will force it to self‐destruct. Negri overlooks the most important point: that capitalism has become a totalitarian destructive order and that the „Empire” is developing in a  way  that  is  detrimental  to  man  as  a  human  and  biological  being,  to  the  climate conditions in which man can survive, and to the living world. Keeping in view the fact that capitalism has become a totalitarian ecocidal and genocidal order, to insist on bringing globalism to its full completion through the development of capitalism actually means to insist on accepting the destruction of humanity and the living world. The „Empire” is not a tunnel at the end of which shines the star of freedom.  It is rather a cave where the dazzling artificial light of „consumer society” blinds man and prevents him from realizing that there is no way out of the cave. To bring the capitalist contradictions to their completion means to bring life on the planet to an end. The end of globalism does not only correspond with the „end of history”, but also with the end of humankind.

By  becoming  a  global  order  of  destruction,  capitalism  has  created  a  global existential crisis. The West used to be synonymous with the „capitalist world”. Today, there are global centers of economic power that threaten Western domination as they conquer the world markets by increasingly destroying nature and man as a human and biological being. In the increasingly ruthless struggle for survival and domination, capitalist concerns destroy the foundations of humanity’s future. We should again point out the fatal illusion that humanity can, as Negri claims, create a new world by following the path of capitalist globalism. Only by fighting against capitalism can the emancipatory legacy of civil society be preserved; by saving the germ of a novum from which a new society can grow. At the same time,  it  is  only by  fighting  against  capitalism  that  global  destruction  can  be prevented. Capitalistically degenerated humankind cannot create a new world on burned down forests, hopelessly contaminated soil, polluted rivers and seas, nuclear waste dumps, in a scorching Sun…

The increasingly dramatic development of capitalism as a destructive order contradicts Marcuse’s view, expressed in his talks with Enzensberger (which is, in a way, Marcuse’s political testament), that we should opt for „educational” and „defensive” tactics in the struggle against capitalism. Marcuse appeals to the „best formula” of Rudi Dutschke: „ …  a  long   march   through   the   institutions   is   recommendable   both   beforehand  and afterwards”. The development of capitalism proved both Dutschke and Marcuse wrong: the institutions of bourgeois society have become the means by which capitalist corporations realize their ecocidal and, on that basis, genocidal policies. Instead of a further radicalization of the critical and changing relationship to capitalism as an order with increasingly harmful consequences for life on the planet, Marcuse’s (like Horkheimer’s, Adorno’s and Habermas’) political thought contributed to an „abatement” and pacification of the struggle against capitalism. The „long march through the institutions” based on the notion that „capitalism should be changed from within”, has become one of the ways of sterilizing the struggle against capitalism and „purchasing time” for capitalist concerns, which brought the world to the edge of the abyss. The members of the Frankfurt School robbed Marx’s thought of its revolutionary substance. Marx’s thought was transposed from the sphere of a class struggle to the sphere of a theoretical analysis of capitalism, which blunted its critical and changing edge. Instead of being revolutionary, dialectics has become an analytical method.

Rather   than   developing   workers’   class‐consciousness,   the   members   of   the Frankfurt School, hovering in a political vacuum, depart from the „fact” that the working’ class in the „advanced industrial society” has not become a revolutionary force. They helped to create the misconception that the conformist behavior of the working class in the developed capitalist countries ‐ rather than being the product of the class domination of the bourgeoisie, which managed, through the „consumer” way of living, to pull workers into the capitalist spiritual sphere (contemporary „bourgeoising of the proletariat”/Reich) – is the final integration of workers into the capitalist order. Instead of fighting to liberate workers from their spiritual slavery and thus revealing the true character of contemporary forms of class subordination, they  throw  workers  on  history’s  political  garbage  heap,  turning concrete political (class) issues into theoretical issues. That is the context of Marcuse’s claim that Marx’s proletariat in developed industrial society has become a „mythological idea”. Indeed, by „burying” the working class as a potentially revolutionary agent of social change, the members of the Frankfurt School reduced the future to a mythological idea. A deadly fear of workers has always been the basis of the bourgeois political practice. The most important strategic goal of bourgeois political activity is to deal with workers’ class‐consciousness and to prevent their political organization and political struggle. Hence the most important task of the ideological sphere of capitalism, with the entertainment industry in the forefront, is workers’   de‐politicization.   Workers’   de‐politicization   and   their   integration   into   the capitalist order is not only carried out by way of the ideological sphere, but also by way of their „consumer” life‐style, which is completely within the function of the increasingly fast pace of capitalist reproduction and which deprives man of his reason and thus his critical, changing and visionary consciousness. It can therefore be concluded that the critique of capitalism proposed by the members of the Frankfurt School is not conditioned by the nature of capitalism, but that the „nature of capitalism” is adjusted to a political conception which,  ultimately,   amounts   to   dealing   with   workers’   class struggle   and   to   the „humanization” of capitalism.

The political theory of Oskar Lafontaine illustrates the adjustment of the critique of capitalism to the fight for power in the political arena of contemporary capitalism, dominated by a petty‐bourgeois consciousness based on conformism. (25) Instead of advocating the fight against capitalism as an appropriate response to the capitalist destruction of life and man as a human and natural being, Lafontaine appeals to the abstract citizen and offers him „reasonable” solutions, originating in the propaganda floscule that „German social democracy is based on the Enlightenment”. Political struggle, which is not only a struggle for freedom but also for survival, is replaced by the effort to make the (petty)bourgeois „reasonable” with a rational alternative to the established „progress”. Behind this approach lies the political strategy of social democracy that, in its fight for votes, tries to reassure the dominant petty bourgeois consciousness, which is not ready for a radical political struggle but can only jeopardize the „stability” of the ruling order and, thus, the achieved consumer standards as its unquestionable life and value challenge. His critique of capitalism lacks dramatic overtones indicating the true nature of capitalism as a destructive order – which calls for a radical confrontation with capitalism. In that context, Lafontaine’s struggle against capitalism excludes the struggle against capitalists, that is, any class struggle. At the same time, his books selectively deal with social phenomena, while intentionally avoiding the questions that cannot be properly answered without irritating the vast majority of the public.

The Revolution of Hope by Erich Fromm is a typical example of how the nature of capitalism can be subjected to such a political project that involves man’s renouncing the fight that could result in toppling the capitalist order. Rather than developing people’s consciousness about the destructive nature of capitalism and the necessity to fight against it in order to preserve life on the planet, Fromm insists that man’s goodness will lead to the „humanization of technology” and, thus, to the humanization of life. Like Marcuse, he also „threatens” humanity with fascism should it start a radical struggle against capitalism. Fromm’s Тhe Revolution of Hope deals with the critical thought that seeks to confront the destructive capitalist mania with a radical political struggle and actually purchases time for capitalism. It is no accident that Fromm’s book is entitled The Revolution of Hope. „Hope” obtains a mythological dimension and as such becomes the spiritus movens of the humanization of technology. What should become humanity’s basic integrative force is not the hope that technology can be humanized, but the faith that capitalism can be defeated and life on the planet saved.

As for the contemporary communist movement, one of its most important characteristics is its dogmatism and mythological consciousness. Instead of an idea of the future reached in relation to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order, their basis for a critique of capitalism is an idealized picture of the „socialist past”. Revolutionary consciousness lacks a vision of the future „since the future has already happened”. A fight for the „future” becomes a fight for „restoring” the past. Rather than an integrative visionary consciousness, we have a sectarian consciousness, which appears in the form of „Stalinists”, „Maoists”, „Trotskyists”, „Titoists”, etc. There is the personality cult, which is a way of alienating workers’ political being and libertarian potential on which the possibility of creating a humane world is based. At the same time, by abolishing visionary consciousness, communists deal with the dialectical way of thinking and become prisoners of a quasi‐ religious consciousness. The argument and the dialog, based on the analysis of current trends in the development of capitalism, are replaced by propaganda slogans and an uncompromising  combat  with  those  who  question  the  given  „truths”.  They  repeatedly resort to „scientific socialism”, according to which the appearance of socialism is inevitable and reduces historical materialism to naturalistic determinism.  The most fatal result of this thought is the view that capitalism cannot (and must not) be a destructive order, meaning that any critique of capitalism as an order that ever‐more dramatically destroys nature and humankind  is  undesirable.  Thus,  communists  relinquish  the  fight  to  protect  the environment and pass it to the political forces whose aim is not to step out of capitalism, but to „perfect” it.

A   dogmatic   way   of   thinking,   based   on   progressism   and   the   myth   of   the omnipotence of science and technology, also conditions the communists’ dogmatic relation to sport. The critique of sport and Olympism is almost non‐existent in communist circles. This is not only due to their failure to understand the essence of sport and their glorification of the „real socialism”, where sport held a prominent political place, but to the truth that sport has become the most important spiritual drug for workers and that it is not, therefore, politically advantageous to subject it to critique. Indeed, sports stadiums have turned into contemporary concentration camps, where young people’s critical and changing consciousness  and  their faith  in  the  future  are  being  destroyed.  The  production  of „hooligans” is one of the ways in which capitalists turn young workers into fascist hordes that will be directed against the left‐oriented youth and the workers’ movements. Football fans are one of the most important forms of organization of capitalist crusaders, while games are used to homogenize and militarize them. Not only do clashes between rival football fans erode their critical mind and their faith in a humane world, but young people acquire the combat skills and brutality demanded by capitalists in their conflict with the opponents of capitalism. At the same time, communists firmly stick to their ideology of „record‐mania”,  which  glorifies  the productivity principle  on  a  quantitative  scale.  It produces an ecocidal consciousness and contributes to the destruction of man as a natural and human being.

The idea of communism should be emptied of its shadows of the past and offered a possibility for the development of its emancipatory potential. It should, above all, discard its thinking that based on mythological romanticism since it deals with a visionary consciousness without which there can be no future. At the same time, to restore the obsolete forms of the critique of capitalism stops people from understanding the destructive nature of capitalism and   developing   an   appropriate   critique   and   appropriate   forms   of   struggle   against capitalism. Communism has never existed, anywhere in the world. It is a possible future for humankind. Communism does not mean the end, but the beginning of a true history of humanity.

If we consider the importance of Karl Marx, as the most significant figure in the creation of the workers’ movement, and his thought, as the basis for any critique of capitalism and a vision of the future, there is a question of political justification in criticizing Marx’s critique  of  capitalism.  All  the  more  so  because  capitalism  produced  such  an existential crisis that it is doubtful whether we still have time for a „new” critique of capitalism that can integrate global political thought in the fight against capitalism and the creation of a new world. Can Marx’s thought, in spite of its shortcomings, still be more beneficial to the workers’ movement than the contemporary critique of capitalism, which is yet to be critically appraised and can cause confusion among the critics of capitalism who fight for a new world – and thus weaken the fight against capitalism at a time when the creation of a united and uncompromising global anti‐capitalist movement has become a precondition for humanity’s survival?

The  increasingly  dramatic  ecological  crisis  created  by  capitalism,  which  affects more and more people, will inevitably lead to the immediate existential threat to humanity becoming the source of a critical and changing relation to capitalism. By becoming a totalitarian destructive order, capitalism stepped out from the theoretical and political framework of Marx’s critique of capitalism, which insists on social justice and freedom, and, therefore, the contemporary critique of capitalism can no longer be reduced to Marx’s critique of capitalism. Marx’s thought is one of the concrete forms of the communist critique of capitalism and one of the concrete historical forms of the fight for a communist society. The historical continuity of the idea of communism must not be sought only in theory, but, above all, in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against capitalism. Marx’s view that the „correct theory is the consciousness of a world‐changing practice” means that the link connecting us to Marx and other fighters for a communist society is an uncompromising fight against capitalism, and not citations from Marx’s works. The fight against capitalism and for a communist society represents the basis of the historical continuity of the idea of communism.

In  capitalism,  politics  is  reduced  to  the  technique  of  directing  people’s dissatisfaction towards the realization of the political and economic interests of the ruling class. This process corresponds to the nature of the „consumer society”, the last stage in the development of capitalism, when the consequences of the destruction of nature and man as a natural and reasonable being become the means for the reproduction of capitalism. At the same time, the ruling logic of monopolistic capitalism, which is expressed by the principles „Destroy the competition!” and „Big fish devour small fish!”, has become a totalizing logic, which through the privately‐owned media, acquires a fatal dimension. This is the origin of the  notion  that  „globalisation”,  which  means  the  neo‐liberal  model  of capitalism,  is  a „neccesity”. Political decisions are not based on objective scientific analysis. On the contrary, „scientific analysis” is based on the strategic interests of the ruling order. In that context, the fundamental historical truth that capitalism is doomed to fail is discarded.

The political sphere of contemporary capitalism is integrated into the mechanism of capitalist reproduction and works according to the laws of the „consumer society”. There is a hyperproduction of the alienated political sphere in the form of political ideas, groups, parties, media… It is largely aided by the Internet, which enables the technical production of a political sphere deprived of sociability and humanity. The political sphere has become one of the virtual spheres of capitalism, while political parties are a form of alienation of man’s political being and the means for the ruling order to deprive man of his elemental human and civil rights. So called „political pluralism” has turned into a deafening clatter, destroying any chance for a conversation based in arguments, along with any faith in reason. Instead of competitive political programs, a ruthless enforcement of political ideals, through advertizing,  has  become  the  chief  mode  of  „political  conduct”.  Ultimately,  the  political sphere of capitalism has become a privilege of the ruling class and the means for doing away with the political life and the political struggle of the oppressed working masses. These factors gave rise to fascism in Europe in the wake of the Great Depression of 1929. The same factors are giving rise to fascism today.

One of the most important manipulative instrument used by polititicans is political jargon. Expressions  such  as  „post‐industrial  society”  have  but  one  purpose,  namely,  to impart the notion that capitalism has made a qualitative leap in its development and, in so doing, they become a new ideological mask hiding its true nature. There are also other expressions, such  as:  „democracy”,  „late  capitalism”,  „open  society”,  „capitalism  with  a human face”, „transition”, „free world”… These terms do not only serve to cover up the destructive nature of capitalism, they also impose a way of thinking that abolishes any possibility for dealing critically with the ruling order. Ultimately, the most important aim of political jargon is not to promote, through lies, the realization of certain political and economic interests, but to deprive people of their power to reason and, thereby, to destroy their political being. Reason and the critical mind are subjected to everyday political needs. Only politically profitable questions are being posed, receiving the same answers. There are no questions of principle relating to the basic existential and essential challanges. There is no ideal of humanity or of a visionary consciousness. The emphasis is placed on „political correctness”, which means doing away with any thinking that might shed light on the true essence of capitalism and oblige man to take up a political practice that could abolish capitalism and create a new world.

In the beginning of the 19th Century, Auguste Compte created a „social physics” („physique sociale“) according to which all social phenomena should be in a functional unity so that society, based on the ideas of „order” and „progress” and guided by the principle of „to know in order to predict, to predict in order to act” (savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir), could develop without political conflicts. In contemporary capitalism, these ideas appear in the form of the empty phrase „organised capitalism”, which is but another name for contemporary capitalist totalitarism. In „organised capitalism” each area of human life must become a functional part of the capitalist process of reproduction. This also refers to man. Not only to his way of living and behaviour, but also to his character, his way of thinking, interpersonal relations… – all must fit into the process of capitalist reproduction. In contemporary capitalism, the basis of capitalist totalitarism is not in repressive political institutions, but rather in the economic sphere. The whole of life is subjected to the process of capitalist reproduction, which is expanding faster and faster. Capitalism drew into its existential sphere all social areas and turned them into tools for capital accumulation, which means for the destruction of life. The development of the consumer standard with its resultant debt slavery, in which a majority of citizens in the most developed capitalist countries currently live, have become the chief means for drawing people into the capitalist order. Compte’s „social physics” was related to the leading ideas of the French Revolution and the political movements of people deprived of their rights, who sought to create an emancipated  civil  society.  The  idea  of  „organised  capitalism”  came  on  the  wings  of capitalism as a destructive totalitarian order and in contrast to the people’s struggle to preserve life on the Earth. It is a myth intended to prevent the demise of capitalism, yet only prolongs the agony of mankind. At the same time, contemporary Nostradamuses, predicting the  „catastrophy  of  capitalism”  by  discarding  the  emancipatory  heritage  of bourgeois society and changing the potential of the working class, only contribute to the final annihilation of the world.

For those who fight for „democracy”, the „freedom of capital” is the main justification for its existence. Capital acquired the status of an earthly deity, gaining as such an undisputed power over man. Again it should be pointed out that „democracy” is a political form of the domination of capital over people. It follows that the „development of democracy” actually means strengthening the domination of capital over people and that „democracy” is not „threatened” when there is a lack of elementary human and civil rights, but rather when the domination of capital over man is threatened. This truth is confirmed every day in the most developed  capitalist  countries  of  the  West,  particularly  in  the  USA. In practice, „democracy” has become the means for doing away with the guiding ideas of the French Bourgeois Revolution, which ideas form the basis of modern humanism, as well as the elimination of  elementary human (droits de l’homme) and civil rights (droits de citoyen), which are the basis of modern legislation. The more man’s right to life, to freedom, to personal health and a healthy environment, to work and a secure existence, to freedom of speech, to family, to inviolability of the home and private life are breached – the more loudly politicians swear by „democracy”. Ironically, under capitalism, democracy ‐ whose original (Hellenic) meaning is the „rule of the people” (demos kratein) ‐ means the order under which citizens are reduced to a working and consuming „mass” and, as such, to the slaves of capital. Capitalist „democracy” is not based on human and civil rights, but on the absolutized principle of profit, which in turn is based on the absolutized principle of privite ownership. Anything which serves to protect private ownership and which provides „freedom” to increase profit is justified and welcome. When private ownership becomes the absolute principle, then the most atrocious crimes become legal and legitimate if they serve to stop the disintegration of the ruling order. Man’s right to life and liberty is sublated by the right of capitalism to survive. The current state of the world clearly demonstrates that capitalists are ready to employ any possible means in order to deal with the outcome of any crisis that might endanger the ruling order. The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the „attack” on the Pentagon suggest that capitalists will not hesitate to commit any crime in order to preserve the ruling order.

Proceeding from the axiom that in Germany, as well as in other advanced capitalist countries,  the  most  important  political  decisions  are  made  by  an  ever‐smaller  circle  of people outside of political institutions, Jürgen Habermas warns that Germany and other Western European countries have entered the stage of „post‐democracy”, a system somewhere „between parlamentarism and dictatorship”. However, this tendency indicates the true nature of „democracy”, which Habermas tries machanically to separate from „post‐democracy”. It is a kind of capitalist democracy with an inherent potential for fascism, which can easily be reproduced with the ever‐deepening economic and environmental crises in Europe, along with the low birth‐rate crisis in the European nations. Habermas’ view of the contemporary German political scene shows the futility of his previous analyses of „late capitalism” and supports the conclusion that „democracy” is but one of the political guises donned  by  capitalism  at  the  time  of  its  expansion.  With  the  crisis  of  capitalism, all „democratic“ masks are dropped and capitalism shows its true, fascist face. The example of contemporary Germany (as well as that of the European Union and the USA) shows that fascism is a manifestation of capitalism in crisis.

Habermas belongs to the school of bourgeois philosophers who, for over half a century, have been trying to prove that capitalism is on the road to becoming reasonable, which means that it is developing on a humanist level. In that context, they overlook its fascist potential. Actually, they do not eliminate the fascist potential of German society, but rather its socialist (communist) potential, the emancipatory heritage of bourgeois society, including the revolutionary heritage of the workers’ movement and the idea of a new world. For the German bourgeois intelligentsia, post‐war German „democracy” is the embodiment of the idea of „democracy” and, as such, serves as the measure of the democratic character of a social order. In such a „democracy”, the destiny of German (as well as other European) citizens lies in the hands of the most reactionary political forces in the USA. Over the last 60 years  Germany  has  been  an  American  military  base,  and  not  only  have  over  100 000 American soldiers been deployed on its territory (who, along with their families, are not subject to German laws), but there are also hundreds of nuclear weapons aimed at Russia that can be launched at any moment (on purpose, by mistake or through sabotage). Since a counter‐attack  is  something  to  be  considered,  Germany  (and  Europe)  could  disappear within 20 minutes. What kind of „democracy” is it if the citizens are not allowed a say in the most critical existential issues and are reduced to being hostages of the American military/industrial complex?

Sloterdijk’s   comparison   of   the   Roman   Republic   with   today’s   Germany   (23) illustrates a narrow‐minded way of thinking, incapable of grasping the gist of a particular society  departing  from  its  concrete  historical  potential.  A  destructive  and  fascistoid potential, on the one hand, and the possibility for creating a society of free people, on the other, represent a historical quality of contemporary capitalism, marking the essential difference  between  the  Roman  and  modern  republics.  In  that  context,  today’s depoliticization of citizens through sport and the depoliticization through gladiator spectacles of the Roman plebs (who were a parasitic mass of people, whereas modern citizens  are employed  as  hired  labor  and,  as  such,  are  capitalist  slaves),  about  which Sloterdijk writes, are of a different nature. While depoliticization of the Roman plebs led to the establishment of the patrician tyranny, depoliticization of citizens in contemporary capitalism enables capitalists to destroy life on the Earth. Bearing in mind that the body is man’s immediate nature and that the destructive treatment of the body in sport reflects destructive treatment of nature by capitalists, sport actually serves to impose a life and value model based not only on the destruction of human life, but of all life in general. Sportsmen are less and less human and natural beings, and more and more robots, who are, as such, promotional agents for capitalism. It should be noted here that sport became the means by which workers were depoliticized not in contemorary capitalism, but in that of the late 19th  century, when workers in England managed to win the right to an eight‐hour working day. From the beginning, sport has been used by the bourgeosie to „colonize the idleness of workers” in order to prevent them from developing class conscioussness and to stop their political struggle. „The Father” of modern Olympism, Pierre de Coubertin, insisted on the notion that sport is an „efficient means” for workers’ depoliticization. Fearing the future of capitalism, in the wake of the October and Munich revolutions, Coubertin held lectures to the European aristocracy and bourgeosie in which he maintained that „sport is the cheapest soul food for keeping proletarian youth under control”.

In contemporary capitalism, man does not lose his freedom, as Sloterdijk claimed, he  is  rather  chained  with  new  shackles.  Essentially,  it  is  about  establishing  totaliarian control over man, made possible because the citizens are stuck in the mud of consumer society  by  a prevailing  conformist  mentality.  The  political  marketplace  of  the  most developed  capitalist  countries  in  the  West  is  dominated  by  the  petty  bourgeoisie.  This exerts direct influence on the nature of political programs and practice by political parties. The conformism of (petty) bourgeois captalism is worse than the most lethal weapons, the secret services and the alienated police and the army. A petty bourgeois accepts the loss of elementary human and civil rights in return for a higher standard of living. For him, the capitalist order is acceptable because it provides him with an opportunity to „enjoy” spending and destruction. Actually, a petty bourgeois actively participates in the creation of a totalitarian state and a totalitarian society based on the fact that life, itself, conditioned by capitalism, is the source of terror. The capitalistically degenerated petty bourgeois accummulates dissatisfaction, which is increasingly manifested as a destructive mania directed against all living beings. Instead of the need for a just and free world, we see the need  for destruction through increasingly destructive technical means. The purpose of the „action” is to release the pent up dissatisfaction in a way and through means imposed by capitalism as a destructive order. This is exemplified by frequent mass killings carried out by individuals.  It is the rebellion of a capitalistically degenerated man with capitalistically degenerated methods and means of „struggle”. Considering the fact that more and more people possess more and more lethal weapons, the possibility of mutual extermination is increased. Destruction by technical means with their immediate effects becomes a model for behaviour imposed by the dominant logic of capitalism expressed in the principle „Destroy the competition!“. It is this logic that conditions not only relations between people, classes, nations, races, religious communities, states, and capitalist corporations, but also those of the petty bourgeois and nature.

Capitalist progress has mutilated people as biological beings and, thus, has called into question the possibility of biological reproduction in the most developed capitalist countries. At the same time, capitalism exhausted the raw materials and energy resources in those countries and almost destroyed the animal world and nature as a life‐creating environment. Instead of focusing on their own development based on faith in the future, the (petty)bourgeoisie of the most developed capitalist countries wish for the demise of other nations that might „threaten” them by (still) having the capacity for biological reproduction. Children have become the greatest curse. The relation of the (petty)bourgeois towards immigrant workers is the best illustration of their relation towards the future. Instead of indicating the true causes of the „white plague” in the most developed capitalist countries, they are „concerned” with the birth rate of the immigrant population, which is reduced to „dirty labor” and has the status of a „lower race”. As far as „international relations” are concerned, the most developed capitalist countries do not envisage their own futures proceeding from developing their own powers, but, instead, coming from the weaknesses of „competitive” countries: the demise of others becomes the elementary condition for their own survival. The consequence of the ever more dramatic destruction of nature is that the ruling  principle  of  monopolistic  capitalism,  „Destroy  the  competition!”,  has  become  the ruling economic and political principle. A ruthless war between the most powerful capitalist corporations has turned the world into a battlefield and man into a capitalist warrior.

It is more and more clear that capitalism cannot deal with, and especially cannot overcome, the increasingly deep existential and vast social crisis created by „democratic” measures. Current political practice in the West indicates that capitalists seek to deal with the consequences of capitalism by abolishing basic human and civil rights. The true nature of capitalist „democracy” can be seen in the treatment of sports fans. Preventive arrests, barbed wire, steel boxes, cameras, searches, special police units… Stadiums have become concentration camps and mirrors reflecting the true nature of capitalist „democracy”. The treatment of top sportsmen, „heroes” of capitalism, also suggests that capitalism cannot reduce the effects produced in a „democratic way”. Laws have been passed to allow police complete  discretion.  Top  sportsmen  are  under  constant  supervision  by  the „Olympic police”; they must report their whereabouts three months in advance, so that the „Olympic police” can find them and take urine samples in the most humiliating ways. „Great champions” must take off their clothes whenever ordered to do so by „controllers” and urinate into a cup while being checked to be sure the urine is flowing from their uretheras! At the same time, destruction of people in sport has taken on monstrous forms. Increasingly lethal supstances, blood doping and pregnancy doping, horrific training regimes to which young children are subjected, transfer of sportsmen, money „laundering”, the total criminalization of sport by bookmaking mafias, the development of ever bloodier unto fatal sports  disciplines…  –  all  this  speaks  of  a  ruthless  capitalist  reality  hiding  behind the „humanist” messages and smiling faces of politicians and TV commentators.

The practionners of contemporary fascism are not youth gangs „decorated” with Nazi symbols,  but  the  capitalist  corporations  that,  by  causing  an  increasingly  deep existential and wideranging social crisis, promote a fascist ideology. The ruling principle of monopolistic capitalism, „Destroy the competition!”, is the source of contemporary fascist practices, both in the economic and political spheres. The capitalist destruction of nature and man as a cultural and biological being conditions the appearance of and strengthens the most reactionary political forces. Current developments in the USA and Europe indicate that German nazism was but one of the historical manifestations of fascism and that fascism is the enfant terrible of capitalism. In today’s Germany, over 30% of young people greet each other with a fascist salute, while over 40% have never heard of Auschwitz. The reason is simple: over 60% of the Germans do not want the documents testifying to the crimes of Nazi Germany to be published. And that is the overwhelming majority of the electorate. The horrible truth is that for a majority of Germans Hitler made only one crime: he did not win the war. One of the examples of the „development of German democracy” is the law adopted by the German Parliament in August 2012, allowing the German army to be „employed” by the ruling regime within the German territory. In other words, German capitalists now have the legal right to use the army against German workers. As far as Germany’s global „politics of peace” are concerned, by selling (with the support of the USA) nuclear‐armed submarines to Israel, „democratic” Germany is directly involved in the campaign to incite a nuclear war, which can result in the absolute annihilation of mankind.

As for American fascism, which is the pillar of the „new world order”, its principal characteristic is incitation to war. The American economy is a war economy. The economic survival of the USA depends on the development of a military‐industrial complex that is the core of the American economy. American domestic and foreign politics are instrumental in the production of wars and the creation of a war hysteria, which boosts the stock market value of military production and enables the plundering of both the American people and the people  of  the  countries  under  American  domination.  The  war  psychosis  serves  to deprive the American citizens of elementary human and civil rights and to justify the terror of an growing number of secret agencies surveilling American citizens. Early in 2012, American President Barack Obama signed an act, passed by both Houses of Congress, which allows for the arrest of American citizens by the US Armed Forces, without a warrant, and permits their indefinite detention without the right to legal counsel. At the same time, the American Army is „entitled” to kill anyone on this planet who is declared by the government to be a „threat to the security of the USA”. Barack Obama has signed hundreds of death warrants for people, who are not American citizens, based on the presumption of guilt. During their execution (primarily by means of unmanned aricraft flown by remote control), a large  number  of  women  and  children  have  been  killed,  which,  by  the  standards of „American democracy”, is considered „collateral damage” and is not counted as a crime! In addition, the destruction of over 6 billion „surplus” people on this planet has become a legitimate political option for the USA.

As for Noam Chomski, he claims that American citizens are „ill‐informed” and that is the main reason they support „their” government. At the same time, he claims that the American citizens are guided in their relation to the world by moral principles and reason. Actually, the American (petty)bourgeois, like the (petty)bourgeois all over the world, are guided by their private interests. A large majority of the American „middle class” were aware that Saddam Husein did not have any weapons for mass destruction, yet they welcomed Bush’s aggression against Iraq, believing that the USA would get hold of Iraqi oil and thereby improve their standard of living. The atmosphere changed when, instead of cheap oil, more and more corpses of American soldiers were shipped back to the USA and the  increased costs  of  the occupation  of  Iraq,  which  was  doomed  to  failure  after  the atrocious crimes of the invaders led to a decisive resistance by the Iraqi people. The same thing happened in Vietnam and with other American aggressions. Launching wars is the most popular way by which American presidents have demonstrated their „toughness” and gained approval from the „middle class”, said to be the most important political force in the USA. American citizens are directly responsible for the heinous, criminal policies of their governments. The same can be said for the German (petty)bourgeois, who are directly responsible for the crimes of their soldiers in Afghanistan, just as their predecessors were responsible for the unspeakable policies of the Hitler regime, which they followed in blind obedience.

What is the point of philosophy in a contemporary capitalist world dominated by destruction and where humanity has been pushed to the edge of the abyss? Ideologues of capitalism create an illusion that the ruling relation to reality is based on a certain way of thinking,  that  it  has  a  rational  nature.  Philosophy  has  become  a  „rational”  echo  of destructive capitalist irrationality. It is but one of the humanist masks of an inhumane and destructive   civilization   and,   as   such,   is   advertising   for   capitalism.   It   provides   and strengthens a way of thinking that, like religion, is deprived of critical self‐reflection and prevents man from becoming aware of the tendencies of global development and the objective possibilities of liberation that through subjective practice (political struggle) can turn into real possibilities for freedom. At the same time, „philosophizing” is reduced to the creation of a network of formally and logically consistent concepts that are supposed to mediate between man and the world. Philosophy has become a means for confusing reason and distracting it from the crucial questions. Contemporary bourgeois philosophers disqualify reason as the most authentic and most important human means for ensuring survival and freedom. It is reduced to an instrumentalized ratio and has become the means for mystification of the existing world and for the destruction of a visionary consciousness that offers a possibility for overcoming capitalism and creating a new world. Philosophy has become a technical subject and, as such, is a means for turning concrete existential and essential questions into abstract theoretical questions. Instead of a revolutionary concept, the dominant concept is that of conformism. Instead of a fight to eradicate the causes of non‐ freedom and destruction, a theoretical discussion about consequences is being imposed. The bourgeois theory offers a critique of capitalism which does not question it and which seeks to „perfect”  it.  „The  essence  of  capitalism”  acquires  an  idolized  dimension  and becomes the basis for criticizing capitalist reality. Thus the mythologized past becomes the basis for criticizing the present. Everything that might and should happen has already happened. A struggle for the future becomes a struggle for the past. The bourgeois intelligentsia multiplies the „field of research” by creating numerous „grey areas”, primarily to expand its space as much as possible. It acts like the market: it produces increased quantities of intellectual goods with ever‐lower quality, which are sold in the form of books, lectures, studies, and reports.

Max Horkheimer came to the conclusion half a century ago that serious philosophy was nearing its end and that society was becoming an anthill. Philosophers contribute to that state of affairs by not developing a philosophy that is grounded in the emancipatory legacy of civil society and national cultures, they rather adapt to a ruling order that, rather than a wise man, needs an stupefied consumer. Philosophy becomes an entertainment skill and, as such, is a part of show‐business, while philosophers become the „jesters” of capitalism. The philosophical mind is being integrated into capitalism by the destruction of its emancipatory potential and by turning philosophy into another commodity in the marketplace  of consumer society.  The  amount  of  the  commission  fee  becomes  the „measure” of the quality of the philosophical thought. Even when significant matters are communicated, they are expressed in such a manner as to lose their political dimension and obtain an entertainment or clownish dimension. Philosophers like Slavoj Zizek and Bernard‐Henri Lévy are typical examples of Coca‐Cola intellectuals. Their „reflections” are being tailored to provide „philosophical” legitimacy to the ecocidal and genocidal activities of the stakeholders in the „new world order”. Their thought represents a philosophical merit badge on the chests of the capitalist executioners who obliterate nature and humankind. At the same time, the leftist bourgeois intelligentsia, headed by Jürgen Habermas, Oskar Negt and Oskar Lafontaine, create an illusion that capitalism could be „brought to reason” by means of enlightened thought. It does not address the workers, but an abstract „citizen”, a petty bourgeois who has been degenerated by the consumer way of life and who cannot be bothered with radical social changes that might jeopardize his consumer’s standard of living. „Bringing to reason” does not imply the development of combative sociability and the nullification of the capitalist order as it is reduced to the „pacification” of workers and the technical development that implies the obliteration of man as a social being and of nature as life‐generating entirety. Even when the ruling political circle (alienated from the citizens) is being threatened by an insistence on the necessity of the direct participation in political life of the largest possible number of citizens, this is performed in a manner that does not stand for an appeal to the citizens to fight against the ruling order. The „social peace” needs to be preserved at all cost in order to prevent economic crisis and the ensuing social crisis – without which the petty bourgeois consciousness and its „consumer society” cannot be eliminated. At the same time, a critique of capitalism is increasingly present. But it is of an academic nature and is deprived of any political,   change‐creating   dimension.   It   does   not  address   the   destructive  nature  of capitalism and is not moved toward a vision of the future based upon a radical step away from the capitalist world.

The purposefulness of philosophic thought is determined by whether this thought poses concrete historic questions. Today, in a world that faces an ever more realistic possibility of destruction, that principle means concrete historical questions might be the last questions posed by man. It is this quality that makes a difference between today’s concrete historical questions and all earlier such questions. The development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction imposes the question of survival as the most important concrete historical question. Actually, by bringing humanity to the brink of destruction, capitalism „has answered” all crucial questions. Bearing in mind the intensity of the capitalist destruction  of  life,  all  questions  come  down  to  one:  what  can  be  done  to  prevent  the destruction of humanity? The only meaningful thought is of an existential character, that is, it creates the possibility for a political (changing) practice that will prevent the world’s destruction. In that context, philosophy is meaningful as a critique of capitalism and a visionary projection of a future world. There is a need for creating an integrating critical and visionary thought with an existential nature, which will contain the emancipatory legacy of civil society and national cultures. Humanity will again appreciate the importance of serious thinking when people return to the basic existential questions. The seriousness of those questions will make people serious: crucial existential issues will eliminate any trivial ways of thinking and direct the mind towards the essential issues. Riding the wave of the French Bourgeois  Revolution,  classical  German  philosophy  shaped  the  self‐consciousness  of modern man. Today, the humanist intelligentsia should shape a thought that will guide the last revolution in the history of mankind. It is not the hoot of Minerva’s owl in the twilight, but the war cry of a man who has been awakened and who is ready not only to liberate humanity from oppression, but to prevent its destruction. Ultimately, what is philosophy if it is not capable of answering the questions that are of vital importance to human destiny?

The  1854  letter  from  the  Chief  of  the  Seattle  tribe  to  the  American  President Franklin Pierce indicates the important limitations on modern philosophy with respect to basic existential issues. It is a sobering fact that modern man does not turn to the greatest thinkers of the modern age to find solutions to the critical existential issues but, rather, to someone who, by the predominant criteria for evaluation, is considered a „savage”. The Indian Chief’s letter indicates that all modern Western thought has gone astray. It depicts the true nature of capitalism, and the basic tendency of its development, better than all the philosophical and sociological thinking of the 19th  and 20th  centuries. The Chief’s letter, at the same time, indicates that the question of being, as one of the central „traditional” philosophical questions, can no longer be viewed at the essential level. Being, as a symbolic source of authentic humanity and the mirror in which man can see his authentic human image, above all, is the affirmation of man’s life‐creating powers acquiring a concrete historical dimension with respect to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. The fact that the letter was written in the mid‐19th  century is of primary importance as it refutes the claim that at that time it was not possible to see the ecocidal nature of capitalism. The words of the Indian Chief not only show the limitations of Western scientific and philosophical thought,  but  also  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  science  and  philosophy  in  order  to recognize the true nature of capitalism. The truth that capitalism is an anti‐existential order is based on immediate empirical evidence. This was the guiding thought of Fourier when, in the early 19th  century, he questioned (capitalist) „progress”, suggesting that it is based on the destruction of forests, fields, sources of water, climate…

A  specificity  of  the  contemporary  historical  moment,  that  is,  a  specificity of capitalism as a system of destruction, also conditions the specific view of the past. The ruling  ideology  sterilizes  the  libertarian  and  change‐oriented  charge  of  philosophical thought and reduces it to a lifeless „history of philosophy”, which becomes a vehicle for the destruction of the libertarian and life‐creating power of reason. Critical theory, based upon existential humanism, needs to create the possibility for „reviving” the creative and libertarian spirit of our ancestors by engaging it in the fight for survival and for the creation of a new world. In the struggle for humankind’s survival, the thinking of the past has to realize its own humanistic, i.e., existential and libertarian, potential. The deepening existential crisis forces man to focus on the basic existential issues and, in that context, to integrate the libertarian and cultural heritage of humankind and to rid it of any „tails” that only weaken it in combat and drive the mind astray. The „fullness of humanity”, in the sense of perceiving man from a historical perspective, is conditioned by increasingly dramatic existential challenges. The libertarian past needs to become a source of man’s life‐creating energy in the struggle for the survival of humankind. A „return” to the mythological past is justified only if it is to revitalize libertarian and life‐creating myths. Otherwise, it amounts to driving reason astray and has, regardless of personal motives, an anti‐existential nature.

What provides a certain thought with a concrete historical dimension is the actual historical position toward it. Only a life‐creating critique of the existing world, from the point of view of a future (humane) world, can „revive” previous thoughts. Bourgeois thought does not revive but sterilizes the legacy of reason in an analytical, mythological or some other form. It exterminates its effective historical potential, which deprives it of its mutative charge and turns it into a lifeless thought. A typical example is the position of Leszek Kolakowski toward Marxist thought (Main Currents of Marxism). His analytical approach to the development of Marxism does not open up but rather closes down the horizons of the future. The „balance” principle, which he asserts as the starting point of his theoretical (political) analyses, is formally logical, of abstract nature. What sort of „balance” could be offered to capitalism if it has already become a totalitarian destructive order? Kolakowski’s „balance” has no existential and, in that context, no libertarian nature, but, rather, it has a politically compromising and, therefore, an anti‐existential nature. Kolakowski’s contradiction  between „skeptical”  and  „utopian”  philosophy  is  of  a  formally  logical character. It represents an obvious example of the failure to perceive phenomena in the context of their actual historical development and of the creation of an abstract reflective stance  toward  reality.  Kolakowski does  not  comprehend  that  the  concrete  idea  of  the utopian is conceivable only when related to the ruling capitalist order with its destructive nature, or in other words, that turning capitalism into a totalitarian destructive order preconditions the nature of the utopian as a political confrontation with capitalism. The utopian does not merely imply the creation of a new world, but also the preservation of life on the planet. Kolakowski opted for the „objectivist” critique of Marx, which is based on the bourgeois ideology within which „democracy” does not have a concrete historical nature, but rather a mythological nature. His point of departure is „democracy”, which represents just one of the ideological forms in which capitalism presents itself, and not the actual nature of capitalism. He also insists on a false antipode ‐ „democracy” v „totalitarianism”, which counterfeits the actual historical antipode: capitalism v humane (communist) society. In that context, he fails to indicate the emancipatory and life‐creating potential of the Marxist thought with respect to capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction.

The gradual deviation of the bourgeois thought toward the right well suits the development of capitalism which, by the means of the „consumer” way of life, has integrated a majority of workers into its own existential and moral orbit. At the same time, in order to impede the class‐based organizing of workers and the ensuing class struggle, the bourgeois intelligentsia has adapted the „nature” of capitalism to the political project for which it advocates and has thus hindered the development of an adequate critical consciousness for a political struggle against capitalism. Bourgeois philosophy is a form within which the mind is alienated from man and made to serve as an intermediary between man and reality. It blurs the image of the world and creates an optical distortion that keeps man from perceiving the truest course that leads toward the future. Bourgeois thought is a theoretical form of ideation within which capitalism suppresses or annihilates the political struggle of the oppressed and their endeavors to prevent the destruction of the world. The bourgeois intelligentsia has been, and still is, a mace in the hands of the capitalists, a weapon wielded for the elimination of the libertarian and visionary consciousness of the working class. It neuters the mind as a force in the political struggle against capitalism and pulls it off its historical course. In that way, it buys some additional time for capitalism and contributes to the destruction of the world. When capitalism turned into a totalitarian order of destruction, bourgeois thought became an anti‐existential thought, and the bourgeois theorists became the horsemen of the apocalypse. The obliteration of the emancipatory possibilities of bourgeois society also implies the destruction of the emancipatory potential of the civil thought.  By  annihilating  the  effective historical  nature  of  bourgeois  society,  capitalism sterilizes bourgeois philosophy and turns it into lifeless thought. Capitalism marginalizes the bourgeois intelligentsia and turns it into a „cleaner” of its own bloodstained crime scenes. Capitalism, thus, devours its own (ideological) children.

In  becoming  a  totalitarian  order  of  destruction,  capitalism  has  imposed  the necessity for a new (possibly a final!) historical „reading” of the philosophers whose thoughts have defined the contemporary epoch. The authentic humanistic potential of their thinking stands in stark contrast before an increasingly gloomy background of capitalist nothingness. It seems as if great thought no longer exists. What currently is nonexistent is any political movement capable of providing a great idea with an appropriate practical (change‐creating)  dimension.   However,   the   deepening   existential   crisis   created   by capitalism conditions the inception of such a global political movement as would be capable of eliminating capitalism and creating a new world in which „spiritual riches will be the measure of human wealth” (Marx). The true historical quality of the critical thought is represented by the width of the aperture it opens on reality.

In relation to man, the capitalist world has become a totalitarian and destructive power to such an extent that it has lost any need for scientific knowledge, and it has become, in the hands of the capitalists, an anti‐humane and anti‐living power. At the same time, an escape from knowledge becomes an escape from any responsibility for the world’s survival. The realization that a group of capitalist fanatics can in an instant destroy the world, along with an awareness of the increasing possibility of environmental destruction and, thus, the end of humanity, itself, bring man, mired in the quicksand of „consumer society”, to the brink of madness. An escape from knowledge is a „natural” defense mechanism. The predominant science  reduces  the  reality  of  capitalism  to  certain  „facts”  that  enable  a „scientific view” according to which there is no alternative to capitalism, that all „problems” can  be „overcome”  by  capitalism,  itself,  through  technologically  „perfectioning”.  The capitalist vision of the future has a „scientific” character. The myth of the „omnipotence of science and technology” has become a means for the creation of a capitalistically degenerated religious consciousness and, in that context, the image of the future. The vision of a „paradise”, in which the „souls of the deceased are reunited in God”, is replaced by the vision of a „perfect technical world”. Everything is mediated by money; everything acquires a trivial dimension – including the individual’s relation to death. Ideologues of capitalism promise man (the rich „elite”) „immortality”, which will be provided by creating technical devices that will enable the „revival” of frozen corpses. Scientists have become the capitalists’ contract killers and the driving force for the destruction of the world. A vast majority of scientists are engaged in the production of weapons of mass destruction, devices for mass control,  the  genetic  distortion of  man,  the  destruction  of  nature,  the  manipulation  and idiotization  of  people… Scientific knowledge  has  been  deprived  not  only  of  its  human purpose; it has acquired an anti‐existential motive.

Since manipulation of people does not proceed only in the realm of ideology but, more importantly, in the psychological sphere, art, reduced to a technique of using images and symbols for manipulation, becomes of the utmost importance. Its primary role is not to create a „cultural” decor for the ruling order, but to distort man and all the symbols by which he can reach his libertarian, creative, life‐creating and social being. Capitalistically degenerated art mutilates the human being with an „artistic” form given a spectacular dimension. The „spectacle” does not only serve to deceive – it does not only prevent man from seeing the important ‐ but it kills in him his humanity and, thus, any possibility of ever seeing the important. A blind man is not blind. Blind is the man who cannot see humanity in the other. Capitalism eliminates from culture the aesthetic criteria for an evaluation based on traditional forms of artistic expression and the emancipatory legacy of civil society – the traditional need to confront formalism and the destruction of the human. Instead of something new, a variety of the same‐old is offered. Instead of ideas opening a space in the future, new techniques are offered that destroy man’s need to fantasize along with his visionary consciousness. Capitalistically degenerated art has become a spectacular kitsch. Its value is determined not according to aesthetic value but to market impact: so, the success of an advertising campaign sets the „value” of a work of art, while depriving money of any value equivalent. As for the „globalist culture”, how can universal cultural values be ascertained if the legacy of national cultures is discarded? The emancipatory legacy of national cultures is not only the source of people’s aesthetic heritage, but also of their libertarian and life‐creating consciousness. The superseding of national cultures by a universal human culture is possible only through the development of the emancipatory legacy of national cultures. As to the relation between universality and collectivism, there need be no counter‐opposition here if collectivism, rather than being based on „the masses”, is based on emancipated personalities. Universal human values should be the basis for collectivism, whereas collectivity should not mean the elimination of individuality, but, rather, the establishment of a community of emancipated human beings. At the same time, universality cannot be the privilege of individuals who perceive themselves as an „elite”. It is, in actual fact, a class principle, but veiled by a „struggle for the individual”. A typical example is found in Nietzsche, who speaks of a „Superman” as the anthropological manifestation of a „new nobility”, of a new ruling class (plutocracy). Walter Benjamin believed that technical means can obviate the elitist character of art and bring it closer to the workers. A capitalistically degenerated technique has deprived art of its elitist exclusivity by depriving it of its humane essence. It has destroyed man’s creative being and thus does away with art’s aura, that human emanation, which contains the emancipatory heritage of humanity and suggests what has not yet been but might come to be. The development of an „aesthetical sense” has been achieved by destroying the sense of the human. It turns out that there is no point in making art as a means for changing the world if it is not an integral part of a comprehensive political movement seeking to create a new world. Thus a distinction should be made between a false (capitalistically degenerated) art and a libertarian and genuine art. The role of libertarian art is to unmask the true nature of capitalism; to create a vision of the new world; to indicate objective possibilities for the creation of a new world and, most importantly, to develop man’s need for his fellow man – as the basis for a genuine socialization without which no political movement can save the world from destruction. As for art as a reflection of human misery, which is, as such, an alienated form of de‐alienation ‐ a vision of life appears as an artistic act where man’s social being realizes his libertarian and creative being.

„The Zeitgeist Movement“ is one of the most aggressive mondialistic movements in the contemporary world. It is allegedly based on a critique of capitalism and aspirations to make a new world. In fact, it is a scientological sect based on a quasi-religious myth about the omnipotence of science and technology, which is one of the most fatal myths created by the ideologues of capitalism. The critique of capitalism lacks a humanistic, that is, a historical, social and visionary dimension. Zeitgeist does not advocate a new historical beginning. It rather discards history and does away with man as a historical being. It does not differentiate between history and the past and reduces the past to the source of evil to be done away with. Zeitgeist abolishes the dialectics of history and the dialectic mind, which offer man a possibility to come out from the darkness of the past into the light of history. By abolishing the historicity of human society, the cultural and libertarian heritage of mankind is also being abolished, and without it there is no possibility for humanistic self-reflexion and, consequently, no way to the future. A man without historical self-consciousness is a headless man; people without history are people without a future. At the same time, without a historicity of society there is no historicity of nature, which means that without a dialectical development of society, there is no dialectical development of nature.

The Zeitgeist project of the future is a political project par excellence. It is based on the fact that capitalism alienated science and technology from the people and that these forces have become the property of the scientific and technocratic „elites“ who govern the destiny of people and „design“ the future. Instead of being the creator of his own world, man has become the instrument of a technocratic „elite“ for realizing the idea of a future that is the product of a dehumanized technocratic imagination. „Making plans“ for the future replaces a critical analysis of capitalism and the political struggle of the oppressed working people. The future is not a product of the conscious engagement of citizens as political beings capable of creating a humane world; it is the product of a political single-mindedness disguised as „science”, which acquires an “objective” and thus a super-human dimension. The Zeitgeist project of the future presupposes the existence of a political center of power which determines and directs social development, and this also involves determination of an undisputable value horizon. The authoritarian constitution of Zeitgeist is a symbolic expression of the untouchability and immutability of the basic principles on which the plan for the future is based. Zeitgeist abolishes the possibility of creating alternative worlds and thus the possibility of a future that is the result of man’s free choice and creative practice. Designing the future is reduced to its being given. Zeitgeist abolishes man as a creative being capable of creating his own world and reduces him to an instrument with which the „elite“ of scientists, led by the modern „Messiah“ (Jacque Fresco), „creates a future“ in which an artificial man will live in an artificial (denaturalized and dehumanized) world. In this „project“, people are reduced to an army of atomized idiots who are supposed to follow a „vision“ and carry out the directives of the „Leader“. It is a typical sectarian movement based on the cult of personality. The „Leader“ is the exclusive and undisputed owner of the „truth“. Zeitgeist’s design for the future is a form in which a capitalistically degenerated visionary consciousness appears based on the same principle as are both religion and the Hollywood film industry: a creation of illusory worlds replaces the political struggle of the oppressed for a humane world. Zeitgeist is one of the ways in which capitalism degenerates man’s strivings to create his own world with a humanistic visionary imagination. Instead of a humanistic vision of the future, a technocratically based vision is being offered, which reduces the world to a scientifically based and technically perfected concentration camp. It is, actually, an artificial world, based on technical devices, a technocratic mind and a technocratic practice. A capitalistically degenerated man would be closed in a world that has become a technical cage without an exit.

The ideologues of Zeitgeist discard one of the most important legacies of the French Enlightenment and classical German philosophy: the idea of the world’s being made reasonable by man as an emancipatory reasonable being. Zeitgeist follows one of the basic intentions of capitalistically degenerated science: to do away with metaphysics, philosophy, man’s poetical being, spirit, evaluative judgement, the erotic, as well as critical and visionary reason. Zeitgeist is a manifestation of a capitalistically degenerated mind. It does not differentiate between intelligence and reason and reduces reason to an instrumentalized ratio free from “evaluative prejudices” and the pursuit of truth. Instead of a dialectic and, on that basis, a visionary reason, a reductionist scientistic reason, with a mechanical nature, is imposed. At the same time, Zeitgeist is based on technocratic mysticism with an instrumental character. This mysticism is not an expression of the mystery of life based on fear of natural elements, it is rather an instrument for mystification of the ruling power, based on curbed natural forces. The basic role of Zeitgeist is to “mediate” between world and man by destroying, through tecnological mysticism, a reasonable relation of man to the world and his critical and visionary consciousness. Mystification of the existing world and destruction of reason are two sides of the Zeitgeist doctrine. The Zeitgeist ideology is one of the manifestations of destructive capitalist irrationalism. It is a precursor to the final death of homo sapiens.

Zeitgeist does not depart from the existing world as a positive but as a negative basis relative to which it develops its idea of the future starting from an idealized technical world. The problem is that the existing world also contains culture, critical consciousness, political movements that strive toward a new world, as well as emancipatory legacies offering a possibility to step out of that world. Zeitgeist primarily attacks the emancipatory heritage of the Enlightenment, the guiding ideas of the French bourgeois revolution, as well as the democratic rights and institutions established in the most developed capitalist countries in the XIX and XX centuries. The Zeitgeist universal methodological principle is the following: to mutilate emancipatory possibilities of progress and use them to combat people’s libertarian struggle. The „prediction“ of the future becomes its „creation“ through the destruction of the emancipatory heritage of mankind which opens the possiblity of stepping out of the technical world. Zeitgeist offers a „future“ that is in the sphere of a capitalistically produced time and space with a mechanical nature. The strivings to achieve the unity of technocratic reason and reality are reduced to submitting people to the totalitarian will of the ruling technocratic „elite“. The Zeitgeist gnoseology does not rely on the authority of science, but on the authority of the ruling power, which uses science as an exclusive political tool in combating the emancipatory potentials of civil society. Scientifically based „objectivism“ becomes a mask for a political (class) voluntarism expressed in the maxim auctoritas, non veritas facit legem. „Truth“ becomes the product of an instrumentalized reason and is deprived of a libertarian, moral and aesthetic dimensions. In this context, sociology is reduced to Comte’s „social physics“ (physique sociale), and the latter is reduced to politics as a dehumanized ruling technique. Ultimately, Zeitgeist seeks to bring every segment of life under control  of the ruling (self)will and to abolish all those spheres that could restrict it.

In Plato’s conception of the state, philosophers, as the most reasonable people, are the rulers. The same idea is maintained in the Christian tradition, French Enlightenment and classical German philosophy. Reasonable people should rule since it is reasonable mind that leads man to the truth. Zeitgeist discards the idea of truth based on evaluative (humanistic) criteria and creates the myth of an “objective” scientific truth deprived of evaluative judgement. Truth is not within man, it is given by a scientific model of the world’s creation and has a technocratic character. Truth is not reached through reasonable thinking based on a confrontation of opinions, it is given by the undisputed positivist scientific mind. All questions and answers are contained in the central computer, which is literally the “brain” of mankind programmed and supplied with information by a self-proclaimed technocratic “elite”. “Social engineers”, who follow the “Leader”, are those who, guided by the “scientific mind”, determine what is important and what people need. It is an overt technocratic voluntarism: the world is ruled by rulers from the shadows, who hide behind computers and who do not bear any responsibility for their projects. Since the work of computers is based on scientific exactness, it can “understand” only that information with a quantitative dimension and not the “information” with an emotional, erotic, moral, philosophical, artistic, spiritual or poetic nature. In order to address the computer, man must first discard his humanity. The Zeitgeist system of education does not seek to create reasonable people, but strives for a technical mind, which means, not those who will pursue truth, but those who will seek to “solve problems” within the existing world that cannot be questioned. It would generate the “most intelligent people”, those capable of manipulating technology and ruling people, and not those with critical minds, who strive to realize new worlds. The Zeitgeist system of education is based on a “scientific truth” and it has no history and therefore no future. Hence its most important task is to prevent the development of the dialectic mind and, thus, man’s libertarian and visionary consciousness. According to Schiller, “education through art is education for art”. The Zeitgeist education is a way of mutilating people as artistic beings and educating them for a world based on technocratic functionality and efficiency.   

Despite its discarding of history, Zeitgeist is based on ideas with a historical nature. It is founded in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, the predecessor of modern science and positivism; in the „social physics“ of Auguste Compte, the founder of sociology; in the political philosophy of Frédéric le Play; as well as in the maxim of Hippolyte Taine: „Taisons-nous, obeissons, vivons dans la science!“ (“Let us be quiet, let us submit, let us live in science!“), which can be proclaimed  the “categorical imperative” of the Zeitgeist movement. If we compare the Zeitgeist doctrine with Bacon’s philosophy, we shall see that their common point is a discarding of spiritual authority as a criterion for the correctness of thinking and acting. According to Bacon, the purpose of science is not the creation of the spiritual, but of material wealth. It is not spirituality, but technique – as the capability for conquering nature in order to exploit it – which is the most authentic expression of man’s power and the basis for the “improvement of mankind”. Instead of pursuing truth and developing reason, it is dominated by the pursuit of knowledge, which enables the development of man’s productivistic (technical) powers in order to conquer nature. It is already in Bacon that we meet the idea of a “world civilisation”, as well as the idea that the use of science can enable man to “use his right to nature”. Bacon’s “New Science” does not only serve to increase man’s knowledge of nature, but to offer him the possibility to conquer it and thus create a better life. Bacon aspires to a “Great Instauration”, where technique is reduced to a modernized magic by which the “nature of things” is used for the development of man’s powers. In his interpretation of Bacon, Mihailo Marković, one of the most important representatives of the Yugoslavian praxis philosophy, points out Bacon’s view of nature: “The road to knowledge is, first of all, the freeing of spirit from all prejudices and fixed prejudgements (Bacon calls them ‘idols’), and then, subservient observation of nature, always with deep respect for what it has to teach us. Nature can be loved only if we listen to it first. (…) Nature should be discovered by inductive observation. Man should become its ‘servant and interpretor’, but only in order eventually to conquer nature for his own purposes. Hence people should stop fighting one another and should unite their efforts against the common enemy – unconquered nature.” In order to understand the true meaning of Bacon’s thought, we should bear in mind when it originated – when man developed his active and materialistic powers, which enabled him to get rid of religious dogmatism and natural determinism. In the modern world, technology is not the expression of the development of man’s powers and a possibility for man’s liberation from natural determinism; it is rather a means for destroying both nature and man. Instead of being libertarian, technology has become an oppressive and destructive power. The Zeitgeist project of the future is based on that. Zeitgeist does not seek to use technology in order to help the development of human powers, but in order to enable the establishment of totalitarian control over people. The Zeitgeist‘s combat with capitalism is, in fact, a combat waged against man as a libertarian being and against nature as a life-creating whole.

In Bacon, science does not have a social-critical and humanistic-visionary dimension. It has only a practical-productivistic dimension. It is not a means for liberating man from a class order and creating a humanistic vision of the future based on the development of relations between human beings, man’s creative being and his cultivation of nature; it is rather reduced to the means for conquering nature in order to satisfy man’s materialistic needs, to which social practice is also submitted. In “Novum Organum”, Bacon holds that we should get acquainted with the causes of phenomena and occurrences in order adequately to increase man’s power over nature. That principle will become one of the basic political principles of Compte’s “social physics”. Science becomes the means for studying social reality in order to preserve the ruling order in a timely and efficient manner. This is the true meaning of the maxim savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir (“know in order to predict, predict in order to act”), which is the chief directive for scientists, who are reduced to “social engineers” in their relation to society and the future. Turning science from the means of conquering nature into the means for conquering people – this is the essence of Compte’s “social physics” and the supreme political principle of Zeitgeist: the cognitive-productivistic power of man becomes the power of manipulating people – which is concentrated in the hands of the technocratic “elite”. Science and technique, as the means for conquering natural laws, become the means for technocracy to do away with the emancipatory heritage of mankind and human powers and to submit society to the laws of the technical world.

In spite of the fact that it deprives science of the possibility of being a critical theory of society, Bacon sees in science a way of developing man’s powers relative to the ruling (aristocratic) order, whose power is based in a (religious) dogma, which prevents the development of man’s creative and productivistic powers. Thus, science based on facts and inductive thinking becomes the means for eliminating prejudices which prevent man from increasing the certanty of his survival and from stepping out of the existing world. Bacon’s scientific mind appears as a possibility for reviving man’s creative powers, which are capable of overcoming the existing world. Bacon seeks to create a new world corresponding to a “new philosophy“, which he sees as an “Active Science“. Its “true and lawful aim is nothing else but to enrich man’s life with new discoveries and powers“ (Marković). In this context, Bacon’s vision of the future elaborated in his work “New Atlantis“ acquires a new dimension. The imagined island of “Bensalem“ (“Land of Peace“), which is Bacon’s vision of a future world, is “free from all pollution or foulness“ and as such is “the virgin of the world“.

Zeitgeist also departs from the fact that technique can be useful to people and that it can increase the certainty of their survival. However, today it is not just about discarding dogmas and prejudices, but also about doing away with the emancipatory legacy of modern society, as well as a humane future that can be created on its foundation. Zeitgeist seeks to use technique in order completely to submit man to a technical world and a technocratic “elite“ who rule that world. In that way, technique becomes a means for the destruction of mankind’s emancipatory legacy and emancipatory potential. Zeitgeist deals with the reason stemming from the fact that appealing to reason regularly meant calling man to free himself from everything existing and creating a world suited to the ideals of humanity. In spite of its positivist character, Bacon’s science opens the possibility for the development of mankind’s emancipatory potentials. By riding the wave of a destructive technical civilization created by capitalism, Zeitgeist’s project for the future does not involve only the destruction of mankind’s emancipatory potentials, but the destruction of man as a natural being and nature as a life-creating whole as well. This is at the same time the answer to the question of whether the Zeitgeist project for the future helps to prevent the destruction of life on Earth and increase the probability of mankind’s survival. Zeitgeist offers a possibility for the survival of nature and mankind by destroying the naturality of nature and the humanity of humans. It follows the basic tendency in the development of capitalism: destroying nature and man by creating a “new world“ – technical civilisation and “nature“, as well as “man“ suited to that world.

Unlike Bacon, Zeitgeist does not use the inductive method, but departs from a given political conception and in that context selects the facts and gives them  meaning, coming to the conclusions that should enable its realization. In addition, Zeitgeist does not use methods that offer the possibility of empirical verification and rational proof, but expresses its stands in the form of peculiar sermons which are meant to penetrate people’s sub-conscious and win them over to its causes “from the depths of their souls”. The “Leader” does not address the public as a scientist, but as a Messiah, who must carry out his “holy mission”: to lead society to a technically produced “holy land”. Zeitgeist does not seek to create reasonable people capable of making their own judgments, but sects of loyal followers, who obediently do what they are told to do. Zeitgeist discards yearnings for the truth, dialogue, critique… It does not seek to create a “new mind”, but a new mindlessness, more precisely, a dehumanized and instrumentalized ratio becomes the means for the ruling “elite” to create a mindless world. Zeitgeist does away with man as a self-conscious being and abolishes man’s conscious relation to the world. Since man is fatally subjected to “objective” science, emancipatory consciousness, as does moral consciousness, becomes a burden preventing man from focusing on continued progress. Not the development of a critical and visionary consciousness, but the creation of a blind sectarian consciousness – that is the purpose of the Zeitgeist dogmatism: fanaticism and idiocy are the ultimate results of the Zeitgeist “enligthenment”.

In the Zeitgeist doctrine there is a conflict between progress based on the development of science and striving to establish a technocratically based social order by discarding the emancipatory possibilities of science. Indeed, the development of science means the development of human powers seeking new spaces. It is precisely science which must question the existing state in order to come to new answers, which means that there is no progress without a doubt about the existing state and striving to create (discover) a novum. In addition, the results of the scientific mind do not have limits and they represent the heritage of mankind. The conflict between striving to reduce science to a political means for stopping social development and its emancipatory potentials appears as a conflict between the technical and humanistic minds. Today, man is ever more dramatically facing a capitalistically degenerated science and technique. Instead of becoming the means for liberating man from his dependancy on nature and its cultivation, they have become the means for the destruction of both man and nature. Science does not have an “objective” dimension and cannot by itself be a ruling power. It is only in the context of a humanistic political movement based on mankind’s libertarian and cultural heritage, which means guided by a humanistic vision of the world, that the emancipatory possibilities of science and technique can be realized.

The dominant consciousness in Zeitgeist is an instrumentalized scientific consciousness seeking to eliminate the emancipatory results and potentials of the modern (scientific and philosophical) mind. Zeitgeist follows the original intention of  positivist philosophy and seeks to perform a political instrumentalization of the mind. The turning of philosophy into a positivist discipline via science presupposes the turning of science into the technical means for a dehumanized and oppressive politics. The abolishment of philosophy by means of science is possible only when science is cut off from its creative and progressive nature and when it acquires a manipulative (technical-executive) character as an instrument of the ruling class for planning the “future“ and making “progress“. Science becomes the means for purifying philosophy of all that offers the possibility of a critical relation to the existing world from the aspect of emancipatory possibilities created in civil society, and from the aspect of an idea of the future which seeks to create a new world. At the same time, Zeitgeist “overcomes“ philosophy with science, which has become a technocratic religion, by depriving it of reason and criticism, that is, by depriving it of its essence and thus depriving it of the reason for its existance. “Objective“ science represents the end of philosophy.

By abolishing evaluative judgement, Zeitgeist abolishes the difference between politics and technology. More precisely, politics becomes the technique for ruling the “masses”, without a humanistic content and guided by the interests of the ruling class and the logic of technocratic efficiency. It is not the antique skill (techne) of ruling that pressupposes virtue (arete), which means a normative (religious) framework as a criterion for appraising the correct conduct. In Zeitgeist, there is no correct conduct, or more precisely, the only correct conduct is that guided by the principle of technocratic efficiency. Politics as a dehumanized technique for ruling becomes a form in which  positivist science is realized. The basic interest of a new class is not the acquisition of material wealth by or for its members, but preservation of the ruling order and thus their undisputed power. The basis for acquiring class (self)consciousness is not egoism, which pursues the aquisition of personal wealth, but the ruling position and the consciousness of superiority arising from it. A hierarchical order with a technocratic character brings about a constant reproduction of the “elites” by those who are “most intelligent” and are, consequently, predestined to be “leaders”. The criterion determining the legitimacy of power is given by the very nature of the ruling order. Those who rule are predestined to rule by being in power. A critique of the ruling “elite” is excluded, since the survival of that order is based on its undisputed “intelligence”. The ruling technocratic mechanism is, in fact, only a manifestation of the quasi-religious establishment of the ruling order, while the “superior intelligence of the elite” is but a mask hiding a fanatical authoritarian consciousness.

In order to control man, Zeitgeist cannot rely on his fear of natural forces. In modern times, science is the “victory” of man over natural forces – the basic source of antique mystery and the deification of nature (life). Zeitgeist seeks to deprive men of that heritage by realizing correctly that freeing man from his submission to nature creates a possibility for his liberation from submission to the alienated centers of social power. Zeitgeist does away with the demystifying power of science in order to (ab)use it and thus mystify the ruling spirit of the new order. Science becomes the means for producing a modern technocratic mystery, among other things, in the form of the “Venus Project”, which would deify the ruling principles of technical civilization and inspire man to be in awe of them. Instead of the antique unity of life and mystery, there is a political manipulation by the technocratic “elite” which tries, by means of science, to cast a veil of “mystery” over the primite (earthly) power and penetrate people’s consciousness. The Zeitgeist ideology becomes the means for mystifying the world in which man’s creative powers conquered the mystical “superhuman powers”. To prevent man from changing by developing his productive forces and his creative powers, social relations and his submissive position in society, namely, from acquiring self-consciousness as the creator of social goods and the capability of managing social processes – this is one of the most important goals of Zeitgeist. That is why its ideologues so fervently seek to cut the emancipatory (historical) roots of mankind and do away with the self-consciousness of man as a universal creative being of freedom. Zeitgeist devalues the productivistic activism of the working “masses” and turns the result into a means for establishing a new totalitarian power. It is one of the political movements that seek to turn man’s alienated creative power into the instrument for his submission. The “victory” of workers over nature becomes the victory of technocracy over the “working masses”. Man’s liberating powers and his creative practice become an anti-libertarian power: man becomes the victim of the development of his own productivistc (creative) powers. In the Hellenic world, man was the “toy of the gods” (Plato); in the world of Zeitgeist, he becomes the toy of technocracy.

The totalitarian character of the Zeitgeist future society is based on the survival of community being conditioned by efficient functioning of the technical system which, by way of a central computer serving as a “brain”, controls everything. A disturbance in the work of any segment questions the functioning of the entire system. The totalitarian character of the managing system is conditioned by the totalitarian character of the technical mechanism which ensures the functioning and survival of society. This makes “intelligence”, itself, the supreme skill of managing technique, an alienated and controlling power. The ruling “elite” does not have a humane status, but rather is the bearer of the “intelligence” which manages the mechanism providing the survival of society and as such has status similar to that of the priestly caste in ancient civilizations. Since everything is manufactured (including food) and has an artificial character, a perfectly functioning system is of a superior existential significance for the community. Human relations and man’s consciousness are conditioned by the totalitarian character of the devaluation of existence and the managing system based on it. Critical thinking does not only question the authoritarian structure of power, but also the functioning of the mechanism which ensures the survival of society. Free thinking and expression have an anti-existential character.

The project of the future advocated by Zeitgeist seeks to create an order superior to capitalism in existential terms, not in humanistic terms. It is an answer to the ever more dramatic existential threat to mankind and as such is an attempt to create a “rational alternative” to a destructive capitalist irrationalism. The problem is that it is not an answer based on the emancipatory potentials of mankind and the life-creating potentials of nature, but on a science and technique that are dehumanized and have become powers alienated from yet governing man. Zeitgeist does not seek to restore man’s creative powers, but to use them to create a new totalitarian order in which technique, as a function of a technocratic “elite”, will have an undisputed power over people. Managing technical processes, which is totalitarian in character, is a way of establishing a totalitarian power over people. The one who controls the processes that ensure the existence of society naturally becomes the master over people. Zeitgeist follows the expansionist spirit of monopolistic capitalism, which enables the new “master race” to establish a monopoly on science and technique and to globalize its power. Mastering the laws of nature becomes a means for the complete submission of man to the wilfulness of technocracy and for halting history.

Zeitgeist is a quasi-religion, which discards the cultural heritage of mankind. Scientific “enlightenment“, on which Zeitgeist insists, is not based on the emancipatory heritage of national cultures and civil society, especially not on the historical struggle of workers for a just society. As far as Zeitgeist‘s dealing with religion is concerned, it is not a combat with illusory worlds and illusory consciousness, but a combat with man as a spiritual being. A combat with the idea of transcendency, which carries within itself an idea for integrating mankind and the idea of equality, becomes one of the ways to destroy the humanistic imagination. Zeitgeist does not differentiate between emancipatory religious consciousness and the religion imposed by religious institutions, which is but a mask serving to deify private property and class order based on exploitation of workers. Religious consciousness is one of the most important historical forms of the development of man as a spiritual being. Without Hellenic spirituality, which is of a religious nature par excellence, modern civilization cannot be imagined. The same goes for Christianity and medieval civilization, as well as for the Renaissance. All that is in the spiritual “genetic code“ of mankind, without which the future is not possible. Here, also, it can be seen that Zeitgeist does not differentiate between discarding and overcoming the past and does not respect the emancipatory heritage of mankind, which, above all else, means man as a historical being.

At the political and historical levels, Zeitgeist is, actually, a form in which technocracy acquires political self-consciousness and becomes a new class – one which strives to come out from the shadow of capitalism and take power. It discards private property and money, the main levers of capitalist power, since as a technical “elite“, holding the technical means with which to rule society, it has de facto undisputed power over people. What the “Leader“ does with his “collaborators“ is to shape the class self-consciousness of technocracy as the ruling class. In Marx’s words, it is about technocracy turning from a class in itself into a class for itself. Science, deprived of evaluative judgement, is the new religion of the new class. The undisputable character of “objective“ scientific knowledge replaces the undisputability of a “God“. In the center of the „future town“ there is no university, theatre, museum, church, gallery or library, but only a technically produced deity: the omnipotent computer. It becomes the “Idol“ behind which hide self-proclaimed shadow rulers who determine people’s destiny without any responsibility for their actions. What gives Zeitgeist such significance is the fact that technique has become the chief driving force for social development and the most important means for securing power over working people. Zeitgeist, just as other similar political movements, uses humanistic rhetoric, but it is the product of capitalism, fed on the bloody milk that pours from capitalism’s steel spigots.

Just as the nature of what is being criticized conditions the nature of the critique, the nature of the ruling order conditions the nature of the struggle against it. In order to prevent people from understanding the true nature of capitalism and plotting an appropriate strategy of struggle against it, Zeitgeist reduces capitalism to the qualities which do not indicate the necessity for a radical political struggle by the oppressed workers and other citizens against capitalism. In that context, the Zeitgeist propagandists conceal the fact that their analysis and critique of capitalism are based on a political project which discards the struggle of the oppressed workers for freedom. Under the guise of a “scientific objectivism“, it eliminates a political analysis of capitalism, indicating that it is a class society based on the power of capitalists over workers, ensured by the police, army, secret agencies (in the USA alone there are about 3200 (!) agencies employing almost 850 000 people), paramilitary, crime and mafia groups, public media, entertainment industries, churches… The Zeitgeist’s combat with history is actually a combat with the historical struggle of the working people against the class movement and colonialism. The leaders of Zeitgeist do not even think about dealing with the American and French revolutions, as it is through them that the bourgeois class came to power, but they ruthlessly deal with the Russian and Chinese revolutions – since they helped workers and peasants overthrow capitalists and free themselves from the colonial yoke. Workers’ and anti-colonial revolutions are reduced to a “crime“. Likewise, the leaders of Zeitgeist do not bother to speak about the monstrous crimes of capitalists and their colonial phalanges, since in the light of those crimes the peasants’, workers’ and anti-colonial revolutions acquire a true, emancipatory and existential dimension. They do not mention the monstrous campaign of eradication of tens of millions of Native Americans by American capitalists; bestial murders and death from exhaustion of tens of millions of Africans who worked as slaves on the plantations of American land owners; tens of millions of children who, at the time of the industrial revolution, died in mines and factories where they worked for 14 hours per day; tens of millions of workers and peasants who died in the First and Second World Wars, launched by European, American and Japanese capitalists; about atrocious crimes of European capitalists in China, India, Africa, Central and South America and the Middle East, and over 200 million killed, including millions of children; dozens of criminal “humanitarian interventions“, which were launched after the Second World War by the American capitalists in order to steal other people’s territories and enable the development of a military-industrial complex which is the spine of a “new world order“ and the biggest threat to the survival of mankind; the fact that, thanks to the economic fascism of the most powerful capitalist states in the world, over 30 000 children die every day from starvation; the „consumer society“ with which capitalism seeks to “solve“ the problem of hyper-production and ensure further development has brought about such ecological destruction of the Earth and such climate changes that the survival of mankind is being called into question… At the same time, the ideologues of Zeitgeist are concealing the destructive potential of the capitalist way of developing the productive forces and the fascist potential of capitalist “democracy“ and, in that context, the monstrous plans of the most powerful capitalist groups in the West to kill, by technological and biological means, the “surplus“ of over 6 billion people. They do not speak of the true nature of capitalism, since in view of the tendency of developing capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction, the true nature and political reach of the Zeitgeist movement would be manifested, and this only means that it is but one of the detours in the struggle against capitalism and as such serves to buy time for capitalism and, thus, contribute to the destruction of mankind and life on the Earth.

Unlike Saint-Simon, Fourier and Marx, who see in conflicts between social groups (classes) the engine of social progress, the ideologues of Zeitgeist think, like Compte and Spencer, that political conflicts jeopardise the development of society – which should be an organic, harmoniously functioning, whole. Political pluralism is removed from the Zeitgeist project of the future. Zeitgeist is based on the “fact“, upon which the ideologues of capitalism insist and which is in the basis of Compte’s social theory, that the history of class struggles is over. By fighting to establish an order based on the undisputed rule of technocracy, Zeitgeist sees in the struggle of the oppressed for freedom the worst form of social pathology. Not only are freedom and progress incompatible, they are opposed. Everything is eliminated from the legacy of mankind that can contribute to the development of the consciousness of the oppressed working “masses“ that they are the creators of social goods and bearers of social progress. Hence Zeitgeist abolishes evaluative criteria and evaluative judgements. The ideals of the French bourgeois revolution (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité), on which modern humanism is based, do not exist in the Zeitgeist project of the future. The ultimate political goal of the Zeitgeist doctrine and practice is the elimination of the emancipatory heritage of mankind which offers the possibility of the creation of a new world and a complete and irrevocable blending of man with the ruling order. “Reconciliation” (Compte) of those deprived of their rights with the established order of non-freedom and inequality is conditio sine qua non of the “new order” in the development of society advocated by Zeitgeist. The world as a space where workers are dominated by an undisputed and eternal technocratic “elite”– this is the ultimate goal of Zeitgeist progress. It represents the end of the evolution of a society based on conflict. “Reconciliation” and “perfection” become the foundation of social life. The principle of competitiveness is abolished by the principle of totalitarian technocratic domination.

Zeitgeist is akin to Compte’s idea of order, which exists in society when there is a stability of ruling principles and when all members of society are of the same opinion. According to Compte, such a state existed in the feudal period, in places ruled by Catholicism. Following the Catholic counter-revolutionary thinkers Lois de Bonald and Joseph-Marie de Maistre, Compte deals with Protestantism as a “negative ideology” (Maistre), which only creates “intellectual anarchy”. With the development of the science of society, as its spiritual pillar, people will again think in the same way, ensuring the stability of society. Compte came to the idea that was to become the fundamental political principle of Zeitgeist: a new (scientist) religion should be created, as well as a new clergy, which would unite society like the Catholic Church did in the Middle Ages. Achieving one-mindedness based on undisputed “objective” scientific knowledge is the basis of both Compte’s and Zeitgeist’s political conception. Basically, Zeitgeist abolishes the right of people to have their own opinion, as well as a capacity to resolve, as rational beings, (inevitable) conflicts in a reasonable way, in the interests of society. By abolishing people’s capability to settle their disputes as rational beings, as well as their relation to nature and the future, Zeitgeist abolishes the most important potential of human society, making the rule of a technocratic “elite” unnecessary. By striving to establish a technocratic totalitarianism, Zeitgeist, in fact, strives to destroy man’s political being, which is his emancipated social being. Zeitgeist doctrine deals with Aristotle’s thesis that man is a zoon politikon, which is the alpha and omega of the political constitution of modern society. Zeitgeist abolishes the state as a political community of citizens and society as a community of free and rational people. There is no Rousseau’s “social contract”, according to which society is the result of mutual agreements between people, nor Compte’s sociability, which “results spontaneously from human nature itself”. Basically, Zeitgeist abolishes the citizen as a constitutive factor of society as a political community, and thus abolishes civil society.

Since it deals with history, Zeitgeist abolishes the idea of progress created in the New Age, which insists on scientific development being associated with the realization of man’s “natural rights”, social justice and overall social development (Jacques Turgot, Nicolas de Condorcet). Similarly, Zeitgeist discards Compte’s historical conception and thus the “theological” and “metaphysical” phase in the development of mankind. For Zeitgeist, mankind’s past is on the same temporal plane, which means that strivings to step out of the existing world are meaningless. The Zeitgeist ideology does away with the idea of progress, which involves not only quantitive shifts, but also qualitative leaps in the development of society and the creation of a novum. Here we should recall Vindelband’s warning that the transformation of society in itself does not necessarily mean progress and that we should differentiate between a “higher” and a “more valuable” social order. Zeitgeist has not advanced much from the old Roman progressus, which consists of progress without a novum. Only (endless) quantitative shifts are possible, progress in the given spatial and temporal dimensions – progressing without progress. What is “new” is that progressing is reduced to the eventual abolishment of any possibility of stepping out of the technical world.

The Zeitgeist conception of progress has an instrumental character and is based on the development of science and technology, which become the exclusive means for the new ruling class to establishing totalitarian power: man becomes the slave of his own productivistic (creative) practice. The Zeitgeist progress is based on a positivistic scientific mind, which departs from the maxim savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir, which means that planning for the future, as an undisputed privilege of the ruling “elite”, is the alpha and omega of the Zeitgeist theory of progress. The instrumental character of the Zeitgeist doctrine comes from its endeavour to rationally plan the future, which involves the prediction of obstacles that can jeopardize established “progress”, as well as being the means for their efficient elimination. Zeitgeist is a peculiar service of the technocracy for “planning the future”. Its antidemocratic nature indicates the true (antidemocratic) nature of capitalism. While Compte insists on the “development” and “perfectioning” of society, in Zeitgeist, the dominant idea is that of a “new beginning”, based on the cult of the “Leader” and the scientific practice of the technocratic “elite”. The creation of a new world does not involve the realization of a particular evaluative ideal, but a complete integration of man into the new order. Instead of advocating a change in social relations and the development of productive forces and man’s creative powers, Zeitgeist advocates the creation of a new “master elite”, which will manage efficiently to do away with the emancipatory heritage of mankind and the libertarian movement. Zeitgeist is akin to Spencer: “perfectioning” is based on the dying out of the improper and the survival of the proper functions of the social organism. Zeitgeist also does not seek to preserve the world as it is, but to “perfect” it by eliminating all that can jeopardize the order on which it is based. It seeks to do away with the emancipatory heritage of mankind and thus its theory means calling on technocracy to embark upon a crusade against all that leads to stepping out of the existing world. Zeitgeist‘s activistic intention is based on the strivings of the technocratic elite to rearrange society to suit its own interests and to colonize the planet. The world as a technically perfected concentration camp where all hope for a true human world is gone – this is the ideal of the “perfect” world sought by Zeitgeist. Nothing can halt the pace of progress, which means the self-willingness of the ruling “elite”. The Zeitgeist conception, in the form of technocracy, “unites” an absolutized voluntarism and an absolutized progressism. The authoritarian establishment of Zeitgeist is, among other things, based on this: the leaders of Zeitgeist are not responsible to anyone. They are self-proclaimed guardians of the holy “scientific spirit” that rules the world and on which the survival and “perfectioning” of society is based. The creation of a “new world” involves the destruction of critical consciousness and the pacification of workers: the public (political) sphere is the privilege of the ruling “elite”. The struggle for a “new society” involves a pedagogical reform, which will bring about the creation of a uniform personal character and a uniform view of the world. The ultimate reach of this struggle is the complete elimination of the critical and a changing mind and the idea of the future, that is, the realization of the idea of “order” and of “progress” as the establishment of a complete and final domination by technocracy over man (mankind) and the planet (nature) – which is reduced to being the source of energy and raw material. Zeitgeist seeks to prevent the development of the productivistic (potentially creative) powers of workers from allowing them to appear on the political scene by challenging the undisputed power of the technocratic “elite”. Zeitgeist seeks to prevent man from acquiring, by way of a productivistic (creative) practice, consciousness of himself as a libertarian being and the creator of (his own) history. The “negative” starting point of the Zeitgeist doctrine is the truth that man is capable of creating a world in his own image.

The idea of progress advocated by Zeitgeist has a technocratic nature and does away with the progress which involves the realization of man’s humanistic potential and mankind’s humanistic ideals, both having a historical character. It is based on strivings to realize the manipulative possibilities of technique in the context of conquering nature and establishing control over people. Hence the future is a product of a technocratic rather than a humanistic imagination. Zeitgeist does not find the ideal of a perfect world in the past, but in some totalitarian technical world. By abolishing history, Zeitgeist deprived progress of purpose and meaning, which means that in a cultural time-frame, which is the “true space of history” (Marx), it turned progress into a physical, “purely mechanical passage of time” (Ernst Bloch) beyond history. Unlike the predecessors of modernity, who strove to be visionaries (Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier…), Zeitgeist seeks to destroy the vision of the future along with the visionary mind. It does away with the “fantasy” of overcoming the capitalist world, at the same time as it seeks to create with the “Project Venus” a fantastic manifestation of the principle on which the existing world is based. The pictures of a “future world” become the means for destroying the visionary imagination and the need to dream. Zeitgeist “overcomes” Leibniz’s theodicy: the designed world is not “one of the best worlds”, it is the only possible world. It is the only alternative to capitalism, and it is not reached by critical confrontation with other alternatives, but by imposing it on mankind through technical means and advertising methods used by the capitalist propaganda machine. Like Compte’s philosophy, the Zeitgeist project of the future heralds the “end of utopia”, the difference being that it does not do away only with the idea of utopia, but with the possibility of its realization as well. The Zeitgeist ideology is a means for preventing the objective possibilities of freedom from becoming realistic possibilities for man’s liberation through the destruction of critical consciousness and workers’ and citizens’ practices for (potentially revolutionary) change. This is what gives Zeitgeist a repressive character: the bigger the objective possibilities for man to step out of a repressive civilization into a civilization of freedom, the more aggressively the technocracy tries to destroy his libertarian dignity and visionary mind. Zeitgeist is one of the manifestations of the ruling principle of monopolistic capitalism, “Destroy the competition!”, which has a universal character and involves destruction of all those political ideas and movements which offer a humanistic alternative to capitalism. It is not a coincidence that the Zeitgeist propagandists do not speak of a libertarian history of mankind and human communities that lived in unity with nature. They do not want to incite people to fight for freedom, nor do they want to suggest that people could establish a rational and cultivating relation with nature, without becoming slaves of the technocratic order headed by the self-proclaimed “elite” of scientists.

Unlike the ideas of the future generated at the onset of capitalism, which are based on existential optimism, the Zeitgeist project of the future is a direct result of the ever more dramatic existential crisis into which mankind has been brought by capitalism. The truth is that capitalism brought the world to the edge of an abyss, enabling  inhumane visions like the Zeitgeist project of the future to acquire legitimacy, public promotion and popularity in Western “democracies“. The same goes for Stephen Hawking’s call to do away with ”traditional mankind“, as well as for his claim that human beings must leave the Earth within the next 200 years; for the idea of a “man-cyborg“, “terminators“, “androids“, Hollywood “cosmic epopee“; for the “argument“ that over 6 billion people must be killed in order for mankind to survive – which is gaining popularity in the West… Zeitgeist is one of the projects of the future that avers that capitalism cannot resolve the existential crisis it creates departing from its proclaimed “democratic principles“. The increasing ruthlessness with which capitalists abuse basic human and civil rights is the expression of an existential panic created by capitalism – which could turn into a political movement to destroy capitalism. At the same time, the increasingly inhumane projects of the future indicate the fascist potential of capitalism and its accumulated destructive powers, which at any moment could get out of control and destroy mankind.

The Zeitgeist idea of the future relies on the idea that science and technology are the means by which man conquers natural forces and becomes the “master and possessor of nature“ (maître et possesseur de la nature – René Descartes). It deals with the notion that regards nature as man‘s life-creating, aesthetic and historical space. In that context, the world is not a life-creating and spiritual whole, but the source of energy and raw material. The dominant logic is a primitive economic logic imposed by capitalism, which cuts the life-creating bond between nature and man, according to the North American chief of the Seattle tribe, the “spinning wheel of life“, of which man is an organic part. Zeitgeist abolishes the humanity and naturality of man’s living space, and, thus, his life-creating, historical, visionary and aesthetic potential, reducing his to a technically degenerated living environment. There is no creative spontaneity, nothing is unexpected, there is no openness to this living space of the future… The world is not a humane, but a technocratic whole. Cities do not reflect man’s life as a visionary, but as a technical being. Zeitgeist cities do not have an artistic, but a technical form. It is not man’s artistic being and creative spontaneity, but a dehumanised scientific mind and technocratic efficiency that are the integrative force of society. The living environment is reduced to a technically produced ghetto, in which man is forced to live as he has no other living space. The insistance on a technocratic existential principle, which is but an embodiment of the capitalist life style and a projection into the future of the capitalist way of life, abolishes the essential life principle. The Zeitgeist project of the future is the reincarnation of the capitalist world in a technically perfected form. That is why Zeitgeist discards the idea of the genuine sociability and the development of human relations as the most important precondition for the creation of a humane society.

The project of future cities created by the Zeitgeist designers is based on the notion that in a human settlement one sees not a humanized natural space and, as such, the realization of man as a historical, social, cultural, libertarian, life-creating, aesthetic and visionary being, but rather a technically organized life space. In them, people are deprived of unity with nature and natural living, and thus of their genuine natural being. A city as a concrete historical space is the embodiment of the ruling order and the ruling way of life in a direct material sense. It is a degenerated space taken from nature and thus is a violation of nature. It is the concentration of power by the ruling order in physical, spiritual and functional sense. At the same time, a city is a class creation and a form of class domination. The way of life, nature and structure of human relations – all this is conditioned by the nature of the ruling order and the mechanisms of its functioning. In the form of a “citizen“, man becomes a corporal, spiritual and functional member of the ruling order. Man’s emancipation from being a “citizen“ involves the abolishment of the city as a space alienated from nature and the creation of such human habitats as will enable man to realize himself as an emancipated natural being. Architecture should be based on the principle of humanized, and not technicized, natural surroundings. Instead of a humanized technical space, the world should become a humanized natural space. In fact, the world should become a global village, where man will live in direct unity with nature. At the same time, a living space should be open to the future, and not given by the manipulative powers of technique. Man’s creative powers as a libertarian being and the life-creating potential of nature are the basis on which a living environment and man’s life within it should be created and developed. Instead of a technical project, the living environment should be a work of art.

Zeitgeist does not only abolish history, but also the evolution of living beings. It creates a “new beginning“ of the living world and man, which is based on scientific ideas and technical innovations. This is also the basis for the production of food. It creates technical gardens which will produce scientifically raised (artificial) plants in a scientifically produced (artificial) soil. In a biologically healthy soil, one cubic meter contains over 270 living species. Each species creates its own micro world, and all those worlds together create the quality of the soil based on the evolution of the living world over the last 3 billion years. The same goes for plants, which Zeitgeist deprives of natural surroundings and original naturality and creates their surrogates in an industrial way using computer regulation. There are no free natural surroundings, no multiculturality and, thus, no co-existence of plants, there is no renovation of the abundance of natural forms, no insects (bees, above all), birds nor hundreds of animal species, which means that there is no co-existence of plant and animal species on which the life-creating totality of nature is based. Zeitgeist does not strive for the naturalization of the living world and renewal of nature’s life-creating force. Hence, there can be no historical character to the struggle for the preservation and humanization of nature and, in that context, no Paul-Henri Holbach, Claude Helvétius, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Charles Fourier, Ludwig Feuerbach, nor Karl Marx with his principle “humanism-naturalism“ and the thesis that nature is man’s “anorganic body“. The starting point of the Zeitgeist project of the future is an ecologically barren land produced by capitalist “progress“.

The Zeitgeist anthropological model indicates the way in which existential reductionism, conditioned by the development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction, conditions anthropological (and any other forms of) reductionism. The Zeitgeist project of the future appears in the form of a one-dimensional world deprived of historicity and limited by technical borders within which there is no room for naturality and humanity. A dehumanized and denaturalized world produces a dehumanized and denaturalized man. It is a “one-dimensional man“ (Herbert Marcuse), whose one-dimensionality is conditioned by the technical world that reduces society to a mechanised ant hill. The Zeitgeist ideology is based on a mutilated notion of man. It is one of the curved mirrors created by capitalism in which man can see only his degenerated image. According to Zeitgeist, it is not capitalism that causes the destruction of the world, but the evil contained in man, which appears in the form of a class, national and religious consciousness. By way of the “objective“ scientific mind, we can drive out the demons from people’s heads and thus resolve conflicts threatening the survival of mankind. It is a peculiar scientistic exorcism by which an empty man is created, deprived of a cultural and libertarian self-consciousness, and, as such, is rendered a raw material for the making of a “new man“, suited to the technocratic project of the future that Zeitgeist seeks to realize.

The anthropological project of Zeitgeist can best be seen viewed against the humanistic ideas of man created through history. The ideal of man who lived in unity with nature, the antique kalokagathos, the Christian contemplative man, the Renaissance l’uomo universale, Rousseau’s Emile, Nietzsche’s “synthetical“ man, Marx’s man as a universal creative being of freedom – all these are ideas of man with an emancipatory nature and are as such superior to the idea of man offered by Zeitgeist. In its anti-humane potential, the anthropological project of Zeitgeist is akin to the Nazi project of a “Superman“ (Übermensch). As did the Nazis, the ideologues of Zeitgeist discard the libertarian and cultural heritage of mankind and seek to create a “new man“ according to scientific criteria and in a technical way, a man suited to the nature of a technical world. Unlike the Nazi “Superman“, whose self-consciousness is rooted in the mythological past of the German race (the myth of Sigfried and Nibelungen), the Zeitgeist “new man“ is deprived of both historical and mythological consciousness. If we use historical analogies, the Zeitgeist “new man“ is most akin to Compte’s “positive man“, apart from the fact that Compte’s is dominated by a positive scientific consciousness, while in Zeitgest he is genetically disfigured. The creation of a surrogate-man corresponds to the basic intention of modern capitalism – to destroy “traditional mankind“ and create a “new man“ (cyborg) suited to the technical world in which everything is produced in laboratories. We should bear in mind that the Zeitgeist movement sprouted from American soil, where the only (native) people with a history, who lived in unity with nature, were destroyed; in a world where nothing has an enduring value; in a world where anything can be “produced“ and turned into money – including man.

The Zeitgeist project by itself is a technocratic phantasm, but the most important thing is the concrete social (political) effect it produces. Zeitgeist appeals to lonely young people who are lost in the destructive capitalist nothingness and who lack historical self-consciousness and social being. It does not seek to awaken in them humanity and motivate them to fight against capitalism and for a humane world, it rather seeks to instrumentalize their desolation. Zeitgeist offers young people, the victims of capitalism, a technically degenerated picture of the future, which is but one of the ideological forms in which the capitalist world appears. It is, in fact, about a technocratic illusion emanating from the capitalist propaganda sphere. The owners of the Zeitgeist movement have money and organisation and use the Internet as a means for imposing on young people a “vision of the future“, using the mechanisms of manipulation on which the advertising industry is based. The “vision of the future“ becomes a commodity in the capitalist market place of illusions, one that is spectacularly packaged. Zeitgeist eliminates from people’s heads the real world and creates a virtual one that destroys the humanistic and produces a technocratic imagination. Just as the capitalist propaganda machinery turns people’s need for clear mountain water into a “need“ for a tasteless “coca-cola“, so is their craving for a humane world turned into “craving“ for a dehumanized and denaturalized world. The technocratic vision of the world becomes a modern illusion that appeals to young people stuck to computer screens, whose social, which means political, being has been destroyed. They live in a virtual world and their consciousness and imagination are but a reflexion of what is offered to them every day through their computer screens. Their mental activism is reduced to receiving and sending e-mails and to the creation of a computer phantom, who will represent them in a virtual facebook world. Zeitgeist addresses the “computer generation“, which means technically degenerated young people who do not care for the cultural and libertarian heritage of mankind. To make matters worse, they personalize their relation to the computer, and it becomes everything they are missing: a friend, a lover, a brother… That is why many of them are confused by the critique of the Zeitgeist doctrine. It is a decoy for atomized people, which creates an illusion of sociability and engagement. Zeitgeist offers them the possibility to be “critical“ and to continue to live in “their“ world. It is an alibi for those who are not strong enough to leave their caves and to come, along with other young people, into the daylight. The “Leader“ is a connection between the virtual world, on computer screens, and the real world where young people should be engaged. Their “engagement“ is actually reduced to waiting for the “Messiah“ to send them a message by way of the Internet, after which they will “change the world“. They are not people who live and act as social beings, but rather lonely people who respond to a button that will be pressed by the one who has the remote control. The “fans“ of Zeitgeist are reduced to teledirected rats. By destroying people’s historical and social self-consciousness, capitalism turns them into idiots who are willing to rely on a mystified power of technique and resigned to the loss of elementary human and civil rights, since these rights, in their desolate hopelessness, mean nothing to them. What does the right to fly the skies mean to a falcon, if its wings have been cut off and it is locked in a cage, condemned to death?

The Zeitgeist picture of a future world is, actually, a combat with man’s humanistic potential and humanistic imagination. It is not the world of free people, but a technically perfected concentration camp, where technically degenerated people live their futile lives. The Zeitgeist project of the future is one of the manifestations of the idea of the end of history. We can only imagine today how people who manage to free themselves from the chains of capitalism and create a humane world will live, think and dream. We are all victims of capitalism and bear its stamp. Our vision of the future is not the vision of free people, but a vision created on the basis of and relative to capitalism, which means that it is conditioned by the capitalist civilisation. A struggle for the future cannot be based on designing plans in which future generations are given a way of living, but on a struggle to liberate mankind from the capitalist (technical) tyranny. Young people should become capable of taking over the management of the entire process of social reproduction. The basic precondition is to leave their lonely dams and to get organised for a struggle in the real world. Fighting sociability, with which all modes of mediation between man and (his) world will be abolished, is the only true force that can prevent the destruction of life on the Earth and create a humane world.

Capitalism, as a totalitarian order of destruction, created appropriate means and methods for destroying critical and visionary consciousness and such forms of mediation between man and world which prevent man from abolishing capitalism and creating a new world.  In  the past,  people’s  consciousness  was  controlled  by  the  clergy.  Today,  it  is controlled by TV presenters and other capitalist manipulators, united in show‐business, who use the results of modern science and technology and myths based on them, along with instrumentalized mysticism that produces a quasi‐religious consciousness. Instead of being directed towards disclosing the destructive processes that question man’s survival on the planet and towards creating the vision of a new world, the mind is directed towards the production of spectacular phantasms that destroy man’s critical mind and visionary consciousness. Hence such popularity of various Coca‐Cola mystifiers and intellectual con artists with their stories about mysterious „world rulers”, „estra‐terrestrials”, „mystical forces”, „parallel worlds”… The art of mystification replaces historical analyses, while mysticism replaces visionary imagination. Modern, technocratically based „fairy‐tales” are one of the ways in which capitalism degenerates the mind and creates a mass idiocy. With the existing world being less and less human and with man being more and more lonely and thus less capable of changing his life, the need to retreat to an illusory world is increasing. Illusions are the most wanted commodity on the „consumer society” market, resulting in a hyper‐production of illusory worlds. The production of illusions has become one of the most important ways in which capitalists deal with humanistic visionary consciousness and the efforts of the oppressed to organize and fight against capitalism. Manipulation no longer resides in the ideological, but in the psychological sphere. The story about a „bright future” and the „American dream” is gone. To flee from the increasingly darker reality has become the opsession of the average (petty) bourgeoise in the „democratic world”.

The destruction of the mind and historical self‐consciousness of the oppressed is a link between modern entertaining industry and Nazi propaganda machinery. Here are Adolf Hitler’s instructions to Nazi leaders (1942) intended to „help” them to establish efficient domination over the „conquered peoples”: „Hence we should not allow the appearance of teachers who might suddenly ask for compulsory education for the conquered nations. The knowledge of the Russians, Ukrainians, the Kyrgyz people and others of reading and writing would only do us harm. It would enable those with bright intelligence to acquire certain knowledge about history and thus develop political ideas, which could somehow be directed against us. – It is much better to set up a radio in each village, in order to inform people and offer them some entertainment, than to enable them to acquire their own political, scientific and other erudition. Also, rather than telling the conquered peoples in the radio shows their history, we should play music, the more the better. Because, popular music improves work efficiency. And, if people insist on dancing, according to our information and systematic approach, this we could welcome.” (22) Hitler’s instructions on how to manipulate the consciousness  of  „lower  races”  are,  actually,  the  basis  of  the  contemporary  capitalist strategy for establishing domination over the working class in the most developed capitalist countries and over the peoples on the „margins of capitalism”, who are doomed to be exterminated by the West.

Giving a spectacular dimension to the marginal ‐ on which both the advertising industry and the entire ideological sphere of capitalism are based ‐ is one of the most important ways for destroying the quality criteria. As a result, people cannot realize the true nature of the ruling order and, at the same time, see the actual possibilities for the creation of a new world. Without the possibility of recognizing quality, it is not possible to acquire a true visionary  consciousness.    When    everything    becomes    „fantastic”, „ingenious”, „incredible” – then the true values sink into the mud of the trivial. The public „dispute” over sports events is a typical example of marginalizing the important, of people’s depolitization, of the creation of false sociability and mass idiocy. The ruling media are broadcasting increasingly aggressive and primitive entertainment programs in order to destroy people’s interest in truth and separate their mind from the real world created by capitalism: destruction of nature, mass deaths from lack of food, water and from diseases, criminalization of society, creation of a police state, increased chances of using the nuclear weapons, monstrous technical projects for causing Earthquakes and fatal climate changes, mass killings of children for „obtaining” organs, disposal of nuclear waste in the oceans, nuclear plant accidents, white plague, increased illiteracy, destruction of national cultures and historical self‐consciousness… In the „curved mirrors” of capitalist ideology and in the lights of spectacular advertisements of the „consumer society”, the important things become distorted and marginalized, while the marginal acquires a fatal and spectacular dimension. Advertising slogans, such as the Coca‐Cola slogan: „Can’t beat the real thing!”, which are constantly broadcast by TV and radio stations, impair man’s ability to discern and comprehend what is really important. Contemporary spectacles do not involve the creation of classical illusions by mental manipulation, which means to „seduce” man by way of his prejudices, fears and desires, but on the creation of spectacular illusions, void of all content, which comes down to aggressive stimulation of senses by technical means. Instead of a melody, what we hear is a deafening noise; instead of a visual effect, we have a dazzling light… There is no emotion, no imagination, no reason… In addition to being marked by escapism, the creation of illusions serves to impair the senses and destroy the need and possibility of dreaming about a humane world. The illusion is not only a spectacular manifestation of a destructive capitalist nothingness, it is also a technical means for destroying humanity.

The life itself, degenerated by capitalism, has become the means for drawing people into the value and existential orbit of capitalism. The „consumer society” is directly reflected on the political sphere. For Marx, workers’ non‐working time is the result of their struggle against capitalist exploitation, which gave them a chance to develop class‐consciousness and start an organized political struggle. In the „consumer society”, non‐working time has become consumer time, which pulls workers into the spiritual and existential orbit of capitalism. Through the „consumer society”, capitalists created a new market, enabled further development of capitalism, and (temporarily) purchased „social peace”. At the same time, they drive people into debt slavery and thus integrate them into the ruling order. Capitalism has degenerated the workers’ class consciousness by creating a consumer mentality. The need for freedom has turned into the need to purchase and destroy. Workers have become „consumers”, who contribute, through their working and consumer activism, to the development of capitalism. Not only do they make „their own chains” (Marx), they also destroy life and cause their own perishing as biological and human beings. At the same time, the increasingly deep existential crisis turned the proletarian youth in the most developed capitalist countries, as mercenary soldiers, into the tool of the most powerful capitalist concerns for dealing with „rebellious” peoples and establishing the (American) „new world order”.

As far as the „social state” is concerned, the official ideology claims that it is the result of a „compromise” between bourgeoisie and working class. Indeed, the „social state” is one of the established forms of the bourgeois class domination over the workers. Rather than being founded on humanism, it is a political answer of the bourgeoisie to the ever deeper crisis of capitalism and the changing (revolutionary) potentials of the workers’ movement in the most developed capitalist countries in the West. Its purpose is to establish a „bearable exploitation” of workers by capitalists, which means to reduce their existential threat and thus prevent the workers’ class struggle and enable a stable development of capitalism. Essentially, the „social state” is a legal form of plundering from workers, who, through the taxation system imposed by the capitalist state, finance their own „social contributions”, which should enable them to survive the capitalistically created existential crisis without any complaints. At the same time, the „social state” serves to destroy workers’ class consciousness and pull them, by way of the consumer mentality, into the value horizon of the „middle class”, as one of the pillars of capitalism. Ultimately, the „social state” enables the survival of capitalism and consequently contributes to the destruction of life on the planet.

The criminalization of workers is one of the most efficient ways in which the oppressed are being pulled into the spiritual and existential orbit of capitalism. It is the worst possible form of degeneration of people and society, which perfectly corresponds to the ruling spirit of capitalism. The criminalization of the oppressed turns the society into a capitalist menagerie. The workers’ struggle for a just society becomes the struggle of atomized citizens for survival. With the insreasingly deeper crisis in the capitalist states, the chances are increasing that criminal gangs will take power and establish dictatorship. They will undoubtedly be supported by capitalists and the bourgeoisie if they see it as a chance to prevent radical social changes and enable the survival of capitalism. It should be remembered that during the economic crisis of capitalism in the wake of the Great War, Italian and German fascists were financed and brought to power by aristocracy and capitalists in their attempt to deal with the workers’ movement. By destroying social institutions, capitalism creates conditions for criminal gangs to become the sole social power capable of dealing with workers and preventing the demise of capitalism. Indeed, cooperation between mafia and ruling capitalist groups have for many decades been the key factor in establishing power in the most developed capitalist states. Destruction of the emancipatory legacy of the bourgeois society, acute ecological and economic crisis, high unemployment rate,  degradation  of  democratic  institutions,  mafia‐style  capitalist  and  political organizations, deeper social differences, general criminalization of society, religious fanaticism, flourishing of fascism… – all this creates preconditions for the crisis of capitalism to turn into a widespread chaos, which could easily breed a new fascist barbarism. A general chaos is, actually, the „answer” of capitalism to the capitalistically created existential crisis and to the existence of objective possibilites for the creation of a new world.

„Mondialism” is the most important political manifestation of modern imperialism. We are witnessing the creation of a mondialistic bourgeoisie, deprived of national identity and thus of cultural and libertarian self‐consciousness. Rather than having a „supranational” character, mondialist ideology is based on the destruction of nations and the creation of mondialist institutions, used by the most powerful capitalist corporations to establish a global domination. It is, actually, a modern form of imperialism, based on the American „new world order”, which appears in the form of a destructive capitalist totalitarianism aimed at destroying entire nations and „surplus” proletariat. In that context, „mondialism” is the means for destroying proletarian internationalism and global anti‐colonial movement based on international cosmopolitism. No longer must man be responsible for the survival of his nation, or perceive his country as a historical and living space. It is about the creation of  a „mondialist  man”,  suited  to  the  nature  of  modern  capitalism.  He  is  deprived  of libertarian and visionary consciousness and, particularly, of any responsibility for global destruction. The chief task of „mondialists” is to cleanse the world from its libertarian history and national cultures and turn it into the capitalist concentration camp. A mondialist class is being created all over the world, ready to use the means for mass destruction in order to defend their consumer way of life and privileged social position. The more dramatically capitalism  reduces  the  living  space,  the  louder  are  the  calls  from  the  most  advanced capitalist states in the West to ruthlessly exterminate billions of „surplus” people and thus „prevent  the  demise  of  humankind”.  The  increased  militant  character  of „mondialists” comes from the increased ruthlessness of capitalist destruction of the planet. The mondialists’ cynicism towards „traditional humanity” and the suffering and hardship of the oppressed all over the planet indicates that we are dealing with capitalistically degenerated people. Capitalism is causing a deluge and is building a new „Noah’s Arc”, which will be boarded only by the „chosen”: capitalists, politicians, monster‐scientists, members of secret agencies, high‐ranking army and police officials, clergy, kings of the underground with their prostitutes, show‐business stars… and only a small nuber of „ordinary people”, who will do „dirty jobs” and serve the „elite”.

As far as „masonic lodges” are concerned, the capitalist democracy includes two forms  of  political  organization  and  activity.  One,  which  appears  in  the  public  political domain (political institutions, parties, media, elections…), and the other, which appears under non‐formal capitalist groups governing from the shadow. They work in unison in their defence of capitalism and disagree only when it comes to defending their particular interests. „Masonic lodges” belong to political groups acting behind the public political sphere. They are based on a class order and the ruling spirit of monopolistic capitalism, which means on an order enabling a relatively small group of people to own the means of production and the capital and, consequently, govern the society. Rather than being masters of the world, bankers are slaves of capitalism. Without the capitalist system of reproduction, „their” money has no value. The story about the „omnipotent masonic lodges” serves to proclaim a mysterious illusory power to be the ruling power and thus avert people’s attention from the actual thiswordly power, which means from capitalism and the most powerful capitalist groups. These groups are possible because capitalism is a class society where   the  economic,   military   and   political   power   is   alienated   from   citizens   and concentrated in the hands of capitalist oligarchies. Their power does not come from their racial or national origin, nor from mystical thiswordly or otherwordly sources, but above all, from the expansionist economic power of capitalism, with its totalitarian and destructive character. The ruthless economic war between the most powerful capitalist corporations, based on the ruling principle of monopolistic capitalism, „Big fish devour small fish!”, means that financial, military, scientific, technical, political and media power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer capitalists, with mega‐monopolies seeking to gain control over the entire world. The so‐called „international organizations” are but a long arm of the global centers of power, which define their policies in proportion to their economic, military and political power. The political, economic and military power of capitalist monopolies is based on the increasingly deeper crisis of capitalism, which they cannot prevent. They are all at the edge of a volcano emitting ever more terrifying roar. They all say the same things and their actions have one and only one purpose: how to ensure their own survival guided by the existential logic of monopolistic capitalism „Destroy the competition!”. The terror over their citizens is the expression of their inability to stop the spreading crisis of capitalism and their fear that people might rise up and overthrow their capitalist system. They „create the future” using the consequences of capitalism in their attempts to stop its collapse. Capitalists can destroy the world, but they cannot prevent the demise of capitalism.

The „conspiracy theories” are one of the ways in which capitalism is relieved from any responsibility  for  the  destruction  of  the  world.  Their  main  task  is  to  misguide  the critical thinking. Thus, they serve to conceal the fact that capitalism is a class society and that it is the capitalist class, and not some mystical groups, which is causing the increasingly deep existential crisis. Similarly, they serve to conceal that capitalism is in its essence a destructive order, which means that global destruction, rather than depending on the self‐ will of individuals and groups, is actually the inevitable consquence of the development of capitalism. At the same time, the „conspiracy theories” devalue the emancipatory struggle and  the  emancipatory  potentials  of  citizens  and  the  oppressed  working  people  and colonized nations. People deprived of their rights appear as blind instruments for realizing the economic and political interests of capitalist groups. It follows that an authentic libertarian movement of those deprived of their rights is not possible, just as it is not possible to create the world of free people. It is actually a fatalistic logic, which abolishes the emancipatory potentials of the historical development of society and, in that context, the libertarian practice and creative potentials of the oppressed, which means the possibility of creating the future. Now that capitalism has brought humanity to the brink of disaster, such an ideology not only has an anti‐libertarian, but also an anti‐existential character. The example of the International Olympic Committee and „international” sport is the best illustration of the hypocrisy of the „conspiracy theory” proponents. They do not bother to question the legitimacy of the International Olympic Committee, as the fist „supranational” organization with a global character, with Olympism as the first mondialistic religion. The reason is that Olympism embodies the underlying principles of capitalism (bellum omnium contra omnes and citius, altius, fortius) and that the Olympic Games are a spectacular service to Gods who rule the world. If we consistently stick to the „conspiracy theory”, according to which everything going on in the world is based on the (self)will of „shadow rulers”, then it follows that the critics of the „conspiracy theory” are but the tool of the world oligarchy for global domination.

„Non‐governmental organizations” are a form of the legal activity of political groups working for  the  most  powerful  capitalist  concerns  and  as  such  are  the  arms  of  the mondialist jellyfish. In spite of a small number of activists, they are given far more coverage in the media, held by capitalist clans, than millions of working people. „Non‐governmental organizations” serve to create a capitalistically degenerated „public” to be used as the advertising space for the most reactionary political powers in the West. Their „public word” comes down to public appearances of their salaried employees, who are the proponents of their „sponsors” interests. Through „non‐governmental organizations”, capitalist groups from the West seek to privatize the public sphere and stop the critical mind from appearing in public, the mind that can unmask the ecocidal and fascist nature of the „new world order” and create the vision of a humane world that can integrate the oppressed in their struggle against modern imperialism. In that context, their task is to deal with the national self‐ consciousness (which means with man’s cultural, historical and libertarian being), with the state (civil) sovereignty, based on the emancipatory legacy of modern society, and with the workers’ class consciousness, based on the idea of collective (social) ownership and social justice.   Ultimately,   „non‐governmental    organizations”    should    create    such    political „atmosphere” in the public that will enable the country under their policy domain to become a Western colony and its military training camp, with citizens being the Coca‐Cola slaves.

Capitalism destroys man as a spiritual being. Religion is less and less a spiritual need and more and more man’s escape from capitalist nothingness and the expression of existential fear. In contemporary capitalism, appealing to „God” is, actually, a way in which petty‐bourgeois relieves himself from any responsibility for global  destruction.  Religion used to be the means for the development of capitalism (Protestantism), but it turned into the tool  for dealing  with  spirituality  and  life.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  capitalism  is detrimental to spirituality, churches will do anything to protect it. They have survived by discarding the humanistic legacy of religion, which enables a critical attitude towards capitalism and spiritual integration of humanity, and have become part of the mechanism of capitalist reproduction and, as such, lay institutions that use religion to deify their private ownership and class order. The current religions do not only deal with the emancipatory legacy of the bourgeois society, but also with the belief that preservation of life on the planet is possible. Their claim that man is only a „guest of the Earth”, their concept of „Doomsday”, belief that life on the Earth is „worthless” and that „true life” shall begin in the heaven – all this indicates that the so called „great religions” are complementary to capitalism as a destructive order. The idea of an illusory „heavenly world” („paradise”) becomes not only the means for devaluing the fight for a just world, but also the means for devaluing life and escaping  responsibility  for  global  destruction.  Apocalyptic  fatalism  produces  defeatism. From the means for destroying man’s libertarian dignity, religion has turned into the means for destroying man’s life‐impulse. In spite of everything, religion cannot be identified with church dogmas and church activity. Although the church religion has become an anti‐ existential thought, an increasing number of religious people, who are aware of the fatal consequences of the capitalist „progress”, try to affirm the notion that the world is „God’s creation” and that man must fight to preserve it. Ultimately, people are not divided in theists and atheists, but in those who fight for capitalism and those who fight against it in an attempt to preserve life and create a humane world.

As for Islam, what makes it an „aggressive” and „militant” religion is the same as what makes Christianity an aggressive and militant religion. Islam is the ideology of a class society and the means for deifying the private ownership; as such, it is the tool of plutocratic clans for defending the ruling order. The „outward” aggression has always been an instrument for internal integration and for dealing with those who fight for social justice. At the same time, the fierce fighting between various Islamic groups (above all, Sunnis and Shiites) indicates that Islam (similarly to Christianity and other „great” religions) is but a screen concealing the plutocratic clans that fight for their own interests. A struggle against the class order and private ownership and for the emancipatory legacy of the civil society, is the only way to combat militaristic Islam, along with militaristic Catholicism, militaristic Orthodox Christianity,  militaristic  Judaism…  This  approach  to  Islam  is  not  present  in Western media, since they want to „get rid” of Islam in a way which will protect the „sacred” institution of private ownership and will not question the class (capitalist) society, including Christianity as the dominant Western religion. In addition, Islam appears in the West not only as  a  way  of  protest  by  oppressed  Gastarbeiters  from  Islamic  countries,  who  are deprived of the right to their culture and reduced to „dirty” labor and a „lower race”, but also as a possibility of critically approaching spiritual hopelessness and distruction of elementary forms  of  sociability  (above  all,  family).  The  languages  of  Gastarbeiters  in „democratic” countries in the West are not treated as a call to respect their cultural self‐ consciousness, but as a call to national and racial discrimination. A language is not the technical means of „communication”, but the most important form of a nation’s historical existence. It is the key to national cultural treasures and thus the basic way of providing historical confirmation for a nation’s existence. Language enables nations to appear from the darkness of the past and acquire historical self‐consciousness. What is being imposed is not a respect for other cultures, but a „multiculturality”, which is actually one of the ways in which  capitalism deprives  people  of  their  cultural  being  and  thus  of  humanity.  The „integration”  of Gastarbeiters  into  „democracy”  involves  a  „voluntary”  renouncement  of their own cultural and therefore national self‐consciousness and libertarian dignity. Rather than involving the development of their cultural and national (self)consciousness and libertarian dignity, it involves their „education” (namely, training) to perform the dirtiest jobs and unquestioningly obey their masters. In the „democratic world”, the Gastarbeiters from Islamic countries and „peripheral” areas of (Eastern and South‐Eastern) Europe have the status of working animals. While the „fight against Islamic fundamentalism” serves as an excuse for contemporary crusades (such as Huntington’s theory on the „clash of civilizations“), whose aim is to get hold of oil fields and the territory that will be used as a military camp for an attack on Russia, the USA and European governments have over half a century financed the most reactionary Muslim groups in order to prevent the Muslim youth to join the leftist movement. Ultimately, why would the integration of races and peoples not be based on the fight for survival of life on the planet and for the creation of a humane world?

As far as the faith in the „almighty God” is concerned, how can any Jew believe in „God” after Auschwitz? How can any Serb still believe in „God” after the concentration camp at Jasenovac? How can any Arab man still believe in „God” after all the atrocities suffered by the Muslims in the past and present „crusades” of the West? How can any man aware of everyday crimes still believe in „God”? Every single day, over 30 000 children die of hunger, thirst and diseases all over the world. Is this „God’s will”? If it is not, then why a „merciful God” allows mass killings and murders of children? Even Voltaire, after the horrific earthquake in 1755, which almost destroyed Lisbon and killed over 100 000 people, asked (in his „Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne” from 1756) what „God” would allow the death of thousands of children? The worst fascist criminals: Hitler, Musolini, Franco, Pavelić, Horti… were all „good Christians”. The SS belt buckets had the inscription: „Gott mit uns!” („God is with us!”). Not only did the Catholic Church not remove Hitler from its membership, it even did not put his „notorious” book Mein Kampf on the „List of Prohibited Books” (Index librorum prohibitorum). As far as contemporary executioners of humankind are concerned, such as Bush, Clinton, Blair, Obama, Merkel, Sarkozy… – all of them are „good Christians”. Their political practice is under control of the most powerful capitalist clans, who openly advocate the annihilation of billions of people. Of course, all „in the name of God!” Hitler is but  one  of personalized  manifestations  of  the  capitalist  genocidal  barbarism.  Today’s leaders of the American „new world order” are far worse than Hitler. While Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews, Slavs and the Roma people, the leaders of the contemporary „new world order” seek to exterminate over 6 billion people! No doubt, they would already have managed to do so if Russia did not have military weapons capable of destroying the USA and Western Europe within seconds. Compared to the „future” plans made by the leaders of the „new world order”, Hitler’s ideas from Mein Kampf sound like a naive children’s tale.

In the most advanced capitalist countries there is an increased number of citizens’ movements who regard the „return to nature” as the alternative to the increasingly unhealthy capitalist world and as a way to fight for a „healthier” life. They are, actually, peculiar „naturalistic communities”, who live in a parallel world. By viewing nature in contrast to „technical civilization”, they give nature an idealized dimension. Nature becomes a  virtual  world,  where  man  is  supposed  to  find  his  lost  naturality  and  humanity.

„Naturalists” establish a mythological relation to the times when man used to live „in unity with nature” and thus deal with the visionary consciousness and struggle for the future, and consequently with the emancipatory potentials of people who used to live „in unity with nature”. Instead of confronting capitalism departing from the life‐creating principle, as the most important emancipatory idea, they create naturalistic myths, which are then used to deal   with  the  idea  of   future   and   become   the  means   for   immortalizing   capitalism.

„Naturalists” abolish the historicity of human society and reject the emancipatory heritage of humankind, which developed on the basis of man’s taming of natural forces and becoming an emancipated natural being. Instead of creating a humane world departing from the emancipatory potentials of humankind’s historical development, they insist on the idealized life of „ancient people”. One gets the feeling of absurdity: those who spend all day at computers and cannot imagine life without cars and cell phones, become the most fervent advocates of a „return to the natural way of life”. As for the idealized life of North American natives, it was no more then a step in the historical development of society. Following naturalistic fundamentalism, why would we not return to even older forms of life, eg. when man did not know how to make a bow and arrow; when he could not tame a horse; when he could not plant corn and potatoes and when he was not aware of himself as a specific (libertarian and creative) being? Why would we not return to a caveman life?

„Technical intelligentsia”, which is largely deprived of humanity and is reduced to well‐paid and privileged specialist‐idiots, is the most earnest supporter of the „return to nature”. They are capitalistically degenerated petty bourgeoisie, with a technocratic and conformist mind. They are not capable of understanding the emancipatory potentials of man’s control over natural forces, meaning emancipatory possibilities of technique and thus their own innovative (potentially creative) activity. „Technical intelligentsia” is the most authentic product  of  capitalist  civilization  and  its  relation  to  nature  results  from a capitalistically degenerated mind. Rather than viewing nature as an increasingly threatened living environment, its members view it as a space where they can „relax” and „forget their problems”. Many of them, living in a capitalistically degenerated world, have become mentally deranged and are no longer capable of treating others in a humane way. They speak about a „return to nature”, but they are, actually, trying to „solve” their mental problems caused by their solitary hopelessness and slavery position in the work processes, which only contribute to the destruction of nature and humankind. As capitalism ever more dramatically destroys man as a human being, there are increasingly extreme „naturalistic” movements, whose members „feed themselves on sunrays”, „talk” to insects, animals and plants, go into a trance, where they „connect with cosmic forces”, „communicate with extraterrestrials”, „reincarnate” into rats, pigs, lizards…

As a way of overcoming the aristocratic and creating a new bourgeois world, the European Enlightenment thought came to the idea of a „return to nature” and naturalistic movement which flourished in France in the second half of 18. century (Helvetius, Holbach, Rousseau…), and in early 19. century Germany (Klopstock, Goethe, Schiller). Naturalism was a way of fighting for the abolishment of a society based on privileges and for the creation of a society based on (natural) rights of man and the citizen. Rousseau’s relation to nature does not  have a  sheer  „naturalistic”,  but  a  political  character.  The  call  for  a  „return  to nature” was, actually, a way of developing a critical view on the ancien régime and fighting for a new world. In Rousseau’s time, unlike today, nature had an intact life‐creating force and stability: it was „healthy” and as such a concrete otherness to the human world. A „return to nature” not only symbolized the strivings for liberation from the chains of the aristocratic way  of  life and  aristocratic  values,  it  offered  man  a  realistic  possibility  to identify with a truly undisturbed life‐creating natural forces and thus „return” to his original natural being. Capitalism, in the form of a „technical civilization”, integrated nature into its existential orbit, making it impossible for man to „return to nature” as to his original naturality. Nature, under the increasingly ruthless influence of capitalism, „loses the quality of a different reality” (Marcuse). By becoming the global and totalitarian order of destruction, capitalism turned entire nature into the organic part of a capitalistically degenerated world. The air is poluted; forests are exposed to „acid rains”; radiation is increasing; rivers and water springs are contaminated, while oceans and seas have become nuclear waste dumps; soil is contaminated by pesticides and other chemicals; aircraft emit exhaust gas and disperse contaminants; ice is rapidly melting in the Arctic and Antarctic; the ozone layer is damaged and sunrays have turned into death rays; in the vast nordic region and in the depths of the North Sea, huge amounts of methane are being released, contributing to the pollution of the air; a number of animal and plant species are already extinct or belong to the list of endangered species… There is nowhere to run.

Capitalism destroys the emancipatory legacy of the bourgeois society by opening the door wide for ideologies that deal with the modern way of thinking and man as an emancipated social and natural being. This, above all, refers to Eastern religions, where man is not viewed as an emancipated natural, historical, social, political and reasonable being and where the so called „meditative activism” amounts to the exclusion of man from the existing world. They are part of the increasingly aggressive escapist industry, designed to stop  people from turning  their  dissatisfaction  into  a  political  movement  capable  of abolishing capitalism. Their aim is not only to deal with the critical and visionary consciousness, but also with people’s mental integrity. They appear, similarly to other commodity, in a commercial package, with an emphasis on physical and mental „health”. Essentially, they destroy people as social beings, badly affect their sensual relation to the world and direct their mental energy to certain „points” in organism that connect man to „cosmos”, as peculiar mental fixators. The „enlightenment” experienced during a meditative session actually serves to deprive man of his libertarian and historical self‐consciousness and thus the possibility of maintaining a critical attitude towards the process of mental manipulation. It is a peculiar hypnosis session designed to sideline his rational mind and make him the victim of his sub‐conscious.

In the Eastern physical culture, based on the immersion in the natural processes which acquire a mystified cosmic dimension, man relates to his body „from within”, by way of meditative activism, designed to exclude the senses and direct the mental energy to the nerves and muscles which condition the functioning of vital organs. It is about a peculiar auto‐hypnosis, which above all involves a particular pace of breething and, consequently, heartbeating.  It  also  involves  a  suitable  (for  meditation)  surroundings,  as  well  as  a meditative imagination, which creates the images that slow down the senses and increase meditative concentration. The most important condition for a successful meditation is to block the impulses and cut oneself off from the world, which above all means to stop the reaction of senses to external stimulation. It is no accident that supporters of meditation are not people who are keen on developing interpersonal relations and changing the ruling order, but those who are prone to loneleness and escapism. The main reason why capitalist olygarchies in the West are so favourably inclined to the increasingly numerous sects that promote meditation is the fact that they mutilate man as a social and thus a political and libertarian being.

Why does technical intelligentsia, which insists on „observing the facts” and on the „scientific mind”, accept the Eastern mysticism that appears in the form of (often illiterate) gurus, who offer the types of escapism that amounts to the worst forms of mental manipulation? It is because it does not have an emancipated historical self‐consciousness and therefore lacks humanistic consciousness that offers the possibility of a meaningful life. The inclination towards mysticism is the other side of the technocratic mind. Technicization of the mind is the worst way of making man mindless. Technical intelligentsia is a good example of how capitalism deprives man of humanity and thus leaves him to the influence of the most primitive ideologies, which draw him into a total nothningness. Without an emancipated historical self‐consciousness and without the possibility of being realized as an authentic social being, man is inclined to search for the purpose of life in the sphere of mysticism and to fall into the trap of occultism. As for satanic sects, they are based on the personalization of evil produced by capitalism, which makes people feel close with the force that determines people’s destiny. When young people wear the horrible images of „Satan”, they feel protected by the power that governs the capitalist world.

Where  does  the  self‐confidence  and  aggressivness  of  „technical  intelligentsia” come from? They come from its being the most important means with which capitalists ensure „progress”. This ensures it a privileged social status and enables it to destroy nature and humanity without being punished. The worst criminals become „eminent citizens” if they can create technical means for ensuring expansion and profit. A typical example is the Nazi criminal Wernher von Braun. Instead of being hung in Nuremberg, this team leader of Nazi monster‐scientists from Peenemünde, who constructed the rockets (V1 and V2) used to destroy large parts of London and killed tens of thousands of citizens, played a key part in the development of the postwar American rocket (military) industry. Today, over 85% of American scientists work on the realization of technical and biological weapons for mass destruction, as well as on the design of systems that can be used for establishing a totalitarian power. According to humanistic criteria, they are the executioners of humanity; according to the criteria of the capitalist olygarchy, they are the „heroes of the free world”.

As far as the Green‐peace movement is concerned, it is based on one of the most fatal illusions  created  by  the  capitalist  propaganda  machinery,   namely,  that  within capitalism it is possible to technically and by technical means deal with the increasingly fatal consequences of capitalist „progress”. Instead of fighting to eradicate the causes of the destruction of life, they insist on fighting with the consequences of capitalist development. It is about „perfectioning” capitalism, which only furthers the process of global destruction. This is the key point of „international ecology conferences”. At the same time, to place such importance on the fight against the consequences of the capitalist development becomes a way of diminishing the importance of the fight against the causes leading to the global destruction. Actually, a fight against the fatal effects of climate changes can only be efficient if, at  the  same  time,  it  is  a  fight  against  capitalism.  It  should  be  a  call  to  abolish  the production based on profit and establish a production that does not destroy nature and is aimed at satisfying genuine human needs.

Capitalists use technique to reduce the immediate adverse effects of environmental changes and thus make an even larger profit. The ecological crisis threatens man’s survival, but it is „controlled” by the development of technique that selectively reduces its effects. This is one more way of using technique as a political tool with which capitalists manipulate man’s living conditions and thus become the masters of life and death. Ultimately, it is not about creating a new world, but about a parallel world, used as a shelter for capitalistically degenerated man. Capitalism destroys the living world by producing its technical surrogate – capitalist catacombs. The creation of the myth about the „omnipotence of science and technique”; about the „cosmic future of humankind”; „man‐kiborg”; the idea of man’s being based on technocracy; Olympic maxim citius, fortius, altius and Olympic calculation of time with a mythological character… – all this is used to destroy both the critical thought that could unmask the destructive nature of capitalism and the visionary consciousness that opens a space for the future.

One of the potentially most fatal lies, which the (petty)bourgeoisie, due to the increasingly deep crisis created by capitalism, more and more take as a „truth”, is that „overpopulation” is the main reason for environmental pollution and therefore the biggest danger for humanity. Firstly, one billion people living in North America, West Europe and Japan spend (waste) the amount of energy, food and water equal to the amount spent by 500 billion people in undeveloped countries with the current living standard. Secondly, in the most developed Western countries, over one billion tons of food is discarded (one third of the global food production), primarily in order to keep the prices on the market. If that food were rationally used, it could feed the entire humanity. Thirdly, oceans and seas could become the source of nutritious food for tens of billions of people. Fourthly, the economic development creates conditions for a global social development, which means for women’s emancipation and family planning. If countries with the biggest birth rate experienced economic and overall social development, humankind would, in the following decades, stabilize the number of people who could live in harmony with nature. It should be added that capitalism reduces the reproduction capacity of people living in the most developed capitalist countries. Is is absurd that those who claim that „overpopulation of the planet” is the „biggest threat to the survival of humankind” face the increasing „white plague” in their own countries! The increasingly dramatic biological demise of people in the most developed capitalist   countries   makes  the   idea   of   exterminating   the   billions   of   „surplus”  people increasingly popular, particularly with members of the „middle class”. An existential panic is being created, similarly to the panic caused by the economic crisis of capitalism in 1929 in Nazi Germany, which led the majority of the Germans to welcome the ideas of the annihilation of the Jews, Slavs and the Roma people and the conquest of new „living space” (Lebensraum) in the East. The chances are increasing that the ruling capitalist clans in the West, supported by the bourgeoisie and the young people, who were turned by capitalists (among other things by sport) into fascist hordes, might use the most deadly technical and biological means in a genocidal crusade against the „surplus” population. Indead, the basic precondition for the survival of humankind and life on the planet is not the destruction of the „surplus” population, but the destruction of capitalism.

The loud outcry over the „environmental demise of the planet”, raised by political leaders  of the  most  developed  capitalist  countries,  is  not  the  expression  of  a  genuine attempt  to prevent  the  destruction  of  life,  but  is  the  expression  of  their  endevours  to prevent the environmental demise from becoming the political platform of the oppressed that will unite them and radicalize their struggle against capitalism. At the same time, the capitalist centres of power seek to use the environmental demise of the planet, caused by their ecocidal practice, to seize the territories which are not under their direct control and to establish colonial domination over entire continents. As for the „ecological engineering”, it mainly serves to create the illusion that capitalism, by way of science and technique, could reduce its own fatal consequences. The use of science and technique for „repairing” the ecosystem, based on the development of capitalism, can only lead to even more fatal climate changes. Man cannot (and should not) manage the ecological system, but he can eradicate the causes of its destruction.

Dialectics is an authentic and genuine force for social development, delineated in the laws of dialectics that represent the logic of history and are, therefore, the self‐ consciousness of the historical development of society. As a method, dialectics is a vehicle for determining, by means of the laws of dialectics, the nature of social phenomena, or more precisely, it is a vehicle for their „transformation” from abstract into concrete historical phenomena. By means of the laws of dialectics, the bare facticity of the past turns into the historical development of society. Within that context, dialectics can be comprehended as the supreme regulating historical principle that opens wide on the horizons of the future: it represents the basis of society’s historicity. By means of dialectics, man emerges from the obscurity of the past and steps into the bright light of history, becoming a self‐conscious historical being. Only upon dialectical self‐consciousness can man base a position on the world that will enable him to create a future.

According to Marx, „into the positive comprehension of the existing, dialectics, at the same time, also introduces understanding of its negation, its necessary downfall; for it comprehends all generated forms in the course of motion, that is, in its transient aspect; because it cannot be tutored by anything and because it is, in its essence, critically analytical and revolutionary.” (21) This quotation points out the fact that dialectics asserts moving forward, which means that capitalism, as a historical order does not close but opens the space of the future. Indeed, not all downfalls mean, at the same time, a negation. More precisely, a downfall represents not only a possibility for creating something new, but also the opportunity for the destruction of everything that exists. The nature of what is negated conditions the nature of the negation and, therefore, the concrete possibility and the nature of the novum. In order to represent a concrete historical principle, the principle of totality has to take into consideration the specificity of the capitalist totality, and that goes not only for the emancipatory possibilities but also for the destructive potential of capitalism. „The negative dialectics” (Adorno), which means that dialectics as a method of critique and as a libertarian practice, has significance solely if it is developing in relation to the process in which capitalism develops into capitalism ‐ turns into a totalitarian destructive order. While criticizing Hegel, and having in mind fascism, Bloch rightfully indicates that not every negation in history concomitantly represents a step forward. However, he does not realize that the capitalist negation does lead toward the destruction of the world. He never refers to capitalism  as  a  destructive  order,  and,  in  that  context,  there  is  no  perception  of  the possibility of the obliteration of life as a crucial content of the revolutionary conscience.

Marx fails to notice that capitalism acts in advance by annihilating life ‐ by generating consequences which question the very possibility of the future and not only in the essential, but also in the existential sense. „Temporariness“ does not imply solely moving forward, but also the development of the destructive processes that threaten the very survival of mankind. This is what Fourier asserted by his claim that mankind was in a state of „material regression”  because  (capitalist)  „progress“  was  devastating  forests,  mountain  slopes, natural fountains… Marx fails to notice that capitalism has a destructive potential and overlooks the fact that negation also implies the possibility of its realization, which means that the downfall of capitalism at the same time implies the possibility of the obliteration of life on the planet. Related to this possibility, a concrete possibility arises for attaining man’s creative, libertarian and life‐creating abilities. Turning the objective possibilities of freedom into realistic possibilities of man’s liberation stands against the more and more likely probability of the annihilation of the world.

Hegel’s dialectics implies the likelihood of a future based upon existential certainty. Life is an a priori quality that is not being questioned, and it represents the foundation of his dialectic pyramid of freedom. With Hegel existential certainty represents the basis for the libertarian  optimism  (reasonable  freedom)  upon  which  faith  in  the  future  is  founded. Within his thought there is a contradiction between mind and senses, between intellect and nature, subjective and objective…, but not between life and non‐life (destruction). Hegel’s „abolition” (Auflösung) and „overcoming” (Aufhebung) imply the existential certainty and the improvement of life based upon it. The dialectic course, as a process by which life becomes life through its own mind‐pervading, occurs on an unquestionable existential level. The identity of essence (idea) and of existence (reality) has been determined: „All that is real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real“ (Hegel). Reasonable life implies existential certainty, and genuine reality represents full implementation of its own developmental potential. Until it does not realize its own developmental potential, reality does not exist in a concrete sense – it is an abstraction. When reality becomes what it might be,  only  then does  it  becomes  real  in  the  veritable  sense.  The  dogmatism  of  Hegel’s dialectics is based upon the assertion that the abstract (non‐historical) idea of the phenomenon  represents  the  basis for  determination  of  its  concreteness  (historicity).  In other words, the essence of the phenomenon was determined before it became a concrete historical phenomenon, which is, before its developmental potential was realized, thus creating a new reality with new developmental potential that surmounts the very idea that represents a criterion for determining the genuineness (historicity) of the phenomenon. When matters are perceived in relation to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order, in Hegel the real does not encompass its destructive potency, and the reasonable does not indicate its destructive intention.

In Marx, just like in Hegel, the openness of the future is dominant, implying existential certainty. This represents the basis for his notion of progress:  „in the bosom“ of capitalism possibilities are generated for a „leaping from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”. This connotes that capitalism marks the end of „the prehistory of human society” (Marx). Marx does not raise the issue of existence, but that of true history, which means of the society in which man has achieved freedom. In Marx’s concept of the historical development of society, libertarian optimism is dominant, and existential optimism deriving from it. It is based upon faith in man as a universal creative being of freedom and upon the emancipatory potential of the productive forces. At the same time, within capitalism, the sprout  of  the  new world  is  being  generated,  which  means  that  capitalism  possesses historical   fecundity.  The   specificity   of   capitalism   as   a   historically   fecund   order,   in comparison to the preceding historical periods, is that with it ends the prehistory and commences the true history of mankind. Unlike the bourgeois theorists, who perceive capitalism as the completion of history, thus sterilizing its change‐creating possibilities, Marx perceives the true values of capitalism in the fact that within it possibilities are generated for a step forward into the new society that will represent the achievement of the supreme humanistic endeavors of mankind. Despite its cessations and sidesteps, capitalism creates the historical time that streams forwards.

Marx was a dedicated advocate of Hegel’s dialectics of history. He envisaged the specific dialectics of the development of capitalism, or, more precisely, he sacrificed the dialectics of capitalism for the dialectics of pre‐capitalist history. The development of capitalism is being perceived through a prism of the dialectics of the previous historical periods and, deriving from this, the issue of its development and temporariness is being raised. The specificity of capitalism, as a concrete social‐economic formation, does not represent an integral part of that history upon which the dialectics of history is derived. Based on Marx’s most significant methodological postulate, that the last actual form in the development of society represents the key for decoding the essence of the preceding forms, there is being imposed a conclusion that the nature of the laws of dialectics cannot be determined by an analysis of pre‐capitalist history, but that capitalism, as the most developed historical order, represents the mirror in which the dialectics of history can be discerned. In other words, if history represents the starting place and the confirmation of the veracity of dialectics, then capitalism, as the highest form in the development of society, represents the starting point for the determination of the veracity of dialectics, that is, of the historical nature of social development.

There is no linear continuity in the development of historical processes, that is, of the flow of historical time. Each historical epoch has its own momentum, the nature of which conditions the nature of the historical course, and therefore also its own direction. The main momentum of the capitalist temporalization is the velocity of capital turnover. This is what conditions the course, the dynamics and the quality of the flow of time in capitalism. Specificity of the capitalist temporalization is that it destroys the evolution of the living world and the historical temporalization by turning evolution and history into mechanical occurrences, that is, into a positive nothing. Capitalist temporalization has a mechanical form and a destructive nature. It is not a life‐generating, but an annihilating temporalization. The constantly accelerating course of capitalist time results in the faster and faster expiring of historical time and the life‐time of humankind. The substantial occurrence within capitalism does not stand for the creation of a humane world or for an increased certainty of human survival, but represents the destruction of nature and of man as a biological and humane being, as well as the creation of a technical world.  In the preceding historical periods, time was streaming forward. The more and more dramatic climate changes and the obliteration of life on the planet cause real time, that is to say, the life‐time of humankind, to stop streaming forward – instead, it started flowing backwards from the zero‐point ecological delimiter, a break over which has resulted in sealing the fate of humankind. At the same time, the ecological delimiter became the perimeter of the humanistic visionary conscience. Crossing over this delimiter will trigger existential panic that will cause a fight for survival in the course of which all that makes men human and all that makes nature a life‐generating whole will be destroyed.

Capitalism is neither a conservative nor a regressive order. It does not attempt to preserve the existing world, and it does not invest efforts to take humankind back to some preceding forms of social life. However, it is a destructive order, which means that it obliterates not merely the humanistic heritage of humankind, but also life itself. Capitalism is a specific historical order by being anti‐historical as an anti‐existential order. The specific nature of capitalism conditions the specificity of capitalist development and, therefore, the specificity of  its  temporariness,  which  is  of  an  annihilating  and  totalitarian  nature. Capitalism „overcomes“  its  historical  temporariness  by  annihilating  history  as  it  turns historical time into a mechanical process and destroys man as a natural and historical being. Capitalism annihilates  temporalization  as  the  libertarian  practice  of  man  by  which  the future is being created. It became, per se, a sort of a „black hole“ that absorbs and consumes both the past and the future, turning them into a positive nothing. The ideologists of capitalism do not speak casually about the „end of the history”. Capitalist temporalization is not only of an anti‐historical nature, but is also anti‐existential (mechanical‐destructive) in nature. Capitalism is not only positioned beneath the lowest historical level, but also below the level of the lowest natural forms of life.

Historicity  is  of  a  dialectic  nature.  It  implies  the  development  of  history  into history, which means the development of man into a man, and, therefore, the turning of the world into a human world. At the same time, the development of history into history implies the development of dialectics into dialectics. It is a concrete historical dialectics as opposed to the abstract dialectics by which the essence of historical processes is being alienated from the  concrete   historical   antagonisms   and   concrete   historical   processes,   which eventually means alienated from man as a creative and libertarian being. By means of abstract  dialectics,  history  is  being  deprived  of  its  historicity.  Therefore,  freedom  also implies liberation of man from the „laws of dialectics” by which the man is deprived of his authentic (change‐creating) forces. The concrete dialectics of history implies a qualitative change of the very historical process of changes that is conditioned by the nature of concrete historical antagonisms. This concept is also present in Marx. The dialectics of history based on class struggle stands, according to Marx, for the „prehistory” of mankind that ends with capitalism. The dialectics of communism essentially differs from the dialectics of capitalism. With the emerging of communism, within which there are no classes or class struggles, begins the true development of the society and thus the true history of humankind.

Natural laws have a deterministic character and are independent of man. He can learn them and apply them, but cannot influence them, and, particularly, he cannot create new laws. The laws of dialectics do not have the power of natural laws and do not act per se, but have a historical nature which is conditioned by man’s libertarian struggle and by creative practice. Without them there is no history and, therefore, no dialectics of history. Man is not a mere object of historical laws, but is the creator of history and, therefore, the creator of dialectic processes. At the same time, the concrete historical nature of the laws of dialectics is also conditioned by destructive practice. Man cannot abolish natural laws, but he can, through the capitalist order, abolish the dialectics of history, primarily by destroying the emancipatory legacy and the visionary conscience of humankind. In that way the alternatives to the ruling order are being nullified, and so, also, is the category of possibility, or the libertarian practice capable of creating a humane world. The most radical way to abolish the dialectics of history is through the annihilation of man as a libertarian and creative  being. Actually,  the development  of  capitalism  into  a  totalitarian  order  of destruction conditions the nature of the man’s subjective practice and, therefore, conditions the development of man. In Marx, the subjective practice, as the basic condition of the man’s freedom, achieves its concrete definition in relation to determinism, which acts as a natural law,  and  not  in relation  to capitalist  determinism,  which  has  an  annihilating  nature.

Subjective practice occurs nowadays in relation to the destructive capitalist practice that is totalitarian in nature and does not derogate only man’s freedom, but also the very survival of humankind. It is not only libertarian but also existential in nature. Only in relation to the ever more plausible possibility of the destruction of the world does the subjective practice obtain a concrete historical meaning.

Dialectics,  as  a  fundamental  historical  principle,  is  based  on  the  fact  that  the development  of  society  is  based  upon  the  struggle  between  contradictions.  The  actual nature of the contradictions that predominate during a certain historical period also conditions the concrete nature of the struggle between them, as well as the spaces of the future that these struggle open. Capitalism is based on specific contradictions, which means that it has a specific dialectics of development and, therefore, creates a specific future. The nature of the concrete dialectics of capitalism is conditioned by the destructive nature of the capitalist way of developing the productive forces. Destructiveness is „the quality” of capitalism that determines it as a specific historical order and invalidates the Hegelian dialectical  pyramid  of  freedom  and  derogates  the  progressive  nature  of  the  laws  of dialectics. In Marx, too, there is no conflict between the possibility of freedom and the possibility  of  the  obliteration  of  humankind.  According  to  Marx,  a  possibility  is  being created in the bosom of capitalism for man’s liberation from necessity, but not in relation to the possibility of the obliteration of the world. The key contradiction within capitalism, between the destructive and the life‐creating processes, is nullified. The fundamental and irreconcilable existential contradiction, which directly conditions the future of humankind, stands for the fact that man is a life‐creating being that can survive only as part of nature, the life‐generating whole, while capitalism represents a totalitarian destructive order the endurance of which is based upon obliteration of nature as a life‐generating entirety and of man as the life‐creating being. It is the development of capitalism into a totalitarian destructive order that resolves the struggle between contradictions intended to be a fight to the death between capitalism and the humankind. The thesis that capitalism „at once” destroys  the  basis  of  human  existence  and  opens  the  spaces  of  the  future,  and  that capitalism develops based on the confrontation of these two antagonistic ideas, represents the changing of the concrete dialectic principle into an abstract formally logical principle of an anti‐existential nature. If capitalism obliterates the basis of human existence, it cannot at the same time open up the spaces of the future. More precisely, it can do this in a technical, or an abstract way. Also, this does not stand for a confrontation between „good” and „bad”, but rather for of looking at the nature of certain phenomena in the context of concrete historical totality. Fascism, too, has its „good sides”, but its concrete nature can be seen solely in the context of the fascist (capitalist) totality. Unless it is seen in the context of the horrible  effects of  exploding  the  atomic  bomb,  even  the  atomic  mushroom  cloud  is „beautiful”.

Every phenomenon holds within itself its own opposite – something that „negates” it. In fact, one phenomenon becomes a historical phenomenon by obtaining historical fecundity, which implies contains the seed of novum. The specificity of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction comes from the fact that it absorbs the opposites it creates into its own existential orbit. „The negative“ becomes the phenomenal form of the positive, like the dominant „reasoning” that is only a manifestation of destructive capitalist mindlessness. In the actual social context „the negative” becomes a phenomenal form of capitalist totalization of the world: capitalism turns negation into its own affirmation. The existential logic of capitalism that conditions the fact that capitalism creates sources of profit based on consequences of the obliteration of life, and, therefore, the vehicle for its own development, pulls into the existential and ideological orbit of capitalism everything that  provides  possibilities  for overcoming  capitalism.  Capitalism  absorbs  into  its  own sphere of life even those social forces which, according to Marx, capitalism generates as its own (potential) negation (the working class), and not only through the ideological and economic spheres, but also through the totalitarian nature of the very way of life under capitalism. „The synthesis“ is reduced to an absorbing of the antagonisms into the ruling order and to its turning into a vehicle for the development of capitalism. In that sense, capitalism abrogates the dialectics of history based on the conflict of antagonisms and turns history into a mechanical process. The space is being created for otherness, but not for newness.

Turning quantity into quality is an abstract principle. It does not imply, per se, clearing a space for the future. Quantity can facilitate qualitative changes only if within it there is a potential for novum. In capitalism, quantity does not imply only those phenomena that   provide   the   possibility   for   qualitative   leaps,   but   also   those   that   destroy   the emancipatory legacy of humankind, as well as human life, itself. Marx’s analysis of history refers to the unavoidable downfall of capitalism. Capitalism collapses because in its womb gestates the embryo of a new society in the form of the working class, which is its own negation and feeds on the life‐generating force of capitalism based on the development of the productive forces and on the emancipatory possibilities of civil society. According to Marx, the future (communist) world is a negation of capitalism, meaning that it surmounts capitalism  by  enabling  the  development  of  the  seed  of  the  future  generated  within capitalism. It came out that capitalism develops by destroying the seed of novum generated within civil society, which means that it destroys its specific historicity, and in that way liquidates the dialectics of history. By obliterating the emancipatory legacy of civil society, the idea of novum and the visionary conscience, capitalism sterilizes civil society by depriving it of its historical fecundity. Moreover, the destructive capitalist totalization of the world implies turning all that provides the possibility for a quality rise into a vehicle for the destruction of the world. This is what determines the concrete historical nature of the category of the possible in contemporary capitalism.

Critique of capitalism, in terms of the concept of the future, which means starting off from man as a (realized) universal creative being of freedom, is feasible as a concrete critique only in relation to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order that directly conditions the nature of the post‐capitalist world by obliterating both nature and man. Since its emergence, capitalism has sown the seeds of destruction, that it then germinated, and threatens to destroy the living world. Every day of capitalist life represents a new wound on the body of the living world, injuries that force man, more and more dramatically, to face the imperative of a struggle for survival. By destroying life, capitalism most directly predetermines the future of humankind. The history of humankind in an existential and, therefore, also an essential sense, is conditioned by consequences generated by capitalism – consequences  that  are  capitalism’s  „legacy”  for  the  future.  Capitalism  has  a  specific dialectics of development that is not only anti‐libertarian, but also of anti‐existential in nature. It is not only dehumanizing, but is also a de‐naturalizing barbarism. Capitalism destroys the human and the natural world by creating a technological world. As an order that de‐naturalizes nature, capitalism does not only liquidate the dialectics of history, but also the dialectics of nature. The forces of nature, overpowered by the forms of capitalist technology, with their destructive character, derogate the very dialectics of nature by calling the survival of the living world into question. The way capitalism „overpowers” historicity and annihilates history, also „overpowers” naturalness by annihilating nature as a life‐ generating entirety and man as a life‐creating being.

Failing to notice the destructive nature of capitalism, Marx does not raise the issue of potential threats to the survival of humankind from the capitalism’s mastering of the forces of nature through science and technology. The dialectics of capitalist destruction is based on the fact that capitalist development of the productive forces obliterates, more and more dramatically, the basis of human survival and, at the same time, amplifies the possibilities  for the  immediate  destruction  of  humankind  by  applying  technical  and biological means. The faster capital turnover reduces the probability of human survival, the clearer it is that capitalist determinism is lethal in nature. Capitalism eliminates uncertainty by obliterating life and, therefore, the very existential basis that is necessary for man to have freedom of choice. The development of capitalism into a totalitarian order of destruction indicates that the laws of dialectics are not merely principles of progress, but also principles for the destruction of the world. What‐has‐not‐yet‐been as a concrete historical principle does not only imply the coming of an emancipator, but also of the destructive possibilities of capitalism. The category of possibility opens the space not only for freedom and for providing a certain existence, but also for obliterating the world. The growing intensity of the destruction of life makes the issue of the survival of humankind the most important human issue, and optimizing the possibilities for human survival the most basic criterion for assessing the correctness of human actions.

Marx does not envision the possibility of stepping out of and beyond capitalism into a civilization of freedom, as it relates to the development of capitalism as a destructive order. In Marx, the category of possibility implies existential apriorism. The dialectics is encompassed within the necessity‐freedom relationship that is mediated by the critical and change‐creating mind. This results in reasonable freedom, which implies existential certainty. The category of possibility has both a developmental and libertarian, as well as an existential character. In Marx, the category of possibility implies a step out of and beyond the capitalist world, but not also the possible ways of capitalist development. Indeed, only in relationship to the possible forms of capitalist development can the concept of the new world obtain a concrete historical dimension. The what‐has‐not‐yet‐been also refers to tendencies of the development of capitalism: it becomes the order of destruction, which means that it develops by expanding the destructive powers it achieved in the form of „technical civilization”, by obliterating life. The category of possibility is of a historical nature. Starting from a category defined in relation to slavery, the essence of which is freedom, another category was reached, defined in relation to the destruction of life and the essence that is survival. The possibility for the creation of the new world occurs in relation to the more and more plausible possibility of the destruction of life on the planet. On that level, the dialectics of the heightening of contradictions attains a concrete historical dimension. Capitalism does not create a possibility for а „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”, but for a fall into an abyss of no return.

By becoming a totalitarian order of destruction, capitalism causes man to be the only potential negation of capitalism. The ever‐more realistic possibility of the destruction of humankind represents a starting point for the development of the ever‐more radical life‐ creating practice that represents the actual „negation” of the world based upon totalitarian and destructive capitalist practices. This needs to become the contemporary form by which the revolutionary struggle manifests itself. It is necessary to create a new self‐consciousness of man as a revolutionary subject, one who will avert the obliteration of life by becoming a totalizing life‐creating being. The issue here is the development of man into an authentic being rather than the petit bourgeois who represents a capitalistically degenerated man.

The true „Superman” is, in fact, the man who is adept at eliminating capitalism and creating a new world that will be the realization of the life‐creating possibilities of both nature and humankind.

Marxist thought in the 20th century was marked by the glorification of the development of the productive forces as the driving engine of progress. The productivity principle was praised not only because Marx (over)emphasized the development of the productive forces, but also because of low productivity in the countries that underwent a socialist revolution.

According to Marx, the development of the productive forces has a progressive character. It enables society to progress in existential terms and, at the same time, creates possibilities for its advancement in essential terms. Development of the productive forces is not only a quantitative augmentation of social wealth, it also implies qualitative (historical) changes that bring about greater liberation from natural elements, the possibility of liberation from forced labor (and, consequently, a liberation and heightening of the senses, a development of man’s creative powers, genuine sociability, visionary consciousness…), as well as from exploitative (class) relations conditioned by the level of development of the productive forces. To gain control over nature requires, according to Marx, the creation of possibilities for workers, as emancipated social beings, to gain control over the whole of social  existence.  A  distinctive feature  of  capitalism,  in  contrast  to preceding  historical orders, is the development of the productive forces to such an extent and in such a manner that humankind can finally master the natural elements. Man’s increased command over natural laws leads to the abolition of man’s alienation from nature, to the humanization of nature,   and   to   man’s   becoming   an  emancipated   natural   being.   Marx   speaks   about capitalism’s destructive treatment of the soil, but he does not come to the conclusion that capitalism is essentially a destructive order. Marx thinks that the capitalist mode of production, rather than being harmful to nature, liberates man from his enslavement to nature and, as a result, increases the certainty of humanity’s survival. A „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom” implies a leap from an uncertain to a certain existence. In  Marx,  the  existential  (survival)  and  essential  (freedom)  spheres  are atoned.  The existential  certainty  is  the  basic  condition  of  freedom,  whereas  freedom  is  the  basic condition of existential certainty. The character of man’s dependence on nature conditions the relation of one man to another. If there is no freedom from the natural elements, there is no  freedom  from  oppression.  At  the  same  time,  control  over  natural laws  enables  an „exchange with nature” (Marx), a cultivation of nature, and, thus, ensures man’s livelihood and overcomes his restrictions as a natural being. Development of the productive forces eases the drudgery of physical labor and enables the body to free itself from those activities that  deform  it  and  prevent  it  from  stimulating  the senses  and giving expression to its playing being.

The development of the productive forces appears in Marx as a process sui generis and, at the same time, as a process the character of which is conditioned by the nature of a particular epoch. In the former case, the development of the productive forces has an abstract epochal character, while in the latter case the epochal character is concrete. In Marx’s writings, there is a tendency to separate the development of the productive forces from the capitalist exploitation of nature, to make the development of the productive forces independent and, thus, rescue their emancipatory potential from capitalism itself. At the same time, since he does not regard capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order, Marx does not  question  the legitimacy  of  the  capitalist  development  of  the  productive  forces. He „overlooks” Fourier’s warning about the ecocidal nature of capitalist progress and gives an absolute dimension to the development of the productive forces. The most important condition for a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”, according to Marx, is not the abolition of the capitalist development of the productive forces, which is detrimental to both nature and man, but man’s liberation from natural determinism through the capitalist development of the productive forces. The development of the productive forces in itself implies increased certainty of human survival and an opening of the space of freedom. Hence capitalism has a historical legitimacy as long as it develops the productive forces. It can be called into question only when the relations of production (property) become an obstacle to the development of the productive forces. Then historical conditions are ripe for a socialist revolution.

According  to  Marx,  in  capitalism,  natural  forces  become  alienated  from  nature, itself, as technique, but they are not confronted by life – they have not become a vehicle of destruction, they have become the capitalist means of excessively exhausting the soil and workers. The development of the productive forces refers to gaining control over natural (mechanical) laws through science and technology, and not to gaining control over nature as an ecological (life‐generating) whole. Marx subordinated the dialectics of capitalism to the dialectics of pre‐capitalist history, and he overlooked the specificity of the capitalist development of the productive forces, which leads not only to man’s being dominated by capital and alienated from nature, but also to the complete destruction of life. It follows that man’s relation to himself, other people and nature is not mediated solely by „alienated labor”, but also by the destructive nature of the capitalist mode of production. By becoming a destructive power, the forces of nature conquered by capitalism are alienated from both nature and man. Capitalism turns nature against nature by transforming conquered natural forces into the technical means by which it destroys nature as a life‐creating force. It brings about a „circulation of matter” where organic matter turns into inorganic matter and, thus, abrogates the naturality of nature and turns nature into a technical space. Capitalism leads to a fierce battle between man, as the highest form in the development of matter, and nature, as man’s „anorganic body”, as well as to man’s conflict with his organic body (record‐mania, plastic  surgery,  diet  fads….).  In  the  capitalist  process  of  reproduction,  man  is  not only „alienated” from himself and his „organic” nature; he is degenerated by becoming capital’s vehicle for destroying the world. Rather than increasing the certainty of humankind’s survival, capitalist domination over natural forces increases the certainty of its obliteration. In  that  context,  Horkheimer  and  Adorno  warn  in  the  Dialectic  of Enlightenment  that „constant  progress  is  a  constant  regression”  and  give  the  „curse  of progress”  it’s  true (existential) meaning.

A difference should be made between authentic and technical development of the productive forces. An authentic development of the productive forces is aimed at meeting man’s genuine needs and is based on the development of the universal, creative capabilities of man as a libertarian being and the cultivation of nature, whereas a technical development of the productive forces is aimed at making profit and is based on the instrumentalization of the creative powers of man as a mercenary of capital and on the destruction of nature. Even though Marx fails to realize that capitalism is a destructive order, his thought offers the possibility of reaching the concept of genuine progress and establishing a critical distance from the capitalist development of the productive forces: the only historically legitimate development of the productive forces leads to man’s liberation from his dependence on nature and does not destroy nature and increase man’s dependence thereon. In that context, Marx distinguishes between mastering natural laws for the purpose of man’s liberation from natural elements along with the cultivation of soil that satisfies basic human needs and mastering natural laws in the manner and for the purpose of gaining control over nature and turning soil into an economic space, deprived of natural fertility. When Marx speaks about progress, he actually has in mind not only man’s liberation from natural elements, but also man’s liberation from exploitation (class order), along with the liberation of his universal creative powers. These are, according to Marx, three conditions of historically legitimate progress, which are themselves historical, as they acquire a concrete meaning in the context of actual historical changes. Nowadays, a progressive order is an order capable of stopping the capitalist death machinery and saving nature and humankind from destruction.

Marcuse points out the need to distinguish between the productive forces as instrumental to exploitation and the productive forces as instrumental to pacification and, in that context, criticizes Marx. Speaking in the Criteria of Time about „feminist socialism“, Marcuse writes: „I spoke of a necessary modification of the notion of socialism because I believe that in Marx’s concept of socialism there are remnants, elements of the continuation of the performance principle and its values. I see these elements, for example, in the emphasis on the ever more efficient development of the productive forces, the ever more productive exploitation of nature, the separation of the ‘realm of freedom’ and the working world. The potentials of socialism today transcend this image. Socialism, as a different way of life, would not only use the productive forces for the reduction of alienated labor and labor time, but also for making life an end in itself, for the development of the senses and the intellect for pacification of aggressiveness, for enjoyment of being; for the emancipation of the senses and the intellect from the rationality of domination: creative receptivity versus repressive  productivity.  In  that  context,  the  liberation  of  the  woman  appears  as the ‘antithesis of the performance principle’, as the revolutionary function of the female in the reconstruction of society.” (17) Also, in his study One‐dimensional Man, avoiding the use of the true name for the prevailing (capitalist) order and using the expression „advanced industrial society”, Marcuse warns that nature and man have become the „instrument of destructive productivity“. (18) Marcuse perceived a destructive tendency in the development of the productive forces, but he did not proceed to develop a fundamental critique  of  capitalism  as  a  totalitarian  destructive  order  that,  as  such,  would  overcome Marx’s critique of capitalism. His critical views, like Marx’ critical observations about the capitalist exhaustion of the soil, acquire a true value only in the context of a comprehensive critique of capitalism as a destructive order.

In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx claims: „The productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of ….. the antagonism arising from social conditions of life of the individual.” (19) Marx could not follow Fourier because Fourier insisted on (capitalist) progress leading to „material regression”, not only questioning the very possibility of freedom, but also the possibility of humanity’s survival. Further development of capitalism only confirmed Fourier’s view. The logic of capitalist development had appeared to have a „progressive” character up to the moment when the possibilities of its „normal” development were exhausted. Indeed, the „normal” development was not governed by the logic of optimal development, departing from the limited possibilities of nature and the human organism, but by the logic of maximized profit, which led not only to the exhaustion of natural resources, but also to the ruining of nature  as  a  life‐creating  whole  and  to  man’s robotization. It turns out that the capitalist development of the productive forces, while technically enabling man’s liberation from natural forces, at the same time destroys nature and thus makes man increasingly dependent on it. Contrary to Marx’s claims, instead of creating material conditions for the solution of concrete social and historical antagonisms, capitalism creates technical conditions that, due to the increased destruction of material conditions necessary for survival – i.e., nature and man as a natural and human being ‐ become mere abstract conditions. Capitalism only appears progressive ‐ or, more precisely, only in technical terms does capitalism create the possibility of a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”. Metaphorically speaking, by developing the productive forces, capitalism builds the foundations of the „castle of freedom” by turning the soil, on which the castle is being built, into a swamp into which the castle is sinking, and by degenerating man as a human and biological being.

In light of the ever more dramatic destruction of nature and humankind, certain of Marx’ views, those that are the starting points for his ideas about capitalism and the future, only add fuel to the fires of world‐destruction. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx comes concludes: „No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions for their existence have gestated in the womb of the old society, itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve.“ (20) In view of the fact that capitalism’s development of the productive forces increasingly destroys nature and man, the above‐cited thesis actually is a death sentence for humankind. As far as „higher relations of production” are concerned, by destroying nature, capitalism destroys the material conditions that make these „higher relations” possible.

„Higher relations of production” cannot come out of the capitalist mode of development of the  productive  forces,  but  only  from  a  fight  against  capitalism. Ultimately,  it  is  not humankind that „sets itself only such tasks as it can solve“; it is capitalism, as a totalitarian destructive order, that assigns humankind a task of vital importance: to confront the causes of global destruction and re‐establish an ecological balance that will enable it to survive.

For Marx, work appears as a possible anti‐existential practice in the context of the criticism of hyper‐production, which results in the excessive exhaustion of the soil as the object of labor. Marx overlooks the fact that the capitalist labor, though technically labor, is essentially the destruction of nature. From this we can conclude that pre‐capitalist forms of labor are existentially superior to capitalist labor. This truth means an essentially different relation between non‐work time, creative practice and play. Capitalism is characterized by a destructive re‐shaping of matter. Nature does not become close to man through labor, but turns against man as a natural and human being and against itself as a life‐generating whole. If labor is the basis for man’s relation to nature, then labor is also the basis for man’s relation to himself as a natural being. A humanization of nature is simultaneously a humanization of man; a denaturalization of nature is at the same time a denaturalization and, thus, a dehumanization of man. By destroying nature, capitalism destroys not only the life‐creating potential of matter, but also the life‐creating potential of man as a natural and human being. Marx’s „labor theory of value”, in contemporary capitalism, has turned into the labor theory of destruction.

By overlooking the destructive character of capitalism and by creating the myth about a „revolutionary” character to capitalist development of the productive forces, Marx did not seriously consider the question of the possible threats to humankind and the living world posed by capitalism’s mastering of natural forces. Capitalism has instrumentalized natural forces in two ways. Primarily, it „mastered” the forces of nature by turning them into the means for nature’s destruction and made nature man’s increasingly fierce enemy. By developing the productive forces, capitalism liberates man from his immediate dependence on nature, but at the same time it destroys nature and thus threatens his survival. It is about a technical rather than a real freedom from necessity. Man’s technical liberation from necessity becomes the destruction of life, and the technical production of necessity. Capitalism does not liberate man from his dependence on nature; it, rather, by destroying nature, makes him increasingly dependent on nature and exposes humankind to ever more destructive natural forces. The most fatal consequence of the capitalist development of the productive forces is the modification of climate by the conquering of natural forces, the destruction of the planetary ecological system and threats to the survival of a living world. At the same time, capitalism uses natural forces for the production of the technical, chemical and biological means capable of annihilating humankind in seconds. It includes devices that can cause weather disturbances and earthquakes, as well as the militarization of the cosmos, through which the ruling capitalist clans in the USA attempt to gain a military advantage and establish uncontested global domination. „Cosmic projects” and the smiling faces of astronauts are but a mask hiding a feverish attempt by the most powerful capitalist concerns to create technical means by which to deal with anybody who dares oppose their criminal enterprises and to eradicate the „surplus” population.

The increasing exhaustion of natural resources, reducing the scope of the capitalist expansion, and the concentration of economic, technical, political and military power wrenched from man by a group of capitalist fanatics heightens the possibilities for the use of the means for mass destruction. At the same time, increasingly lethal technical systems and more and more complicated navigational mechanisms will enable „terrorists”, by using state‐of‐art  navigational  technique  („cyber‐wars”,  among  others),  to  cause  the  kind  of nuclear power plant „accidents” that could obliterate life on Earth. One of the most dramatic historical truths is that the higher the level of humankind’s technical development, the deeper the abyss into which it can fall. The new emancipatory possibilities of historical epochs and the  new possibilities  for  jeopardizing  humankind’s  survival  are  the  historical  „ladders“ humanity is currently climbing. The historical position of capitalist „progress” is that it has brought humankind to a high‐enough rung that falling off the ladder now means humankind’s obliteration. The destructive possibilities of the capitalist productive forces have reached such a level that humankind faces instant obliteration.

Technical potential of the capitalist development of the productive forces is seen in relation to the consequences created by capitalism as a destructive order. This is the basis for a concrete   dialectics   of   the   future.   By   overlooking   the   fact   that   the   capitalist development of the productive forces is based on the destruction of nature and man, Marx overlooks  the  consequences  of  capitalism,  the  „healing”  of  which  is  humankind’s  most critical existential task. The development of capitalism as a destructive order has caused the creation of the contemporary „realm of necessity”, where the fight to alleviate the consequences of capitalism’s destruction of life and to restore humankind’s biological (life‐ creating) power has become an existential imperative. Capitalist progress has produced such dire effects that man will not be able to „relax” until he restores nature’s ecological balance and the biological rhythm of the organism. The development of the productive forces, the labor processes, themselves, leisure activities ‐ practically the whole life ‐ should serve that purpose.

Considering Marx’s view that „the anatomy of man is key to understanding the anatomy of a monkey“, the highest stage in the development of capitalism – „consumer society” – where the contradictions of capitalism have been fully developed, should be the starting point in the analysis of the nature of capitalism and the basis for our relation to the future. „Consumer society” is a qualitative leap in the development of capitalism as a destructive order. In consumer society, not only labor, but the entirety of planetary life has become the instrument of capitalist reproduction: life, itself, has become the destruction of nature  and  man.  This  is the  last  stage  in  the  development  of  capitalism,  where  its destructive potential has been fully realized and, in that context, has become its most lethal feature: the consequences of its destruction of life are turned into sources of profit and the basis for further growth, whereas man’s creative powers become the vehicle for the development of capitalism’s destructive powers and the acceleration of this process of destruction. Instead of being an order that creates the conditions for a „leap from the realm of necessity  to  the  realm  of  freedom”, capitalism  abolishes  any  possibility  of  man’s liberation. According to Marx, the „pre‐history” of humankind ends with capitalism. If it is not effectively  dealt  with  it immediately, capitalism  will  be  the  end  of  humankind’s existence.

Capitalism  is  a  nihilistic  order,  not  only  for  its  rejection  of  the  value‐based judgment, but also because it destroys the life‐creating potential of man and nature. Capitalist nihilism is not merely characterized by its anti‐human but also by its anti‐ existential nature. Nature „knows” that death is a precondition for rebirth, but it does not „know” the annihilation of life. In nature as in history, death opens a possibility for new life: by  its nature death  is  life‐generating.  Capitalism  destroys  the  very  cycle  of  death  and rebirth, that is, the life‐generating potential of death, and produces a destructive nothingness.

Capitalism does not generate merely a totalitarian state, but also a totalitarian society. As a matter of fact, life, itself, became a totalizing force that forms men’s characters, their consciousness, interpersonal relations, their position toward nature… Man becomes a destroyer, not only by means of his work and his consuming attitude, but also as an instrument of the capitalist life‐sphere, that is, by living the capitalist way of life, which goes on 24 hours a day and spares no one. Capitalism compels people to live a destructive style of life and, thus, become accessories to the obliteration of the world. The growingly ruthless way of life, based on the ever‐accelerating process of capitalist reproduction, allows men to survive only if they behave in accordance with the ruling processes. This is the cause of one of the most ruinous forms of social pathology: people actively depriving themselves of basic human characteristics in order to survive within a capitalistically totalized world. Under capitalism, man does not „improve” himself through the development of his own specific human potential, that is, as a historical being, but through an imposed ruling model of living that deprives him of naturalness and humanness. The basis of the petit bourgeois’ tragicquality is in the fact that the petit bourgeois assesses his own values by applying the ruling value‐model that depreciates him as a man. The sacrosanct authority of the principle „Money does not stink!” makes the individual expose himself to the worst humiliation and indignity and makes him perform the most awful crimes in order to obtain money and social affirmation. What is dominant in the most developed capitalist societies is no longer the „escape from freedom” (Fromm), but the escape from responsibility for the destruction of life. That represents the basis for contemporary conformity. It is not only of an anti‐ libertarian  but  of  a  primarily  anti‐existential  nature.  The  petit  bourgeois  denies  any personal responsibility for the destruction of life and transposes it onto „God”, onto the Sun, the stars, Biblical and other prophecies, onto „clandestine earthly forces” materialized in the form of „Freemason lodges” and other groups acting „from the shadows”. Instead of being motivated by the growingly dramatic crisis of existence to struggle against capitalism, the petit  bourgeois  allows  himself  to  be  directed  by  that  crisis  toward  an  escape  into  the illusory worlds of the entertainment industry by religious movements, churches and sects, by narcotics, alcohol… At the same time, consumption represents the most significant form of escape from the responsibility for the destruction of the world. Development of the shop‐ a‐holic mentality, which stands for man’s ultimate drowning in the capitalist swamp, is the most ruinous form of escape from reality. This, again, confirms the universal nature of the notion that capitalism turns the consequences of the destruction of the world and of man into its own sources of profit.

Capitalist totalitarianism is the most perilous form of totalitarianism ever created. It is based upon the total commercialization of nature and society. Every part of the planet, each segment of social and individual life has become an integral part of the destructive capitalist growth‐mechanism. Other historical forms of totalitarianism are manifested as related either to the idea of the past, or a certain transcendental idea, or an idea of the future – all of which open possibilities for a critique. Contemporary capitalist totalitarianism is based upon destructive nihilism: it annihilates both the idea of transcendence and the idea of a future (past), and thus it also nullifies the very possibility of establishing a critical distance from the existing world. At the beginning of its development, capitalism generated a visionary consciousness that opened space not only for the development of capitalism, but also for overcoming it (More, Campanella, Hobbes, Bacon, Owen, Saint‐Simon, Fourier…). In becoming a totalitarian destructive order, capitalism exterminates visionary consciousness and creates a totalitarian positivist consciousness – to which corresponds the concept of „the end of history” and „the last man” (Fukuyama). Capitalism abolishes history, transforming  historical   time   into   mechanical   occurrences,   that   is,   into   a   positive nothingness. Simultaneously, capitalist periodicity is not only of an anti‐historical, but also of an anti‐existential nature. Capitalism destroys the very possibility of a future, which appears in the form of a capitalistically degenerated u‐topos.

Capitalism nullifies history by turning historical time into mechanized sequence of events, that is, into a positive nothingness. With capitalism begins the non‐historical time of the destruction of nature, which represents a period of the obliteration of life on Earth. Capitalist temporalization is not only anti‐historical, but it is also anti‐existential in character. „Nothing” is not merely a pointless (non‐reflected) life, but the extinction of life. Capitalism is a totalized annihilating power that generates absolute nothingness and therefore induces a fatal and hopeless tragicquality. What on a vital, human scale occurs as real phenomenon, within the existential parameters of the capitalist value system is turned into a non‐event. Capitalism annihilates the human, in order to give a spectacular dimension to the non‐human and the anti‐human. In that process a fetish‐quality is being attributed to the very process of annihilation, instead of just to specific objects or phenomena. Devoted to the myth of the „revolutionary” character of capitalism, Marx never recognized that capitalism does not primarily project itself into the future by developing the productive forces and emancipatory possibilities of the civil society, but through the destruction of nature and of man, and by obliterating the emancipatory legacy of bourgeois society. Capitalism will become „stable” when it obliterates all life on the planet and reaches the „absolute zero” of inanimate nature.

The Christian cataclysm stands for the end of a worldly existence and the beginning of „real” life. But it is not conceivable if man is deprived of his soul, that is, if his deep inner faith in the “real” world is destroyed. Capitalism deprives man of his soul, that symbol of his vitality as a spiritual being in which is contained the basic prospect of his deification. The capitalist cataclysm nullifies the possibility of the Christian cataclysm: there is no sin and no redemption, no repentance and no absolution… Capitalism turns the world into its own advertising space, and turns man into a destructive hedonistic fanatic who does not feel the need for moral challenges that aim beyond the existing world. Human relations have lost their spiritual and moral dimension. Money as a spectacular nothingness became a vehicle for nullifying spiritual values, and the principle of „Money does not stink!” became the supreme „religious” tenet. The contemporary apocalypse is not based upon religious consciousness and does not have an illusory character. It represents the ever more probable reality that is resulting from the development of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order.

A ruthless demolition of the social tissue, and, thus, the destruction of man as a social being, represents another „quality” of capitalism. Capitalism degenerates man as a natural (erotic) and social being by degenerating interpersonal relations between individuals. It annihilates man’s need for another human being and creates a morbid character,  primarily  by destroying,  from  earliest  childhood,  any  need  for  other  human beings, and, thereby, any possibility for the development of his sense of humanness. Capitalism creates a lonely man who is lost within the nothingness of capitalism and predisposed to escape from the real world into one of illusion. Men become technologized Leibniz monads. Moreover, and even worse, inducing man’s fear of other men represents the basis for capitalist „sociability”. Turning man into an enemy of other men is one of capitalism’s most horrible crimes. By nullifying man as a social being through the creation of atomized individuals who are perpetually at war with one another, capitalism heightens the contradiction between reproducing individual existence and ensuring the survival of humankind. In fact, ensuring man’s immediate existence by means of the capitalist system’s reproductive machinery, which turns the individual into a destructive egotist, dramatically threatens the possibility for humankind to ensure its own survival. The atomization of mankind, which represents the most ruinous form of its de‐politicization, further aggravates this situation.

Capitalism generates such forms of „sociability” as to degenerate man as a social being. „Sociability” is being reduced to interpersonal conflict, to dishonesty, fraud, crime… Nothing in the contemporary world destroys man’s need for others more effectively than do contemporary interpersonal contacts. The authentic interpersonal relations in which man can realize himself as a libertarian, erotic, emotional, spiritual and creative being are nullified, causing relations between people to take on a technical and destructive nature, leaving man a mechanical and destructive being. Capitalism creates counterfeit‐sociability in the form of „consumers”, „spectators”, „fans”, „Facebook addicts”… Sport is one of the main vehicles for the degeneration unto annihilation of human sociability. Athletes are reduced to a quasi‐militaristic, circus‐trick‐performing and suicidal‐stunt class, and the audience is turned into a „mindless mass of frenzied supporters”. Musical „spectacles”, beer festivals and other mass drinking parties, disco clubs, supermarkets and malls, pedestrian zones in commercial parts of the city, etc. – these are all varieties of the capitalist production of a „sociability” that is deprived of naturalness and humanness. It is reduced the creation of a „mass consumption” that is conditioned by the capitalist process of destructive reproduction, and stands for a totally commercialized existence. Capitalism turns man from a social being into a consumer‐being, and turns the society from a community of emancipated individuals into a crowd of consumers. The mega‐mall has become the most important social space, and „sales”, with their „consumer stampedes”, represent the most authentic expressions of the capitalist sociability.

As  far  as  the  Internet  is  concerned,  the  increasing  possibilities  for  technical „communication” are replacing the decreasing possibilities for authentic human communication. Instead of establishing direct contacts, people establish „relationships” via an image „concocted” to appear to be a „stable and successful” individual in terms of the dominant values, that is, in terms of man’s self‐degradation and self‐mutilation. Anonymity, the    possibility    of    an    interruption    at    any    moment,    the    possibility    of  constant „transformation” and „upgrading” ‐ all these are mediators in this „communication”. The computer screen does not show the true picture of an individual, only a mask. The Internet does  not  serve  to  establish  interpersonal  contacts,  but  only  creates  technical  relations where people are „freed” from sensuous, erotic, emotional, and, ultimately, from social existence and social mediation. The screen shows images one cannot feel, touch, or look in the eyes of… Images without odour, voice, warmth… One is „freed” from that world where man cannot realize his humanity because he is reduced to a technically disguised apparition.

Internet‐populism is the most inhuman form of populism. Deceptively, everyone can appear in the „public”, but that is only a virtual „public” of anonymous people who are hiding behind their computer screens. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of texts diffused on Internet are without cultural sophistication and being imposed by means of ever more aggressive „technical presentations” produced from the machinery of the advertising industry  driving  consumer  society.  The  worst  thing  is  that  young  people  accept  being thrown into this virtual world. It is a conformist solution for a lonely soul mired in capitalist hopelessness. To accept this virtual world means, in fact, to accept the existing world in which there is no place for youth, love, future… Ultimately, it is about removing any possibility of people’s coming together and acting as political subjects – striving to eradicate the causes of misery. The annihilation of man as a social being by means of technology and the „consumer” way of life represents the most efficient way to bring about his de‐ politicization. Without the oppressed having any immediate interconnection and organization based on a clear vision of a future world that should be fought for, street rallies are being reduced to mass expressions of discontent that, instead of contributing to the re‐ humanization of an inhuman world, are more and more a factor in the regeneration of new forms of oppression and exploitation.

In contemporary capitalism, movements are created of growing numbers of homosexuals, which would, according to Marx’s „humanism‐naturalism”, fall under the classification of degenerated sociability and, consequently, degenerated naturalness. Homosexuality does not have to do with the „deranged” biological nature of man (man is a heterosexual being and has an organic predisposition for pederasty), but rather with the ruling social relations and the corresponding value challenges. It is not about the „sick man”, but a sick society. We should, therefore, not treat people, but create a „healthy society” (Fromm), in which healthy people could develop. Homosexuality is a concrete social (historical) phenomenon which is conditioned by the nature of the ruling order. It is a form in which a certain value system manifests itself, which governs relations between the sexes and as such is a concrete type of social functioning. The ancient homosexual Eros has had a significantly different nature from the capitalistically conditioned homosexuality. The homosexual community of today is one of the forms in which capitalistically degenerated sociability manifests itself. The development of homosexual relations corresponds to the disintegration of the family as a humanized natural community and conversion of marriage into   an   economic   community.  Homosexual   communities   receive   the   legitimacy  of „sociability” not in relation to family as a humanized natural community, but in relation to the desperate loneliness created by capitalism. Homosexual community is the ultimate form of capitalistically degenerated family, whereas the development of pederasty contributes to removing the possibility of making the family a humanized natural community. At the same time, by destroying man as a natural and human being, capitalism destroys authentic sociability, sterilizing Eros and, thereby, destroying the society’s capacity for biological reproduction. „Reproduction of society” has become a segment of destructive capitalist reproduction, which is, like all other areas of life, based on the principle of „Money does not stink!”. Artificial insemination, the sale of semen materials, the rental of uteruses, the sale of children ‐ these are all legal and legitimate forms of capitalist reproduction. Capitalism draws into its existential and value orbit the increasingly pernicious consequences that it produces, assigning them an institutional status and turning them into a means for its own development.

In light of the fact that capitalism destroys man as a natural and human being, the goal of marriage should be the survival of humanity as a humanized and natural community. Marriage   is   an   institutionalized   community   of   woman   and   man   that   provides   an opportunity for a stable biological reproduction of society and for raising children. When marriage is devoid of the life‐creating (fecund) dimension, it loses its primary reason for existence. At the same time, without the life‐creating dimension, marriage becomes a shell in which it is possible to insert the most diverse content. If we accept homosexuality as a basis  for  establishing  a  marital  community,  then  why  not  permit  marriage  between brothers, between sisters, between mothers and their daughters, fathers and sons, grandmothers and granddaughters, grandfathers and grandsons…? The importance of family‐relationships lies above all in its prospects for biological survival, i.e., it is grounded in the fact that incest leads to the physical and mental degeneration of offspring. In homosexual relationships, which do not have the life‐creating character, this problem does not exist. By having homosexuality serves as a fundamental principle of marriage, all boundaries fall and, with them, the traditional notion of family ties that are based on heterosexual   relationships.  Furthermore,   the   historical   dimension   of   man   is   being abolished, as is, in that context, the humanist and existential vision of the future of mankind. The question is not only what the society will look like, but how its very survival will be possible if it is converted into a population of gays and lesbians? To this question capitalism cannot find a humanistic answer, but only a technological one: the artificial insemination, meaning a mechanical production of children. In the contemporary world, homosexuality has become an anti‐existential principle. It is one of the means for destroying mankind’s reproductive capability and for sterilizing society. Homosexuality appears today as a phenomenon  befitting  a  world  that  is  collapsing  biologically  and  destroying  man  as  a natural, social and historical being.

The true nature of „gay rights” can be seen in their relation to the rights of children. What is „humane” about contesting the basic needs and rights of children? In place of the struggle to preserve family and, in that context, the right of children to have both parents and their love and care, it is insisted that „homosexuals have the right to adopt children.” At the same time, the community of children and same‐sex „parents” becomes a model for „the family of the future”. In that way, the dialectics of erotic relations between man and woman, which  is  the basis  for  the  healthy  development  of  children’s  sexuality  (personality), is destroyed. Finally, why should children have parents at all? Why not establish farms for producing and raising of children ‐ as suggested by Plato and as practiced by the Nazis? Adoption of children is not only a way of „solving the problem” of children without parents, but has become the fundamental justification for homosexual marriage. The adoption solution  is  built  upon  the consequences  created  by  capitalism  as  the  epitome  of  an inhumane order, namely, based up on children‘s basic human needs going unaddressed. Adoption implies that children are without their natural parents, that is, they have been denied the right to live with their biological fathers and mothers. In the identity documents of Western countries, instead of referring to a „father” and „mother”, increasingly, reference is being made to „the first and second parent.” One set of people „produces” and abandons children, while another adopts them. Adoption of children has become a commodity‐ exchange and a mechanical operation. Children are bought and sold as things. There is a „warranty period” like for any other commodity. Together with the rejection of the rights of children to have parents, humanist pedagogy is rejected, that is, the pedagogical system based on an effort to humanize the natural human being by means of family as a humanized natural community. At the same time, depriving children of parental love and respect is the cause of the most serious mental illnesses and the worst forms of social pathology.

The fundamental right of children is their right to a future, which means their right to a humane world and a healthy environment. Meeting the needs of children as human and natural beings has become a matter of mankind’s survival. The efforts of the most reactionary capitalist groups to reduce the planet’s population to fewer than one billion people include sterilization  and  the  extermination  of  „surplus  people”.  In  this  context,  children are  no longer viewed as „the greatest treasure”, but, rather, as the greatest threat to the survival of mankind. The future is not perceived as being determined by the creative potential of man and the humanist vision of the world, but is premised on the „fact” that natural resources are limited and that the number of people on the planet should be adjusted to that. Instead of striving to eradicate the consumer frenzy that dominates the most developed capitalist countries of the West and is the main cause of the increasingly dramatic deterioration of the planet, ever‐louder are becoming the demands for the extermination of billions of „surplus people”, which predominantly means children. By destroying children, capitalism destroys the life force of humanity and transforms human society into a world of physically and mentally degenerate Methuselahs.

In the homosexual relationship, the human body loses its genuine erotic dimension and is instrumentalized in an unnatural and inhuman way. It becomes an object of sexual exhibitionism in which the most important role is given to body parts that are unrelated to any genuine erotic nature, and especially alien to the life‐creating nature of man. It is no longer  a  humanized  natural  relation,  but  a  denaturalized  and  therefore  dehumanized relation in which the body of the „partner” is reduced to a means for achieving an orgasm. Penetration  of  the  penis  into  the  anus  is  a  painful  and  injurious  violence  against the „partner’s” organism and (as with „oral sex”) a degrading form of „sexual intercourse”. The psychological basis of homosexuality is not the emancipated human beings’ need for love, but the fear of loneliness, of rejection, of uncertainty… Instead of relations of equality between the „partners”, subjugation and submission are established, which means a sado‐ masochistic relationship that is a direct expression of the position of man in capitalism as a class order based on the principle of „Trample or be trampled!”. The need for domination and subjugation becomes a basis for the dialectic of „sex play”. „Inherited” is the model of social relations that is the basis for the ruling relation between women and men, in which women are reduced to an object of sexual humiliation.

Striving for the realization of man as a human being goes far beyond the (homo)sexual dimension of man. The insisting on homosexuality as a central issue determining human identity becomes a means for mutilation of man’s humanity and for producing „one‐dimensional” (Marcuse) man. Being human is reduced to a certain type of sexuality. To be „someone” means to be either a „gay” or a „macho‐man”. It becomes the main form of social affirmation of man, removing other forms of affirmation of man as a sovereign being. In this way man is abolished as a historic, visionary and freedom‐loving being. The „gay movement” is based on a reduced humanity and a degenerated sociability. Man achieves his human selfhood and sociality by way of his sexuality, rather than through his civil status, class and national self‐awareness, family, culture, political and religious beliefs… „Pride” is not linked to the struggle for man’s freedom, national survival and social justice, to preserving nature and mankind… but to (homo)sexuality, which has an anti‐ existential character. Homosexuals are not „proud” because they are humans, but because they are „gay” and „lesbian”. Sexuality is no longer a personal matter, but gets a spectacular public promotion. The need for sociability is reduced to a sexist exhibitionism that has a banal circus‐like character. The reduced humanness of today is of a substantially different nature from that of the past. It manifests itself in relation to an increasingly real possibility of destruction of the world and in relation to the creative powers of man, who is able to abolish class society and create a new world.

„The struggle for gay rights” indicates the hypocrisy of the capitalist world. Why is the „struggle for gay rights” deprived of the humanist and visionary dimensions? Why don’t those who call upon „humanity” for the sake of homosexuals, not fight against the inhumane and for a humane world for all? „The struggle for gay rights” does not have a humanistic, but rather a political character, and contributes to the preservation of the existing world. Gay „Pride Parades” are the highest manifestations of „democracy”, and “respect for the rights of homosexuals” the highest affirmation of the ruling order’s „humanity”. By imposing the issue of „exercising the rights of homosexuals”, any questions concerning the survival of humanity and the freedom of man are removed from public awareness: the biological degradation of the people, the ruthless plundering of the working class, dying from disease, hunger and thirst, drugs, the criminalization of society, the rise of the police state, illiteracy, loneliness, the destruction of entire peoples by the „democratic” West, experiments with genetic material, production of the increasingly potent means for mass destruction, the „spraying” of the population and land, mental illnesses, destruction of soil and living organisms with genetically modified plants, breakdowns of nuclear facilities, suicide, violence, increasingly expensive medical services and an increasingly destructive use of pharmaceuticals, the growing social disparities and the growing misery of the working class, children and retirees, an increasingly polluted environment, toxic food, the capitalists’ monopoly of the media… At the same time, „the struggle for gay rights” becomes a way to install division among people based on their sexual orientation, which works to destroy those forms of sociality (civil, national and class integration) that provide opportunities for man to survive and to achieve freedom.

The matter of (homo)sexuality can be understood in a humanistic way only in the context of realization of an integral humanity of man, from the perspective of the struggle for the preservation  of  life  on  Earth  and  the  creation  of  a  humane  world.  The  critical distance between capitalism and a humane society also implies a critical distance between homosexuality and man as a humanized natural (life‐creating) and social being. On this basis homosexuals as emancipated people could contribute to the development of social relations that would provide the ability to overcome (homo)sexual one‐dimensionality. A distinction must be made between gay people who are emancipated human beings and those whose view of the world and the future is based on their sexual orientation. The first are able to perceive homosexuality as a social phenomenon in the context of the struggle for survival of mankind and the creation of a humane world; the latter are deprived of critical and visionary consciousness, and are hopelessly mired in the mud of capitalism. The emancipation of homosexuals, as people, from homosexuality is one of the forms of freeing man from unnatural and inhuman needs that capitalism has created in man. In fact, the emancipation of homosexuals from homosexuality is one of the forms of emancipation of man from capitalism. Man, who is aware of the disastrous consequences of the development of capitalism, should confront the demon that capitalism has instilled in him and in a manner that he, together with others, could fight against capitalism and for a humane world. We are all victims of capitalism. All of us carry within ourselves from early childhood a germ of evil that, in the inhumane world, eventually destroys the human in us. We are all inclined towards violence; we are all jealous, selfish, „perverse”, destructive… It is only a question of the extent to which we are able to control and conceal the evil that is in us. The only way for man to win against the evil that is instilled in him is to fight against the social order that creates this evil and fosters its development. Loneliness is the soil in which the capitalist seed of evil develops best. The development of social relations and the turning of society into a community of free people is the best way one may confront the evil and develop one’s own humanity. It, in fact, means the development of an emancipated and fighting sociability. That is why civil initiatives and working‐class movements that pull people out of their solitary burrows and provide them the opportunity, through fighting against the inhumane world, to experience themselves as social beings, are of great importance. In the fight for the survival of  mankind and  the  creation  of  a  humane  world  will  break  to  the  surface  those  human qualities that connect people together and make them humans.

Instead of striving for a humane world and the true humanity of man, the answer to the „gay question” is sought within capitalism, which produces the worst forms of social pathology. In an inhumane society, human problems can be „solved” only in an inhumane way. Only in a humane society can human problems be resolved in a humane way.

The body is the basic vessel of human existence in the world and man’s basic connection to the world. It is not a natural given or a phenomenon sui generis. It is rather the product of the historical development of society. Each civilization creates a specific body and a specific relation to the body and, thus, a specific man. Even in Ancient Greece, people realized that the production of a particular body also implies the production of a particular type of man (masters and slaves). Class and racial physiognomic is given great importance in bourgeois anthropology and concentrated on particularly by bourgeois Hellenic scholars who idealized Ancient Greece. At the same time, man does not experience his body immediately but through a concrete totality of the epoch in which he lives and the prevailing ideological „model” of the body, as a concrete human (social) being.

The answer to the question of what is the human body in the contemporary world can be reached only in the context of the prevailing tendency of capitalist development. Capitalism produces an individual who is in functional unity with it and who enables its development, above all, by producing an appropriate body. The prevailing relation to the body is mediated by „technical civilization”. In other words, the body is reduced to being a peculiar machine, while bodily movement is reduced to the mechanics of motion. Technical functionality and efficiency become the basic features of the capitalist body. Basically, a dominant instrumental and exploitative relation to nature is fundamental to the relation to the human body. Rather than being a harmonious part of the living environment that, as such, should be respected, the body is reduced to being the object of transformation and an instrument for the attainment of inhuman goals. In „consumer society”, consumption has become the dominant form of bodily activity. The body has become part of the consumer way of life, and it responds to the demands of consumer civilization. The relation to the body has an instrumental character: it ceases to be an integral part of the human being and becomes a tool for the reproduction of the ruling order. The body is completely commercialized as the „greatest” achievement of the capitalist degeneration of man. Putatively, man is the „owner” of his body. In reality, he treats his body in the same way capitalism treats him as a man: by dehumanizing man, capitalism dehumanized man’s relation to his own body. It is a capitalistically created narcissism with an instrumental, destructive and spectacular nature.

The capitalist totalization of the world involves the capitalist totalization of the body, its deformation and the creation of a chronically ill man. The prevailing rhythm is that of capitalist reproduction, which destroys the biological rhythm of life – without which there is no healthy man. Not only is man guided by consumption as his moral challenge, but his body cannot  survive  without  an  increasing  number  of  devices  and  substances,  along  with  an artificial environment. Man’s survival is more and more mediated by artificial means that turn him into an invalid. The body has lost its natural needs: it can no longer process natural food, and it lives on and through medication. Man’s entire life is in „treatment”, meant ultimately to enable him to carry on in the functional harmony with the ruling order. The devolution of the body clearly shows that a developing „standard of consumption” brings on an erosion of the living standard. Labor, livelihood, movement, bio‐rhythms, diet, sleep, living space as a modern ghetto (cities), air, water, food, tobacco, drugs, sugary beverages (including alcohol), ways of life that destroy man’s natural being, his night life, forced pace and ways of eating ‐ almost all life‐styles  lead  to  man’s  degeneration.  Cholesterol,  cellulite,  diabetes, cancer,  coronary diseases, neurasthenia, depression, AIDS, etc., are not „modern diseases”, but are rather a capitalist form of man’s physical and mental degeneration. It is about man’s transformation by capitalism, which deprives him of his natural and human life‐creating quality and turns him into a plastic and technological „being”. At the same time, rather than being naturally conditioned and having a natural character, an increasing number of potential diseases are the products of laboratories and have a genocidal and for‐profit character. Capitalism produces diseases that are then „cured” through man’s transformation into a profit‐generating patient, that  is,  a  chronic  patient.  The  propaganda  machine  and his  social  position  determine  the „physical  needs”  of  contemporary  man.  Man,  who constantly  devours  larger  and  larger amounts of lower and lower quality food, is the most important strategic target of the food industry. This industry is producing a more and more gravely sick man, who is, of course, „taken in charge” by the medical and pharmaceutical industry. The consumption of larger and larger quantities of food does not reflect a need of the body; it is intended to compensate for a frustrated humanity. The same goes for smoking, drug taking, alcoholism, consumer physical exercise like aerobics, body‐building and similar activities. Capitalism turns the consequences of the destruction of man and nature into the sources of profit and invents increasingly dangerous and destructive mechanisms. The human body becomes a universal destructive machine and a universal waste bin meant to swallow the ever‐more poisonous products of capitalist civilization. At the same time, existential anxiety, daily humiliations, loneliness and hopelessness affect man’s mental health and further exacerbate his physical degeneration.

As part of the capitalistically degenerated world, man’s body has become the vehicle for the destruction of naturality and humanity and, as such, the enemy of nature and man. Capitalism has transformed man into a destructive labor force and, at the same time, into a consumer set to devour the greatest number of products in the least possible time. The nature of these commodities, the use‐value of which continually decreases from the perspective of man as a biological and human being, and the nature of man’s relationship to these goods and services, which is nothing more than to consume them, inevitably result in man’s degeneration as a biological and human being. The consumer way of life produces a denaturalized and dehumanized consumer body and a consumer mentality, and, ultimately, a consumer view of the world and a consumer (destructive) imagination. The constant focusing on devouring food distracts the mind from crucial existential and essential issues and affects visionary consciousness.  Dreams  about  food  (just  like  dreams  about  luxury  cars, swimming  pools, houses, yachts… – which constantly feed the capitalist value horizon manifested by an increasingly  aggressive  entertainment  industry)  replace  dreams  about  the  world  of  free people. At the same time, the forms of escapism created by the entertainment industry destroy man’s need for intellectual activities. Capitalism mentally mutilates people by destroying  their need for science, philosophy, poetry, music, enlightened conversation… There exists but one area of interest: money and the political power it buys, concerns which ultimately serve to rationalize the existing order that enables the accumulation of wealth through the plundering of workers and the destruction of the environment.

The relation to his own body is man’s most immediate relation to himself. Hence, the basic form of alienation from oneself is one’s alienation from one’s own body. Most people in the West experience frustration every single day because their physical appearance does not correspond to the prevailing (mass‐marketed) model of the body as the basis for social worth. Man experiences his body as a punishment, as something alien, and tries to transform it through strenuous physical exercises, „treatments”, plastic surgeries… It is „fashionable” to submit the body to the dominant „aesthetic” model and thus to submit man to the ruling order. Everything is turned upside down. To be reduced to a dehumanized and denaturalized idiot becomes the highest moral challenge ‐ especially if it might bring „fame and fortune”.

Modeling is one of the spectacular forms of the capitalist degeneration of man. By torturing their bodies and personalities, girls are transformed into advertising dolls and self‐ destructive zombies. To „walk the runways“, at the cost of destroying their authenticity and health, becomes the highest challenge for young people, who are hypnotized by the capitalist propaganda machinery and invalidated by the capitalist value system. Humiliation is masked as „spontaneity”, just as with prostitutes: giggling serves to conceal the truth that a girl is reduced to „flesh“ and as such is the object of sexual exploitation. The treatment of models differs from the treatment of livestock exhibited at agricultural fairs only in that the biological rhythms of the cattle must not be interrupted, while, on the other hand, models are forced to starve. Moreover, cattle are not humiliated in the same way these girls are. Cattle are not forced to deform their bodies and faces in order to fit a „profile” created by the capitalist clans in the shadows and by modern slave drivers who pass themselves off as catwalk „magicians”.

Physical existence in the world is not a matter of free choice. Man as a physical being is destined to live in the existing world. Reason, by virtue of imagination and illusions, can „escape“ from the existing world. The body is chained to the existing world and is a part of it. Man is a slave of capitalism because he is a slave to his own body. To be freed from slavery means to be freed from the body. This is the essence of suicide. The person who commits suicide kills his body in order to free himself from slavery in an inhuman world. Killing of the body is the final way in which capitalism deals with man. Suicide is not the act of a free will, but rather a way in which an inhuman world inflicts a lethal blow to man. The man who jumps off a cliff is actually pushed off by the prevailing order. To choose between life and death is not a matter of free will. Freedom presupposes a choice between possible forms of life and not between life and death. The decision to choose death is the decision of a man who has not only lost his freedom, but also lost the need to be free.

By becoming a totalitarian destructive order, capitalism absorbs into its existential orbit, and thus degenerates and destroys, everything that enables man to be a human being. Capitalism has deprived man of love, respect, family, friends, a healthy environment, a secure existence, happiness,  a  future…  Man  is  left  only  with  his  body,  which,  itself,  is  also capitalistically mutilated. The body is man’s sole retreat, the sole „otherness” he can „resort to” at any given moment and the only thing he „owns”. Capitalistically conditioned narcissism has become a pathological obsession with the body in terms of its instrumentalization for the purposes of achieving social status and ensuring a predictable existence. Man, as a social being, is reduced to a physical being. Given man’s loneliness and capitalistically degenerated mutual relations, the instrumental, destructive and spectacular character of man’s relation to his body is now considered „normal”.

Young people used to wear long hair and „extravagant” clothes in order to attract attention. Today, they mutilate their bodies in order to look „fashionable”. An increasing number of young people subject themselves to painful „treatments” so as to adjust to the ruling value model. Physical pain becomes the most important way in which young people can experience their existence. Every year, millions of hopeless people have pins, rings and chains forced into and through their ears, tongues, eyebrows, noses, belly buttons, nipples, vaginas, penises… Every year, millions of humiliated people deface their bodies with tattoos and plastic surgery… It is the price young people will pay to „adjust” to and obtain some „value” in a capitalistically degenerated world. Physical deformity is the manifestation of human deformity. A man who is lost in the destructive nothingness of capitalism does not have human authenticity. To deform oneself as a human being is a way by which young people try to adjust to the ruling spirit of destruction and, thus, feel that they belong to the existing world. They try to be „somebody” by turning into nothing – into capitalist nobodies. A complete, self‐destructive subjection to the ruling order is a hopeless man’s conformist response to attempts by the order  to  completely subdue  him  through  his  invalidation  as  a human being.  Man  tries to cripple himself as a human being to an extent that he will no longer feel the pain of a life deprived of humanity. He seeks to adjust to an inhuman world by completely destroying his own humanity, by destroying his libertarian dignity as a basis for his refusal to accept the existing world and as the source of a humanist visionary consciousness. „To be cool” means to attain such a mental state that the inhuman has irrevocably quashed all humanity.

Capitalism offered man a body in the same way a bad master offers a meatless bone to a hungry dog. With fewer possibilities to realize his humanity, man becomes more and more obsessed with his body. This is the most important reason why people fight so fiercely for „sexual freedom” and for indulging in anything (food, drugs, alcohol…) that might seem to alleviate the pain caused by capitalism as it deprives them of their humanity. The nature of concrete sexual relations cannot be separated from the nature of a given society. Sex is a mutual relation mediated by man’s nature as a concrete social being and thus by prevailing relations and values. It is only as a social being that man can be a sexual being. Capitalism, as a specific historical order, produces a specific sociability and, thus, a specific sexuality. On the one hand, masturbation is a typical example of autistic‐narcissistic compensatory behavior. On the other hand, there is a „total sex”, which involves the reduction of one another’s bodies to being the objects of sexual exploitation. At the same time, public promotion of the body, sexual organs and sexual relations has obtained a spectacular self‐marketing dimension. The need for sexual exhibitionism is a consequence of man’s lacking the possibility of realizing himself as a social being in a humane way. What used to be called „love” exists no more. Eroticism lacks naturality and humanness. „Sexual relations” come down to a mechanical exchange between two denaturalized and dehumanized bodies. „Sexual arousal” is achieved through increasingly perverted forms of, often violent, humiliation. Almost 80% of Americans cannot reach orgasm unless they engage in violent acts or imagine violence during intercourse. Daydreaming about sex is reduced to daydreaming about the sadistic degradation of the „partner”, whose body is reduced to the object of sexual exhibitionism.

„Group sex” is one of the most disgusting and most alluring forms of „freedom” that capitalism offers its slaves. A crowd of malodorous butt‐holes and vaginas, phalluses and breasts, drunken and doped‐up heads, smeared in sperm and saliva – this is the true image of the contemporary capitalist apocalypse. The „freedom” offered by capitalism to its slaves is limitless, which can clearly be seen in the fact that sodomy has become a „normal” form of „sexual intercourse”. More and more „respectable citizens” in the West enjoy „sexual relations” with  dogs.  The  raping  of  „home  pets”  and  their  subjection  to  various  forms of sexual perversion  have  become  widespread.  The  organizations  dealing  with  the „protection  of animals” do not bother to oppose this obnoxious form of torture, since it is an untouchable sphere of „sexual freedoms” guaranteed by „democracy” to its citizens. Finally, „sex dolls” have become extremely popular on the sex market. This represents the denouement of capitalist humanism: plastic corpses have replaced human beings. „Democracy” has finally created the ideal „sexual partners” for its slaves, who are manipulated in every possible way that comes to their (increasingly morbid) minds, and without any responsibility.

„Alienation” is a basic concept upon which Marx’s critique of capitalism is founded, and „de‐alienation” is a key idea upon which the libertarian intention of his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future are based. Capitalism’s becoming a totalitarian order of destruction rendered Marx’s concept of „alienation” insufficient to providing the opportunity for the establishment of an adequate starting point for a critique of capitalism. Man’s contemporary alienation has not merely an inhuman nature, but a destructive nature as well. It implies the obliteration of nature as a life‐generating whole, of man as a biological and human being, and of the emancipatory legacy of national cultures and of civil society, that is, of the visionary mind and the idea of novum. By the annihilation of cultural and libertarian consciousness, the possibility of man’s becoming aware of his own alienation and establishing a critical and change‐creating remove from capitalism is destroyed.

When capitalism became a totalitarian order of destruction, not just private property, labor and the market, but even life, itself, became means for man’s alienation from his natural and human being. Unlike the previous ruling classes, the bourgeoisie endeavors to amalgamate not only its own values but also its life‐sphere into the working world. A worker is not merely a producer, but a consumer of commodities, as well, and, as such, a creator of the market, that is, an instrument for solving the crisis of over‐production. Destructive consumer practices have become the dominant form of the man’s living activity and the principal mode for entrapping the worker in the existential orbit of capitalism and its values. „Consumer society” becomes a totalizing power that spares no one and that no one can escape. Commercialization of life is the worst form of totalitarianism that has ever been created in the course of human history because it completely subordinates nature, society and man to the destructive machinery of capitalist reproduction.  Its essence is encoded in the monstrous maxim „Money does not stink!” which also expresses the essence of ecocidal capitalist barbarism.

In Marx, humanity, which primarily implies freedom and creativity, represents the most important quality of man, the quality toward which the concept of „alienation” is applied.  It is  possible  for  man  to  be,  in  his  essence,  a  human  being:  man  can  become inhuman precisely because he is a man. According to Marx, though humanity can be suppressed and degenerated, it cannot be annihilated. In spite of being manipulated and repressed, in Goethe’s words: „ … a good man in his inarticulate impulse is entirely aware of his true course”. The concept of man’s „alienation” is manifested in relation to the possibility of his „de‐alienation”, which means, in spite of the capitalist totalization of life, capitalism cannot succeed in obliterating the humanity within man, so that, at an appropriate historical moment (an economic crisis of capitalism) it can be manifested in the form of revolutionary consciousness and practice. „De‐alienation” represents a universal principle and implies man’s liberation from the inhuman role which capitalism imposes on him. It is of crucial importance that Marx’s idea of „alienation” refers to the fact that under capitalism man becomes alienated from his own humanity by being alienated from his authentic human potential,  alienated  from  what  he  can  become  as  a  universal  creative  being.  Each  man carries inside the unlimited potential of humanity – this is Marx’s most important humanistic message and represents the basis of his vision of the future. As for the capitalist, he, being a capitalist, cannot become a human being unless he, as a man, does not emancipate himself from capitalism, which is done primarily by ensuring his own existence through his own work. The elimination of class distinctions and class relations does not merely imply the reinstatement of the worker to his authentic human being, but also a return of the capitalist to his own state of being a man. The socialist revolution, by means of which the elimination of class society based on the private ownership of the means of production takes place, also deprives capitalists of their inhumanity: capitalists do not exist without capitalism. The objective of the socialist revolution is not to exterminate capitalists, but to bring an end to class society and to create such social relations as would make it possible for each man to realize his authentic human capacities in the community of others.

In light of the prevailing tendency in the development of capitalism, instead of Marx’s concept of „alienation”, the idea of destruction should become the starting point in the critique of capitalism. This idea provides an opportunity to perceive the most significant and, for humankind and the living world, the most ruinous possibilities of capitalism. The concept of destruction does not merely define the status of man under capitalism and his relation to nature as an object of labor and the „anorganic body” (Marx) of man; it also describes the relation of capitalism to the living world, to nature as an ecological whole, and, in that context, to man as a biological and human being. Capitalism does not only alienate the natural world from man, but, by destroying it, also turns nature into man’s mortal enemy. It is not alienation, but the destructiveness of labor that is dominant in capitalism; it is not the processing but obliteration of nature; not the suppression of man’s erotic nature and the coarsening of his senses, but the degeneration of man’s human and biological (genetic) being; not  only making man look foolish, but wiping out his mind… As it becomes more and more a totalitarian order of destruction, capitalism nullifies any possibility of a conflict between the human and the inhuman by destroying the human and thereby eliminating the possibility of alienation: the less man remains man, the smaller is the possibility of his alienation from himself as a man.

The development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction poses the question: can capitalism so degenerate man as to remove absolutely all his human characteristics? Considering the destructive madness prevalent in the most developed capitalist countries, it is not unreasonable to conclude that capitalism has exceeded the anthropological limits imagined by Marx with his concept of „alienation”: that it would merely succeed in degenerating man to such an extent that his destructive „needs” would turn into the power that motivated him and provided meaning to his life. It is not merely man’s „alienation“ from his human essence, but his degeneration as a human and biological being. Capitalism not only dehumanizes man, but it also denaturalizes him, deprives him of the characteristics that are distinctive to living beings. Capitalism does not merely compel man to act like a mechanical part of the industrial labor process, thereby distorting him physiologically, as Marx claims, but it also deforms him genetically and mutilates him as a living being.  It is a capitalistically caused mutation of man from a natural and cultural being into a destructive working (consuming) machine. The „reification” of man by the capitalist market was also followed by his being turned, as worker and consumer, into an accomplice in the destruction of the world. Destruction became an authentic need of the capitalistically degenerated man.

Life based upon destructive capitalist totalitarianism has become the cause of physical and mental degeneration among people. „Consumer society” forces man to adapt to the ruling order through destructive consumer activity which „solves” the crisis of over‐ production with an ever more intensive destruction of commodities (dynamics of destruction),  thus clearing  new  space  in  the  market.  In  the  most  immediate  way  it conditions the way of life, the mentality and the value‐horizon of the contemporary (petit) bourgeois. The difference between „classical” and the contemporary capitalism is that contemporary capitalism disfigures and degenerates people not only by reducing all human necessity to the „need to possess” (Marx), but also to the need to destroy. „Possession” implies the permanent ownership and exploitation of assets. Durability, which once represented the highest quality of commodities, in a „consumer society” has become the largest obstacle to renewed demand and the growth of capital. Goods (commodities) are no longer  a  fetish,  as  Marx  claims,  but it  is  destruction,  itself,  that  has  become  the  fetish. Capitalism turns man’s life‐creating (erotic) energy into a drive for destruction. It thus destroys authentic sociability and creates destructive sociability. Destroying the largest quantity of goods in the shortest time has become the ultimate goal for the contemporary capitalist fanatic. During the 2011 New Year’s sales, a commercial slogan appeared at one London shopping center: „I shop, therefore I am!” This grotesque knock‐off of Descartes’ maxim, cogito ergo sum, unequivocally indicates the nature of the contemporary capitalist degeneration  of  man.  The ultimate  and  most  ruinous result  of  the  development  of  the „consumer society” is the destruction of man as a reasoning being and the turning of the human community into a crowd of destructive capitalist fanatics.

Marx emphasizes that capitalism develops universal human needs, and in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts he claims that capitalism reduces all human need to the need for possession: „Private property has made us become so dull and one‐dimensional that an object becomes ours only when we possess it, that is, only when it exists as an asset for us or when it is directly possessed, eaten, drunk, worn, inhabited, etc., by us, in a word, used. But private property, itself, sees these direct realizations of possession merely as a means to a living, but the life for which they should be instrumental is a life of private property, work and capitalization. (…) All physical and spiritual feelings or sentiments are replaced by alienation from all those sentiments, by the sentiment of possession. The human being had to be reduced to this abject poverty in order to engender an inner richness within itself…“ (15) What is this „inner richness“ that man brings „forth out of himself” when capitalism reduces him to „absolute poverty”? This wordplay, based on libertarian optimism within which humanity becomes an abstraction, conceals the truth that capitalism can degenerate man to such an extent that he loses his humanity, a quality without which he will have no need for justice and freedom and, therefore, will not fight for a righteous and free world. Marx could, however, have developed his critique to its completion by situating the issues in such a manner as to conclude that capitalism completely degenerates man and thus eliminates any possibility of dеalienation, even the very possibility that man could create a new world. In that way, the anthropological limit would have been surpassed and so the appeal to struggle against capitalism would be pointless. According to Marx, in spite of the fact that man is alienated from his own self, in the depths of his being the flame of humanity continues to burn and will flare and pervade the entire world with its brilliance and warmth, encouraged by the common struggle against capitalism and for a human world. Indisputably the vision of the future should be based on faith in man, but also on an awareness that capitalism is capable of destroying the human within the man.

Marx claims that man under capitalism is alienated from himself and is subjected to reification, that labor degenerates him, etc., while, at the same time, claiming that capital produces  a  „universality”  the  limits  of  which  are  within  its  own  nature.  Marx states: „Universality, toward which capital strives irresistibly, finds in its own nature those limits that, at a certain level of its development, will result in a cognition that it represents the major limitation of that endeavor and will, therefore, force it to self‐eliminate.” (16) Marx fails to notice the real nature of capitalist universality and does not distinguish universality in the technical sense from universality in the humanistic sense. A variety of technical ways of processing  nature  do  not,  per  se,  imply  development  of  man’s  universal  creative capacities and an opening of the space of freedom. Capitalism does not develop man’s universal needs, but the universal forms of manipulation of man that are essentially dehumanizing and denaturalizing. It annihilates man’s authentic needs and the very possibility of having his own needs, and imposes on him the „needs” and the manner in which they are fulfilled so as to degenerate him both biologically and mentally. Capitalism generates man in its own image – turns man into a destructive being, and turns his potential universal   creative   capacities   into   universal   destructive   powers.   Marx   speaks  about „universality toward which capital irresistibly strives”, however, this is not about the development of authentic human needs and capacities, but, eventually, about the development of consumer standards that degrade the quality of life and thus degenerate man as a universal life‐creating being. Capitalism produces false, repressive and destructive needs and thus turns man into a dehumanized producer and a destructive consumer. The smaller man’s spirit, the more inadequate are interpersonal relations – it results in a stronger  need to destroy  objects,  both  natural  and  human.  There  is  a  real  risk  that capitalism will degenerate man to such an extent that he will not be, nor want to be, in position to confront the destruction of life.

Capitalism does not only deprive man of his historical, but also of his natural homeland. It exhausts nature as a raw material and energy resource in such a way as to denaturalize it and thus denaturalize and dehumanize man. An overwhelming majority in the most developed countries live and work in spaces that have become technological cages and in towns that have turned into capitalist concentration camps. Inside them the capitalist degeneration of nature, of life and of man has reached its apex: man is „illuminated” by artificial light, inhales polluted air, drinks polluted water, eats toxic food, lives a life that corrodes the connection between man and nature and his own natural being… At the same time, the annihilation of nature as man’s „anorganic body” (Marx) implies a destruction of the body as a life‐creating whole, of the senses, the nervous system, the organism’s natural rhythm of work, of its reproductive capacity, the body’s creative potential… Capitalism creates a perverted world and a man that matches such a world and who, as a perverted being, is not in position to discern what is good and what is bad; what he does and does not need… The capitalist petit bourgeois is a capitalistically degenerated „Alice in Wonderland” who no longer perceives wonders as wonders because she has lost her own ability to reason and, with it, the ability to wonder. The ruling propaganda machinery and the capitalist way of life induce man to perceive the world in an erroneous way; to experience the world in an erroneous way; to think in an erroneous way and, hence, to behave in an erroneous – destructive way. Everything becomes something different from what it actually is and what it could  be,  in  a humanistic  prospective.  People  who  struggle  for  freedom become „terrorists” and those who terrorize the entire world become „saviors of humankind”; an insipid Coca‐Cola becomes „The Real Thing!”; medications that kill people become „sources of health”; it is „normal” for people to be concerned about their team winning the football game, but they are not concerned about the survival of humankind and the living world…  At the same time, capitalism creates virtual worlds in people’s minds. From early childhood people identify with characters from TV and computer screens and perceive their bogus and imputed lives as if it were their own. Only by means of his own physical body can man live in the actual world, and even that body has been degenerated by capitalism.

Not only does capitalism not develop universal human needs and abilities, it produces mechanisms for the universal liquidation of those needs that define man as a man. The most significant product of the capitalist advertising machine is not getting people to buy what is advertised, but the destruction of their ability to reason and turning them into an idiotized consumer crowd. One of the major characteristics of the capitalistically degenerated petit bourgeois is that he does not look at the world with his own eyes and does not think with his own brain. Depriving man of the ability to reason is not merely of economic importance but also of significant political importance. It enables the capitalist oligarchy to impose on the people, through the techniques of advertising, not only political and economic programs that are antithetic to their human interests, but also a way of life that leads to the destruction of the natural and social foundations of their own survival. At the same time, the very consumer way of life has become a capitalistically degenerated form of man’s realization as a political being. Living the consumer way of life is the most significant way the man expresses his loyalty to capitalism. By posing an elementary, reasonable question: „Why should I buy something I do not need?” – man proves that in spite of everything, he still exists as an autonomous human being and thus derogates capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order.

There is an increasingly realistic risk that capitalism might pervert man to such an extent that he will not be able to understand the world and relate to it as an authentic natural human being. The growingly intensive process of impoverishment and the technicalization of the language that has degenerated the process of thinking and reduced the possibility for any expression of humanness and, thus, any development of interpersonal relations, also contribute to this. People are not capable of distinguishing the apparent from the essential, the fake from the genuine, the crucial from the marginal, the cause from the trigger, the past from the history, the otherness from the novum, equality from uniformity, the intelligentsia from the reason, the formal‐logical from the dialectical, progress from progressivism, the virtual from the true, the real from illusory, the just from the legal, the utopian from utopistic… At the same time, the cultural heritage of humankind becomes inaccessible to an increasing number of people because they are not able to understand it and appreciate it. The fact is that people’s minds are not dwarfed, but rather capitalistically degenerated. This primarily goes for the „technical intelligentsia” that holds a stake in capitalist „progress”. Finally, it is about distorting people’s minds and rendering them as destructive capitalist idiots.

In the so‐called „post‐industrial society”, forms of physical labor that have required man to perform unduly exhausting and degenerating physical activities have, with the development of science and technology, been to a great extent overcome. At the same time, the processes that degrade man as a human and biological being have been intensified, primarily with the advent of the consumer way of life. The annihilation of „traditional humankind” is ongoing and involves the elimination of human concerns like love, solidarity, fondness, aesthetics, commitment, wisdom, parental affection and care, historicity, libertarianism, authentic sociability… An immediate product of the „consumer society” is the „consumer‐man”, contained within the „consumer‐body”. Capitalism ruins man’s body and turns him into a destructive machine by causing hypertrophy of those corporal functions that provide opportunity for development of consumer processes, and atrophy of those functions of the organism that cannot be rendered profitable. Capitalism has become a one‐ dimensional destructive order and, as such, produces „one‐dimensional” (Marcuse) destructive man. At the same time, capitalism degenerates people mentally. Tens of millions of citizens in the West suffer from depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, which have become the causes of most serious forms of social pathology. Sport is an area in which the capitalist destruction of the human and the natural have reached a totalitarian and spectacular dimension. The individual who is not prepared to eliminate his „adversary”, along with his own body, has nothing to look for in sport. Sport produces robotized gladiators, stuntmen and circus acrobats, who, being actors in the sport’s show‐business, are tasked with depriving people of their cultural and libertarian self‐awareness and turning them into capitalist zombies. The sport spectacle is a commercial for a capitalistically degenerated world.

Capitalism deprives man of humanness and naturalness in order to turn him into an „ideal consumer” who will, without objection, consume the ever‐growing quantities of toxic goods  produced   by   the   capitalist   machinery   of   death.   In   that   context,   the contraposition of the wish to the will is being eliminated by the nullification of man’s authentic needs and his ability to make his own decisions and, thus, his will to act in accordance with his genuine needs and desires. Capitalism turns man into a consumer‐ destructor  by  developing  his „normal”  needs  up  to  a  self‐destructive  level,  and by generating  „new  needs”  for  the sake  of  mere  market  expansion  (fields  of destruction). These needs are met in such a technical way as to cause man growingly to perceive himself as a robotized rather than a natural and human being. The intensity of the impulsion to fulfill these needs is determined by the demands of capital and, eventually, by the dynamics of its valorization and accumulation. Capitalism rescinds the possibility of man’s meeting his natural and human needs in a human way, and develops in him artificial needs of a commercial nature that are, actually, presented as compensation for the impossibility of his realizing his genuine needs as a social and creative being. In that context, capitalism not only produces excesses of commodities with use‐value, but it creates increasing quantities of goods without any use‐value. Generating a need for that which is needless is the most important job of the advertising industry. At the same time, it is necessary to create an interest in the marginal that can be expressed in the form of spectacle, becoming merely a publicity package aimed at making the marginal seem providential, so that such issues as are actually significant to man’s future can be marginalized and, thereby, eliminated from the public (political) sphere.

Reshaping destructive needs into a propulsive energy for the creation of a market and, thus, for capitalist development, represents the basis for the establishment of a normative model according to which man’s being is determined. Everything is evaluated based on a value model created by the propaganda machinery of the „consumer society”. Whatever jeopardizes the development of capitalism is eliminated from the public attention and is given a marginal and distorted position, while the capitalist model of an „exemplary citizen” becomes a determining criterion for the „socially acceptable”. Anyone who seeks to relate to the world in a reasonable way, guided by his authentic natural and human needs, is cast out as a „lunatic”. The image of a „healthy man”, as created by the capitalist propaganda machinery, is not that of a man who does not require health care services and medication, but of a man who consumes an increasing quantity of more and more expensive medical products and is constantly under treatment by physicians. The same goes for beauty. The notion of the „beautiful” is not associated with the genuinely natural or spiritual, but with increasingly expensive medical products and treatments. Women who do not use the (more and more toxic) products for their bodies and faces and do not choose to undergo surgical interventions (which more and more often have a fatal outcome) become the embodiments of „ugliness”.

Distortion of people by the consumer way of life and a denaturalized environment is in progress. It is not merely the ruination of the worker’s health, something described by Marx, but a genetic distortion of man. Capitalism not only alienates man from his own natural and human existence, but also annihilates man as a natural and human being. It is not just „suppression” of authentic human needs, but a capitalistically induced mutation of man. Capitalism produces „needs” which have a destructive nature and are „fulfilled” in a destructive way. Turning the need for life into an exigency for destruction is the final form of the capitalist degeneration of man. Capitalism transforms the inherent vital aggressiveness of man as a living being into the need for destruction and thus enables the development of the destructive potential of capitalism. Destructive needs become the propulsive energy for the development of capitalism. The „need” to destroy things; the „need“ to torture his own body and to ruin it by the means of a devastating training and doping regime; the „need” to make his „partner” suffer in order to have an orgasm; the „need” to abuse children and the helpless; the „need” to destroy nature and all that lives; the „need” to eat excessively and compulsively, to  drink,  to  use  narcotics…  ‐  these  are  all  destructive  forms  of  man’s alienation from himself as a libertarian, creative, erotic, emotional and social being. At the same time, these are compensation‐mechanisms by which man desperately attempts to „solve” the problem of loneliness, of existential fear, depression, hopelessness … ‐ and, in so doing, only exacerbates the causes of human misery. Today, being a conformist means adapting to capitalism as a destructive order and thus becoming a destructive being.

The oppression of the weak is one of the most inhuman way by which the slaves of capitalism identify themselves as complicit with a ruling order that is founded in the instrumentalized repression unto liquidation of individuals. The images of violence seen on TV and computer screens every day, in which violence is presented in a technical‐fantastic and spectacular way – contribute to this. Suppression, abuse, humiliation, torturing, assassination, destruction… these are the scenes that accumulate in man’s subconscious mind beginning in early childhood, and which inevitably condition his relations with others. At the same time, people are, from early childhood, deprived of love and respect, resulting in the formation of a pathological personality and the development of sado‐masochistic character.

Children are the prime victims of capitalism. The most important strategic goal of the ruling capitalist clans in the West is the elimination of the billions of „superfluous” people. The children are the first targets. That is the overriding „trend” in contemporary capitalism: to kill the children. To kill them in every possible manner: by starvation, by dehydration, with viruses, bombs, vaccines, weapons, exhausting labor, radiation, daggers, scalpels…   More  than   thirty   thousand   children   die   in   the   world   every   day.   And „overpopulation” (that is: „the global proliferation of the poor”) is presented as the „key cause of global decline”. So, children should be put to death in the largest possible numbers – and ruthlessly. The American bombing of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan… – using toxins, fragmentation bombs and missiles filled with depleted uranium, was intended not only to kill millions of people, but also to contaminate the environment and thus cause mass mortality among infants and the genetic destruction of the general population.

In the most developed countries of the West, pedophilia has reached the level of an epidemic. Each year millions of girls and boys become victims of sexual abuse. In the USA one girl in four and one boy in six are raped, and more than 100,000 girls a year are abducted and forced into prostitution in brothels for pedophiles (Der Spiegel, 26/6/2012). Why does the American administration not eliminate this evil that, every day, in special brothels for children, forces hundreds of thousands of little girls to be raped and reduced to sexual slavery? What good are the 3200 secret service agents and millions of policemen, private security guards and soldiers, the tens of millions of cameras, a totalitarian system of wiretapping and e‐mail surveillance ‐ if citizens cannot be protected and the criminal gangs eliminated? At the same time, sexual violence against children with physical and mental disabilities (children with impaired eyesight or hearing, and children with developmental difficulties) and orphans – has reached horrendous proportions. In those cases, „high officials” of the Catholic Church are the leading perpetrators. In February 2012, Der Spiegel published an article describing how a trial was held in Braunschweig (Germany) for a catholic priest who confessed he had committed 223 rapes (!) and 57 other forms of sexual violence against children, between 2004 and 2011. From WWII until now, representatives of the Christian clergy in Western Europe and the USA have raped hundreds of thousands of the disabled children entrusted to their care. Thousands of monsters in canonical robes have not only gone unpunished, but are still performing their „pastoral duties” all over Europe and the USA, continuing to abuse their „flocks”. The fact that each year tens of thousands of children are slaughtered by specially trained gangs in order to „harvest” their vital  organs  for  resale  on  the  black  market  through  renown  clinics  in  the  West  where doctors will transplant them into those patients who can afford to pay for the procedures – this fact describes the real nature of the „free world”. Abduction of infants by the Catholic Church (more than 300,000 such cases in Spain alone); killing unborn babies and selling off their remains to American and European pharmaceutical companies that render them into „superfine skin‐care creams” (South Korea, Albania…); the ruthless exploitation of tens of millions of children around the world by the American and European companies; the monstrous abuse of children in sports… ‐ these are all „details” that indicate the real nature of Western „democracy”.

The  contemporary  „will  to  power”  (Nietzsche)  has become  the  will  to  absolute power over the people and over nature and is the expression of the man’s complete deprivation of humanness and naturalness. It is not just the will to subjugate, but also the will to destroy the people and the living world. It is based on the nature of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction and is instrumentalized with the destructive power of technology. Capitalistically degenerated man fantasizes about being on top of the pyramid of a totalitarian and destructive power. Capitalism imposes destruction as the predominant model  of  behavior and,  thus,  creates  man’s  (self)destructive  nature  and  his destructive „sociability”. To find „delight” in sporting events, where in physically and mentally damaged people fight for victory and for records, risking the destruction of their rivals and doing irreparable damage to their own bodies, implies there is an audience that has been similarly disfigured as human beings. At the same time, man experiences „freedom” by brutally expressing an un‐freedom and thereby destroying himself as a libertarian and social being. A typical example is the „cheering” in sports stadiums. Man as „fan” is being turned into an idiotized  member  of  the  cheering  „throng”.  „Anything  Goes!”  is  not  an  expression  that affirms man’s freedom, but an acknowledgement of the total irrelevance of humanness and the present descent into the worst sorts of barbarity.

Humanity is transitioning from the terrestrial into a cosmic existence. Thanks to scientific knowledge and technical innovation, the notion of nature in the contemporary world has extended to outer space, and the emergence and survival of mankind is viewed from the cosmic viewpoint, i.e., in the context of the emergence and evolution of the cosmos. The relation to the cosmos is no longer one based on superstition, religious delusions and astrological hypotheses, but one based on scientific knowledge and technical inventions. The cosmos becomes a concrete („external”) living space for man and he begins to see himself as a concrete cosmic being. This adds a new quality to the historical development of humanity and to its understanding of nature, as well as to the (self)consciousness of man as an (emancipated) natural (cosmic) being.

In the capitalist vision of the future, Earth is reduced to a source of raw materials and energy and relation to the land is based on an exploitative‐profiteering logic. The increasing shortage of raw materials and energy contributes to a notion that human life on Earth is of a temporary character and that its existential prospects lie in colonizing other planets. Earth becomes a springboard for „conquering space”, while celestial bodies become a source of raw materials and as such subject to exploitation. The cosmos becomes a field for capitalist expansion where battles are fought for control of the resources and where danger constantly lurks (in the form of bloodthirsty „aliens” acquiring the status of cosmic „terrorists”), which inevitably prompts and justifies the development of the increasingly lethal military equipment that will, needless to say, be used for destruction of „the superfluous” and „the misfits” on Earth so that the most powerful capitalist corporations can take over earthly raw material and energy resources. They also serve to create an impression that technical means can secure „eternal” existence for mankind in the universe. Notable in this context is the warning of one of the most famous contemporary physicists, Stephen Hawking, that humans must move to another planet during the next 200 years. But even if that takes place, what is really „solved”? What social order will man establish on other planets? According to Hawking, it can only be capitalism. By colonizing other planets, capitalism becomes the cosmic order, and the absolutized principle of profit becomes the dominant cosmic principle. Hawking abolishes man as a life‐creating and libertarian being and reduces man’s nature to the destructive nature of capitalism. Proceeding from this, he advocates man’s escape from Earth to other planets. However, if people as such are the cause of the demise of life on Earth, then those who successfully reach another planet will do the same as they have done on Earth: fight for power and money and thus destroy life on that planet too. In other words, escape to other planets is pointless because man cannot escape from his „evil” nature. If man is by his nature a „destructive being,” there is no place in the cosmos where he can build his home and manage to survive. Man becomes a cosmic homeless person sentenced to eternal wandering ‐ because he destroys everything.

Based on cataclysmic scenarios, an idea is developed about „the obsolescence of traditional humanity”, the one that in both an essential and existential sense is tied to the Earth, and about the need to create „a new humanity” that will be able to soar into space. Man is supposed to adapt mentally and physically to the challenges posed by this „cosmic epic”. Mankind’s future is thus reduced to creating a „race of cyborgs” that will be able to „compete” with „intelligent machines” and „conquer” planets. Contemporary science directs man to a mechanistic conception of himself and the cosmos. The natural and human history of society is being done away with, and man himself is thereby called into question as an emancipated natural and human being. The universe is coming closer to man only in the technical sense, but is becoming increasingly distant in natural and human terms. When we comprehend things in the real social dimension, the „cosmic epic” reveals itself as one of the technocratic myths employed to erase the historic (self)consciousness of man and, consequently, the emancipatory heritage of national cultures and civil society, which are the foundations of the idea of novum, i.e., the idea of a future (humane) world. Libertarian dreams are replaced by a „cosmic vision of the future” produced by the Hollywood film machinery supported by the military industry. The mythological projections of „cosmic worlds” become a means for debasing our own planet and for countering the belief that it is possible to preserve life on Earth. A technocratic‐based quasi‐religious illusion is created about how the real history of humanity begins in outer space, together with the corresponding value challenges that degrade man as a natural and human being. Hollywood film industry creates the impression that heavenly bodies are now at mankind’s fingertips and that „conquering other planets” is its immediate future. Cosmic time and space are relativized and thereby the sense of the real time in which we live is lost. To link humanity’s near  future  to  the  cosmic  expanse  is  the  fatal  illusion  created  by  the  Hollywood  film industry. At the same time, historical time is transformed into abstract time in which, in the virtual cosmic space, the capitalist world is reproduced at a „higher” technical level.

„The incursion into space” has prompted man to face the infinite vastness of the universe in a way that Earth is seen as a mere cosmic particle that can disappear at any moment. Earth becomes insignificant, relative to the cosmic expanse offered to man as a virtual world by the entertainment industry. The awareness of the cosmic position of the Earth  and  humanity makes  any  striving  for  survival  meaningless.  Scientific  discoveries evoke fear for survival, rather than offering a solution – this is because the solutions do not lie in the realm of science, but in everyday life. Asteroids, comets, supernovae, black holes, anti‐matter ‐ all these phenomena become the projections of a fear of destruction created by capitalism as a destructive order. Relations between people are not based on man’s need for another man, which means, on man’s need to do something that will contribute to the betterment of humanity, but are mediated by catastrophic scenarios that make futile any attempts to open new spaces of freedom and increase the likelihood of human survival. Thus capitalism, which in increasingly dramatic ways calls into question the survival of humanity, meaning it is the only real threat to humanity, „disappears” in the cataclysmic projections of „the future”. At the same time, by degenerating man as a natural and human being, capitalism destroys the possibility of the survival and evolution of man as an emancipated cosmic being who creates his own, human cosmos.

The Hollywood film industry deludes young people with cosmic visions while, at the same time, capitalism systematically destroys life on Earth. Not only that huge resources are invested in space programs, resources that could instead be used to establish an ecological balance on Earth, but they also receive a spectacular dimension and as such serve to remove from the public eye scenes of mass dying from hunger, thirst and disease, scenes of monstrous „humanitarian interventions” and modern concentration camps, as well as increasingly dramatic sights of the destruction of animal species, rivers, oceans, air, forests, fields and pastures, glaciers… Importantly, „space projects” are used to support the myth of „unlimited possibilities for the development of science and technology” ‐ which becomes the basis for the myth of „unlimited possibilities for the development of capitalism”. Ultimately, the „incursion into space” does not serve humanity’s well‐being and does not increase the certainty of human survival, but hampers the fight against capitalism and contributes to the development of new mechanisms of domination, manipulation and destruction.

Rather  than  an  inability  to  confront  natural  disasters,  it  is  the  conformity and loneliness of contemporary man that drives his need for mysticism and other forms of escape from life, which lead him to search for the meaning of life in irrational spheres. Rather than infinite cosmic space, it is lonely despair that induces fear in man when he glances towards heaven. Understanding the infinite as an openness, which means as a possibility of unlimited development of the creative powers of man and the spaces of freedom, depends on the creation of a humane social order on Earth. Only the development of human relations and a feeling that he is not alone on Earth can create in man a sense that he is not alone in the universe, and give meaning to human life. When young people are embraced together, they do not see in the endless deep blue of the cosmos a source of danger, but an unlimited field of the future.

That the extent of the capitalist destructive madness is limitless is demonstrated by the fact that capitalists are trying to turn cosmic space into a military platform from which they will be able to destroy life on Earth. The development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction has led to a situation where the greatest threat to the survival of humanity and our planet does not come from the countless celestial bodies and cosmic cataclysms, but from capitalism! In the essential and existential projection of the future, development of productive forces should be aimed at humanizing the world and enriching nature, that is, at increasing the certainty of the survival of mankind. In this context, man’s „incursion” into the cosmos should be focused on the development of technical means that can prevent potential threats to Earth that come from outer space, such as the impact of a celestial body, or excessive radiation that can occur as a result of explosions on the Sun or some distant celestial bodies, and the like. At the same time, „incursion” into the cosmos should contribute not only to increasing the certainty of mankind’s survival, but also to its unification in order to solve the basic existential and essential issues. In this sense, the most immediate consequence of a „incursion” into the cosmos should be to create a humane world.

Regarding the question of whether there are beings in the universe similar to us, the problem is that things are perceived as quantitative relations and in the dimension of the given, which has a static character, which means, in a technical and, thus, in an abstract way. The whole issue, in fact, lies outside of the plane of quantitative measurement and probability theory. There is nothing in the universe that is similar to and, especially, nothing that can be identified with the human world. The human world is a part of the infinite universe only in the material sense. Indeed, in the qualitative sense, the human world is substantially different from the cosmos that surrounds it. It is incommensurable with the possible cosmic life forms. The essence of the human world is its historicity, which means that it continuously experiences qualitative transformation ‐ becoming a human world, where man continuously becomes man. As a historical and social being, man is a unique cosmic being, and this makes for the specificity and uniqueness of the human world on the cosmic scale. The openness of the future based on the unlimited creative and libertarian potential of man is the essence and the uniqueness of the human cosmos. At the same time, starting from the idea of infinity, one can come to the conclusion that there are countless variations of life forms in the universe, which means countless possibilities of existence of qualitatively different organisms and beings.

In the context of cosmological thought, the perception of man’s cosmic essence by Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest scientists of modern times, as stated in an interview with John Smith in 1899, merits attention. Tesla advocates a cosmological pantheism that has an energetic character. He establishes a mystical relationship with light, which is a kind of „God’s spirit” and as such a source of energy that flows in man. Man is, in fact, only one of the forms in which energy appears and as such he is immortal. Light creates him and in light he experiences eternal existence. There is no nature as a specific kind of matter, there is no evolution of the living world and man as the highest form of the development of nature; there is no human world as a specific universe and man as a specific cosmic being… Man is abolished as a natural, social and historical being and reduced to a sort of battery whose energy potential is the source of his creative work and enthusiasm. Mental exercises are to ensure his mental strength, which means to prevent dissipation of energy and focus it on the development of the senses and mental abilities. Woman is undesirable because she takes mental and physical energy away from man. Development of the physical senses takes place by crippling the erotic being of man and his sense of humanness. The relation of man to the world does not have a social and libertarian, but a meditative nature. Since he does not conceive man as a libertarian being, Tesla is unable to grasp the nature of the Promethean fire, which means the libertarian enlightenment. His vision of the future is not based on a libertarian mind, but on a cosmological mysticism that has a technocratic nature.

As for the idea of „God”, it is not based on respect for the laws of nature or on faith in the creative power of man as a libertarian being, but rather on the fear of natural forces and of death (perishment). If „God” existed, we would insist on an empirical and rational, rather than on the theological mystificatory verbiage aimed at blocking reason, or on prayer and liturgical rituals aimed at causing psychological effects for producing a fatalistic and subservient consciousness. How can one „not believe in God” if „He” is „omnipresent” and „omnipotent”? Similarly, if „God” existed, each of us would have a direct relationship with „Him“, which means that the church as a „mediator” between „God” and man would be meaningless. The basis for religion is the religious consciousness that results from the historical development of society. The seminal form of religious consciousness is animism, followed by totemism and polytheism. Monotheism is the highest form in the development of religious consciousness. Rather than „God” creating the world, it was man at a certain stage of historical development that created the idea of „God”, later to be stolen from him and to become the private property of the clergy. The great Serbian educator Vasa Pelagić claimed that churches are „shops” in which priests sell people lies about „God”.

Historically, „God” appears as a creative principle alienated from man, a principle by which man is deprived of (self)creative (self)consciousness and libertarian dignity. Through the idea of „God” as „The Creator of the world,” the creative powers of man are alienated from him and become a means for his subjugation by the ruling class and for the deification of the class order itself based on the „sanctity” of private property (while the church, itself, is based on collective ownership ‐ what hypocrisy!) and the exploitation of peasants and workers. Throughout history, man has been in a subordinate position in relation to the (imaginary or real) cosmos that has had a metaphorical and politically instrumental role in obtaining eternal life for the ruling order. The human ability to create life  is  made  imaginary:  the creation  of  imaginary  religious  consciousness  becomes  a „compensation” for depriving man of his ability to create this earthly world in his image. Instead of the idea of „God” as a creativistic principle being used for development of the self‐ consciousness of man as a sovereign cosmic being, for the development of his libertarian dignity and the unification of humanity in the struggle for the preservation of life on Earth, it is rather a tool of the ruling class for erasing the emancipatory heritage and for producing a fatalistic consciousness that leads humanity to its demise (the idea of „heavenly people”, „paradise,” „eternal life in heaven” and the like). Christianity sends humanity a terrible message: man must, and deserves to, suffer. If man were happy on Earth, then the „garden of Eden” would be meaningless. As for death, it gives meaning to life. „Eternal life” is the worst kind of curse.

In the emancipatory sense, the idea of „God as the creator of the world” is the result of the historical development of society and it signifies man’s becoming a sovereign cosmic being. The development of the self‐consciousness of man as a creative being and a creator of (his own) world is the basis for the theory of the world as „God’s creation”. „God” is an expression of man’s becoming independent from nature and placing his powers „above” the powers of nature. Through the idea of „God”, man becomes an autonomous creative power and, in that sense, a sovereign cosmic being: the creation of the world is a conscious and volitional act. „God” is not the creator of the human world, but a symbolic expression of the specific relationship of man as a sovereign cosmic being to the universe. He appears as a historical quality through which man comes to an idea of the world as a specific cosmos and to an idea of himself as a specific cosmic being, and as a quality that provides the possibility for  man  as a  specific  cosmic  being  to  overcome  the  infinite  (physical)  quantum  of  the cosmos and perceive the cosmos as a life‐creating whole. At the same time, the idea that spirit can create matter may mean that man’s creative powers and his creative imagination are the forces that can create the non‐existent. Man with his creative spirit and creative abilities cannot produce matter out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), but is able through the creative processing of matter to enable it to realize its life‐creating potential. This is the affirmation  of  the life‐creating principle  as  a  universal  cosmic  principle  and  man  as  a specific  cosmic being  that  is the highest  form  in  which  the  life‐creating  nature  of  the universe is realized.

The notion that the true essence, which enables man to overcome the existing world, lies not outside, but within man, is one of the most important emancipatory ideas of Christianity. Rather than lightening him from the outside, it is the inner illumination (enlightenment) that is the fundamental principle of spiritualization of man. It follows that the emanating radiance of man’s humanity, from which Walter Benjamin’s aura is derived, is the basis for establishing society as a fraternal community of „radiant” people. At the same time, the humanity emanating from man is the light that illuminates the road ahead. One of the most dramatic truths, which enables man in the face of the worst tyranny to keep the faith that he can fight for a just world, is this: the faintest light penetrates the densest darkness. Candle flame is the symbol of that truth. Exposure of churches to artificial light is a way of sterilizing their power of enlightenment and of converting them into the scenery of the existing world. The purpose of their existence is to radiate light that enables man to see that which  is invisible.  They  should  emanate  the  true  light  that  does  not  lighten  but enlighten man. „Grandiose” places of worship are not beacons of the light of truth, but an embodiment of the Earthly political and economic power of the ecclesiastical oligarchy. Rather than enlighten, they astonish the (philistine) citizenry with their monumentality. Greatness of faith is not measured by the size of places of worship, but with the depth of conceiving what is true. Faith does not inhabit the walls of churches, but the hearts of people. A false faith is based on a spectacular illusion; true faith is based on an invisible truth.

The question of „God” is really a question about the essence of man and the cosmos. As such, it is a „mediator” between mankind and the universe. With man’s emancipation as a cosmic being,  the  idea  of  „God”  acquires  a  new  dimension.  In  the  era  of  the  cosmic expansion of humanity, it no longer has anything to do with „heaven”. The idea of „God” can survive only in the depths of the human being, primarily as an aesthetic idea, which enables man to comprehend the cosmos in a human way and treat it as a life‐creating whole. At the same time, it has a reason to exist as one of the unifying ideas for humanity within the anti‐ capitalist movement ‐ as a symbolic synthesis of the humanistic heritage and the humanist potentials of mankind in relation to the technical world and the reduction of man to mere matter, meaning, in relation to the mechanistic materialism that has an anti‐spiritual and anti‐life character.

In their attempts to prove that the globalization of capitalism is inevitable, bourgeois theorists depict Marx as a representative of capitalist globalism and thus turn his thought into a positivist theory of capitalism. Quotations from The Communist Manifesto are used to prove that capitalist globalism is inevitable and justified. They insist on Marx’s view of capitalist globalism as a way of overcoming „lower” (traditional) forms of social life that impede the development of the productive forces and human freedom, but they discard Marx’s idea of the future, which is reduced either to a „utopia” (more precisely, utopistic) or to the practice of (former) regimes of „real socialism”. By doing so, they remove from Marx’s thought its revolutionary edge and deprive capitalism of its historicity. According to Marx, the revolutionary role of capitalism is to eliminate, through the development of the productive forces and the creation of a global market, all that prevents a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom” (Engels) and, in that context, destroys a mythological relation to nature. Capitalist globalism creates the conditions for the final disappearance of class society and the creation of a world of free people. In that context, capitalist globalisation has a revolutionary character, and, so, the opposition to globalisation is reactionary. A global capitalist expansion should be considered in light of the emancipatory possibilities created by the capitalist development of the productive forces on a global scale. Only with a view toward humankind’s final liberation from existential uncertainty and class exploitation, a view toward the creation of a communist society, can Marx’s conception of capitalist globalism be properly understood.

The weakness of Marx’s vision of a future based on capitalist globalization derives from his notion of the nature of capitalism. By adhering his critique of capitalism to the existential apriorism,  and  the  myth  based  on  it,  that  capitalist  development  of  the productive forces and the global market is „revolutionary” in character, Marx overlooked the fact that capitalism is essentially an ecocidal order and that the development of capitalism as a global order will be guided by the genocidal practices of the most advanced capitalist countries. Even in Marx’s time, it was clear that the annihilation of entire nations and the transformation of their living environments into spaces for ruthless capitalist exploitation were essential prerequisites for the development and expansion of capitalism. Since he was aware that capitalism’s excessive exploitation ruins the soil, Marx could have anticipated that capitalists from the most advanced capitalist countries, even before they had completely exhausted their own soil, would start to conquer „fresh living space“ across the globe. Capitalism’s ecocidal relation to nature inevitably leads to a genocidal relation among  the most  powerful  capitalist   countries  and   the   „primitive“   nations   and   the „superfluous” members of the working class in the developed capitalist countries. These workers   are   the  „collateral   damage“   of   progress   based   on   the   capitalist   mode   of development of the productive forces.

If  Marx  had  not  based  his  view  of  capitalist  globalism  on  the  myth  of the „revolutionary” character of capitalism, the plight of Native Americans should have alerted him to the tendency inherent in capitalist development, the tendency toward the ecocidal and then genocidal nature of the capitalist development of the productive forces. Due to ecocidal  capitalist  globalism,  the  genocide  principle,  that  the  destruction  of  an growing number of people is essential for the survival of fewer and fewer people, has become the strategic guideline for the economic, political and military practices of the most powerful capitalist countries. In that context, the theory of „global overpopulation” lends legitimacy to the annihilation of billions of „superfluous” people so that the most powerful capitalist corporations can take raw materials and energy resources from across the globe. The theory of the „golden billion”, the founding notion of contemporary imperialist strategy in the West, clearly indicates the ecocidal‐genocidal character of capitalist globalism. At the same time, capitalist centers of power in the West are using the ecological demise of the planet, brought on by their ecocidal practices, to seize territories that are not under their immediate control and to establish an ecocidal‐genocidal colonial domination over entire continents. Here again, it is about the totalizing effect of capitalism’s existential rationale – capitalists use prophecies of global destruction to justify their self‐serving actions toward fulfilling them.

The title of one of Lenin’s most important writings, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which became a manifesto for 20th century anti‐colonial struggle, indicates the nature of capitalist globalism. Global capitalist imperialism needs global imperial, political, legal, athletic and other institutions. „International organizations” are the political manifestations   of   the   domination   of   capitalist   monopolies   over   humanity.   We   are witnessing the creation of a global political order that corresponds to the global economic order based on the guiding axioms of monopolistic capitalism: „Big fish devour small fish!” and „Destroy the competition!” It is a „mondialism” that involves the destruction of nations and  the  transformation   of   citizens   into   working‐consuming   hordes,   as   well  as   the conversion of their living and historical spaces into the objects of economic exploitation and ecological devastation. The biggest capitalist corporations are destroying national states in order to eliminate forces capable of restricting their power. In that context, they are introducing the concept of „regionalization” in an attempt to break up the existing states and create capitalist protectorates that will not be capable of opposing the totalitarian domination of  the  most  powerful  capitalist  groups.  The  „regionalization”  amounts  to a „feudalization” of the existing states. Instead of allowing the citizens to have a say in their politics,  the  „development  of  democracy”  has  the  opposite  effect:  through  economic, political, scientific, technical, media, pharmaceutical, military and other means, fewer and fewer capitalists have more and more opportunities to establish an unchallenged power over the people ‐ who are reduced to the abstract status of „citizens of the world” ‐ and to become the masters of life and death. People are left with one resort: a futile struggle, at regional and local levels, to ameliorate the consequences of the criminal practices of the most powerful capitalist corporations. In view of this „regionalization”, the fatal effects of attempts at disintegrating the existing states become obvious. In order to prevent humanity from uniting its efforts for the preservation of global life, the most powerful capitalist concerns are creating separatist hot‐spots and thus provoking conflicts between nations, races and religious groups, which further weaken the global anti‐capitalist front and humanity’s struggle for survival. Here it should be added that, in addition to capitalist corporations, a capitalistically conditioned life‐style has also become a totalizing power that destroys national cultures and specificities, turning entire nations into an idiotized working‐ consuming „masses” and the world itself into a capitalist concentration camp. Even those people  who are  not under  immediate  control  by  the  West,  but  who  have  accepted  the „consumer” way of life, are losing their cultural identity and are being absorbed into the „Coca‐Cola culture”, the most authentic manifestation of globalist idiotism.

Considering the fact that capitalist globalism is based on ecocidal terror by the most powerful capitalist corporations, leading to the destruction of life on the planet and the elimination of „superfluous” populations, the fatal consequences of Antonio Negri’s claim that we can reach the future only by following capitalist globalism are transparently clear. Actually, to oppose capitalist globalism is the most important libertarian and existential obligation not only for Asian, African, South American and Central American nations, but also for workers in the most developed capitalist countries. Nature and humanity can be preserved and the emancipatory legacy of national cultures and bourgeois society can be realized only through the fight against capitalism. From a humanist and existentialist point of view, people’s awareness that humanity must unite in the fight against capitalism is potentially the most fruitful consequence of capitalist globalism.

Marx’s idea of „humanism‐naturalism” from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts indicates the possibility of overcoming the antagonism between nature and man through their mutual cooperation resulting in a simultaneous fulfillment of both man’s and nature’s emancipatory potential. Marx: „Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self‐estrangement and, therefore, as man’s complete atonement as a social (i.e., human) being – a reunion accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. Thus communism, as fully developed naturalism, is humanism, and as fully developed humanism, is naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the tension between existence and essence, between objectification and self‐affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of History solved, and it knows itself to be this resolution.” (4)

The idea of „humanism‐naturalism”, as a concrete historical concept and not as an ideal that can only be dreamed of, indicates that Marx does not consider a future relative to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. Marx’s „humanism‐naturalism” does not have a concrete historical dimension, but rather is based on the abstract determination of the essence of nature and man. „Humanism‐naturalism” is projected into a future space where man and nature appear on a mythological level and correspond to their idealized concepts. For Marx, man’s liberation from his enslavement to nature and the possibility of nature’s humanization represent the resolution of their antagonistic relation. It is, however, based on the  capitalist mode  of  development  of  the  productive  forces,  a  process  that  does  not promote man’s liberation from nature, but rather makes him more dependent on it. According to Marx, the domination of nature and its exploitation, through technology, is the domination and exploitation of man. Indeed, capitalist technology consists of natural forces turned by capitalism into an anti‐natural power. Capitalism „masters” nature by destroying it and thus creates man’s increasingly dangerous enemy. Only relative to the destructive tendencies of capitalist development can Marx’s idea of „humanism‐naturalism” take on a concrete historical, critical and visionary meaning.

On man’s relation to nature, Marx writes in Capital: „By acting on the external world and changing it, man at the same time changes his own nature.“ (5) It follows that man’s relation to nature conditions man’s nature. Marx based his thesis on the view that, by transforming nature into useful objects, man conquers natural forces and, thus, develops his own  creative powers.  The  transformation  of  nature  has  a  libertarian  and existential character. Following the same principle, if man transforms nature by destroying it, he simultaneously destroys himself as a natural and human being and becomes a destructive mechanism. Because  of  capitalistically  degenerated  labor,  man  does  not develop  his universal creative powers but, instead, is crippled as a natural, creative and social being and reduced to being a mechanical part of working processes – to being a destructive specialty‐ idiot. At the same time, capitalism, through the „consumer” way of life, has turned even non‐ work time into time for capitalist reproduction, that is, into time for the (self)destruction of man and nature. In capitalism, however, the relation to nature only appears to be mediated by human practice. Since man is instrumentalized, from his earliest youth, by a capitalistically conditioned way of life, human practice is but one of the manifestations of capitalism’s relation to nature and essentially corresponds to capitalism’s destructive character. At the same time, this destructive relation to nature conditions man’s relation to both society and the future, as well as man’s relation to himself as a natural and human being. Only if man, as an emancipated natural being, has a humanizing relation to nature, can he have a humanizing relation to his own body as his immediate nature and to himself as a human being.

As for the glorification of nature, in One‐Dimensional Man, Marcuse comes to the following conclusion: „All joy and all happiness derive from the ability to transcend Nature – a transcendence in which the mastery of Nature is itself subordinated to the liberation and pacification of existence. (…) Glorification of the natural is part of the ideology that protects an unnatural society in its struggle against liberation. (…) Civilization produces the means for freeing Nature from its own brutality, its own insufficiency, its own blindness, by virtue of the cognitive and transforming power of Reason. And Reason can fulfill this function only as   post‐technological   rationality,   in   which   technics   is   itself   the   instrumentality   of pacification, organon of the ‘art of life’. The function of Reason then converges with the function  of  Art.“  (6)  „The  brutality”  of  nature  has  an  existential  and  life‐generating character, unlike capitalist brutality, which has a destructive character and conditions man’s anthropological image: instead of being a „beast”, man has become a „(self)destructive” being. In capitalism, „nature ceases to be merely nature” by being deprived of its life‐ creating quality and reduced to the object of exploitation and destruction. In sport, which is a mirror of the true image of capitalism, nature does not free itself from its insufficiencies and brutality, but rather becomes the object of exploitation and destruction. In sport, the body, as man’s immediate nature, becomes the opponent who must be conquered and used for the attainment of inhuman ends. Man does not free himself in sport from natural determinism; he rather „frees” himself from life.

Marcuse overlooks the fact that nature itself is humanizing. In Emile, Rousseau writes about the „art of living” learned by the child in nature, which „calls him to a human life”. (7) For the North American Chief, life in nature enables the cultivation of the senses and, thus, the development of man’s aesthetical being, whereas the cutting of man’s organic bond with nature leads to a degeneration of the senses and, consequently, of man, himself. He says that the white man cannot hear the life sounds of nature, smell its scents, discern its colors… This is because the capitalist way of life has degenerated his senses and destroyed the need to enjoy the beauty of both nature and life, a pleasure possible only when man is an organic part of nature. Unlike Goethe and Schiller, Marx did not have a romantic relation to nature (for Klopstock, skates are „wings on the feet”, enabling man to fly to the future) and did not attach a particular importance to the aesthetical dimension of nature. Since capitalism, by destroying nature, abolishes natural brutality, it is necessary to fight for nature’s naturalization, for its liberation from the capitalist exploitation and destruction. Natural forces should be transformed into vehicles for nature’s preservation and humanization. Nature’s liberating potential is contained in its life‐creating quality – in the creation of new forms of life. Man is by nature a life‐creating being, who can be humanized only if his life‐creating quality is recognized as an integral part of nature. Humanization becomes the development (overcoming) of the original naturality, and not its subordination to a rational pattern, to the model of the „humanized” and the like. Only as an emancipated natural being can man truly experience the fullness of his human being. Instead of being a form through which nature can be overcome by the „spirit”, which means to attain a notion of itself and relate to itself, man should overcome his original natural life‐creating quality through the development of his creative being, meaning that it should become the basis for the totalization of the world. It is about the transformation of the principle of fecundity into the life‐creating  principle  and  the  life‐creating  principle  into  the  universal  creative principle.

As far as the relation between reason and nature is concerned, Marcuse writes about this in One‐Dimensional Man in the context of his discussion of Hegel’s concept of freedom, with respect to which Marx develops his emancipatory thought. Marcuse: „Hegel’s concept of freedom presupposes consciousness throughout (in Hegel’s terminology: self‐ consciousness). Consequently, the ‘realization’ of Nature is not, and never can be, Nature’s own work: But inasmuch as Nature is in itself negative (i.e., wanting in its own existence), the historical transformation of Nature by Man is, as the overcoming of this negativity, the liberation of Nature. Or, in Hegel’s words, Nature is in its essence non‐natural‐‘Geist’.” (8) And he continues: „History is the negation of Nature. What is only natural is overcome and recreated by the power of Reason. The metaphysical notion that Nature comes to itself in history points to the unconquered limits of Reason. It claims them as historical limits – as a task yet to be accomplished or, rather, yet to be undertaken. Nature is in itself a rational, legitimate object of science, thus it is the legitimate object not only of Reason as power, but also  of  Reason  as  freedom;  not  only  of  domination,  but  also  of  liberation.  With  the emergence of man as the animal rationale – capable of transforming Nature in accordance with the faculties of the mind and the capacities of matter – the merely natural, as the sub‐ rational, assumes negative status. It becomes a realm to be comprehended and organized by Reason.” (9)

The character of capitalist „domination“ over nature differs from domination in the pre‐capitalist era. Apparently, man as a rational being faces nature as a non‐rational order. Indeed, it is not about man’s rational relation to nature, as in Hegel, but about an irrational relation conditioned by the nature of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. The relation  between  nature  and  man  is  not  mediated  by  reason,  but  by  a  destructive irrationality based on the market economy and the absolutized principle of profit. If the relation   to   nature   were   rational,   then   the   awareness   of   the   increasingly   dramatic destruction of nature and thus of life would be the starting point of the entirety of human practice. The prevailing „conscious relation” to nature is but a manifestation of a destructive capitalist mindlessness based on the struggle of capitalist corporations to survive and expressed in the principles „Money does not stink!” and „Destroy the competition!”. In capitalism, the spirit through which nature attains self‐consciousness is abolished by virtue of technology, which not only has an anti‐rational, but also an anti‐existential character. It is a form in which the natural forces are capitalistically instrumentalized and have become an anti‐natural force. The idea of a „liberating transformation of nature”, on which Marcuse insists, acquires a concrete historical dimension only relative to the process of a destructive capitalist „transformation” of nature. The main insufficiency of pure nature is not its non‐ rationality, but that it cannot prevent the destruction of life on the Earth. The „liberating transformation of nature” has not only a libertarian character but, more importantly, an existential character as well. The basic pre‐condition for both freedom and survival is not man’s  liberation  from  nature,  but  man’s  liberation  from  capitalism.  The  main  task  of humanity is to stop the instrumentalization of natural forces (in the form of technology) which is aimed at destroying life and to preserve life on the planet by preserving nature as a life‐creating whole through its humanization. As for history, it is not (any longer) the negation of nature, because capitalism destroys history and turns it into a mechanical process that corresponds to the mechanistic materialism that prevails in capitalistically degenerated science, and is the most important instrument for capitalist global destruction.

In German Ideology, Marx claims: „We know only a single science, the science of history. History can be contemplated from two sides: it can be divided into the history of nature and the history of mankind. However, the two sides are not to be separated; as long as man exists, the history of nature and the history of man are mutually conditioned.” (10) Starting from Marx’s principle of „sociability”, we can conclude that nature does not have its own history. It acquires a historical dimension by virtue of man’s active (changing and creative) relation to it, which, above all, implies man’s becoming a historical being. The history of nature is actually the history of human society. Reasoning from historical materialism,  nature,  without   man’s   changing   and   creative   relation   to   it,   is   but  an abstraction, merely pure matter. Historical materialism involves human practice, which brings to life the teleological principles of matter and thus supersedes its pure materiality. At the same time, through the development of productive forces, man brings to life his creative potential as the highest form of living matter and, thus, creates the possibility of his (changing and creative) relation to nature. Marx sees historical materialism as man’s active and changing relation to nature and to himself in a historical (visionary) dimension, but the historical‐materialistic conception of nature itself is the result of the historical development of society and, in that context, implies the fulfillment of matter’s emancipatory potential. In contemporary capitalism, historical materialism is not „replaced” by natural‐scientific materialism, according to which man is reduced to the living nature subject to natural laws, but  by  mechanistic  materialism, according  to  which  man  is  reduced  to  that  non‐living matter subject to physical laws. The nature of contemporary materialism is conditioned by the nature of contemporary capitalism, which destroys man’s and nature’s historicity and thus destroys man’s and matter’s life‐creating potential. At the same time, by producing increasingly destructive technical means, capitalism creates the possibility of turning, in a matter of seconds, the highest forms of organized matter in the known universe, created during the course of almost five billion years, into cosmic dust.

According to Marx, nature in itself does not have a dialectical character. In The Concept of Nature in Marx, Alfred Schmidt writes: „Nature, that preceded human society, leads only to a polarity and opposition of mutually external moments, at best to their mutual interaction, but not to dialectical contradiction.“ (11) Speaking of Marx’s conception of the dialectics of nature, Schmidt concludes: „Nature becomes dialectical by creating man as a mutable agent, as a consciously active agent, who approaches nature, itself, as a ‘natural force’. In man, the means of labor and the object of labor are inter‐related. Nature is the subject‐object of labor. Its dialectics consists in people’s changing their nature by removing the  alienation  and externality  from  external  nature,  mediating  it  by  themselves,  and allowing  it  to  work purposefully  for  them.  –  Since  people’s  relationships  with nature constitute a presupposition for people’s relationships with one another, the dialectics of the labor process as a natural process extends to the dialectics of human history in general.“ (12) So, there is no destructive relation of capitalism to nature and, in that context, no specific dialectics of the relation between capitalism and nature. Capitalism does not bring nature closer to people but rather, through mutilation, turns it into man’s increasingly dangerous enemy. In view of capitalistically degenerated labor’s destructive relation to nature, a fight to preserve nature, which implies the prevention of its technization, and a fight for its humanization by way of its naturalization become man’s most important tasks. At the same time, the dialectics of nature conditions the dialectics of life, through the perfecting of animal species and the ecological balance on which nature, as a life‐creating whole, is based. Within nature, itself, there are dialectical relations between the living and non‐living worlds (including climate changes), as well as relations strictly within living nature (relations generating higher forms of life). Everything is mutually conditioned, and that is what the dynamics of ecological balance is based on. At the same time, the dialectics of nature has a deterministic and, as such, a fatalistic character. There is no subjective practice,  that  is, there  is  no  freedom  of  choice nor  the  creation  of  alternatives,  and, therefore, no idea of novum and the future.

Capitalism’s instrumental relation to nature, which reduced it to the object of exploitation and destruction, conditions the instrumental relation to the human body as man’s immediate nature. What happens in nature happens to the body. Capitalist denaturalization of nature is at the same time the denaturalization of man. Capitalism denaturalizes man directly, by turning him into the instrument for the destruction of life, and indirectly, by turning the natural living environment into a technical space. In order to protect themselves from increasingly dangerous climate changes, people spend more and more time in artificial living conditions and thus are inevitably degraded as natural and human beings. Flats, business premises, restaurants, supermarkets, cars, public transport, hospitals, shopping malls… ‐ all have artificial living conditions. Man loses his life force as a natural being and becomes increasingly dependent on technical means and a technicized living environment. The creation of artificial living conditions alleviates effects of the increasingly dangerous climate changes and thus buys time for capitalism, which, unless it is soon destroyed, will degenerate nature to such an extent that man will no longer be able to survive even with the help of technical devices and technicized living conditions.

Marx overlooks the fact that the neutering of the life‐creating force of living human beings is a universal principle of capitalist development. By destroying man as a natural being, capitalism destroys man as a life‐creating being. By becoming a consuming (destructive) instrument of capital, the body loses its reproductive capabilities and becomes a dead body. The rise of the „consumer standard” is achieved through the destruction of man’s life‐creating faculties and life‐creating needs. Men and women have fewer and fewer organic substances  enabling  them  to  be  fertile  beings.  A  polluted  environment, contaminated water and food, the destruction of the organism’s biological rhythm, an increased existential uncertainty that keeps man under constant stress… ‐ all this leads to serious physical and mental disorders and causes man’s sterility. By destroying nature, capitalism destroys man’s organic (genetic) relation to nature and degenerates man as a natural (biological) being. The creation of a „technical civilization” implies the transformation of nature into a technical space and man into a technical „being” – a walking corpse. Having children is less and less a humanized natural process and more and more a technical feat. In vitro fertilization, sperm banking, surrogate motherhood, the birthing, itself – all this bespeaks a commercial and technical character. In the so‐called „great religions”, the woman is reduced to a breeder sow with a saint’s halo; in capitalism, the woman is reduced to a technical instrument for the production of children. The worst thing is that the very process of the capital reproduction destroys man as a fertile being. In some areas of production, the working day is reduced while, at the same time, there is a greater need for work force „mobility”, which means that people who can constantly be available to their bosses are given priority when applying for a job. These are the people „freed” from social,   particularly   family,   obligations.   An  increasing   number   of   women   submit   to „voluntary“ sterilization in order to „gain the confidence of an employer“ and get a job. The official working hours are more and more flexible. The subordination of all life to the ever‐ quickening rhythm of capital reproduction is one of the chief causes of the dramatic fall in the birth rates in the most advanced capitalist countries. The restoration of the life‐creating potential of man as a fertile being is one of the most important challenges that capitalism makes to humanity.

In his early writings Marx attaches a special importance to sensuality. Schmidt wrote: „Anybody who is concerned today with Marx’s conception of nature must consider the emancipatory role of human nature, the liberating power of ‘sensuality’, in the thoughts of the young  Marx.“  (13)  By  destroying  nature  as  a  life‐generating  whole,  capitalism destroys man as a life‐creating part of nature. This leads to the degeneration of the senses and, thus, to the reduction and degeneration of sensual impressions and, consequently, to the degradation of the relation to the natural environment, that being man’s relation to himself as a (humanized) natural being and to other people as (humanized) natural beings. Capitalism abolishes  man’s  immediate  relation  to  nature  and  reduces  it  to  a  technical relation by technical means. Man develops his senses through the technical world in which he  lives  and not  through  his  humanization,  but  through  the  destruction  of  his  original naturalness. Through the reduction of the natural and the human, capitalism reduces man as a natural and human being and thus reduces his spheres of interest. Living in an environment that is less and less natural and human, man loses his ability to perceive the natural and the human. At the same time, the individual who sits in front of a computer every single day loses interest in the surrounding world. For him, the „world” that appears on the screen becomes the real world, while nature and society are experienced as the virtual world. To perceive the world through one’s own experience and, thus, to perceive oneself as a human being immediately conditions the field of one’s perception and, thereby, the development of one’s senses. Capitalism degenerates man by mutilating his senses and transforming them into „sensors” that absorb only such impressions as enable the functioning of man as a working‐consuming mechanism. The Chief of the Seattle tribe pointed this out. The white man does not hear the sounds of nature and does not smell the odor  created  by  capitalist  progress  ‐  just  like  a  dying  man.  At  its  „consumer”  stage, capitalism destroys man’s senses by turning him into the means for the destruction of life and a container devouring the increasingly poisonous surrogates of „consumer” civilization. The destruction of the senses leads to the destruction of reason. Man experiences the world through his mutilated senses and degenerated reason, which is not capable of discerning the important and establishing a critical and changing relation to the world. The „after‐effects” on the brain are far worse than those on the body since they create a capitalistically degenerated reason. Instead of a critical and visionary mind, the prevailing ratio is instrumentalized and destructive, based on the value‐model ingrained into people from early childhood that becomes the criterion distinguishing „good” from „bad”, „beautiful” from „ugly”… The „need” for Coca‐Cola, the „holy water” of capitalism, is not a bodily need but a value challenge. The same goes for the food produced in McDonald’s restaurants, which symbolize the „American way of life” and, as such, are the temples of capitalism. A petty bourgeois takes his child to a McDonald’s restaurant to have a „hamburger” in the same spirit with which a religious man takes his child to church to receive communion. By eating a „hamburger”, a petty bourgeois does not seek to satisfy his hunger, he rather satisfies his need to become a part of the world symbolized by McDonald’s restaurants. At the same time, a meaningless life deprives man of the possibility of dedicating himself to serious thinking without which he cannot find answers to vital existential and essential questions. The ruling capitalist centers of power are doing their best to keep man from independent thinking. To think means to step off the conveyer belt of „consumer society”; to think means not to be under the control of „Big Brother”; to think means to face one’s fear; to think means to realize that capitalism leads humankind to disaster; to think means to get organized; to think means to protest; to think means to be inventive; to think means to create a new world… If man is ready to fight for his life and freedom, capitalism is doomed to failure.

By degenerating the senses, capitalism degenerates man’s erotic being. In contrast to ancient man, whose prevailing Eros was homosexual (pedophilic) and who insisted on a graceful (seductive)  movement  and  physical  suppleness,  today  we  have  a  de‐eroticized body deprived of the natural and the human, whose movement is based on a technical mimesis that bring the body to a destructive instrumentalism. Capitalism has degenerated man as an erotic being by reducing him to the vehicle for capital accumulation. In Capital, Marx points out man’s de‐eroticization in the process of industrial production. Yet this desensitization is not about man’s genetic degeneration but rather about his physical deformation through one‐sided physical activity. According to Marx, man’s dehumanization and denaturalization do not derive from capitalist development of the productive forces, but from mechanized labor and specialization, which turn man into a mechanical part of the process of industrial production (a machine) that compels him to behave in a way that mechanizes his body. The capitalist form of industrial labor turns man into a „freak” (Marx), but not into a technical object. In the post‐industrial forms of labor, the exhausting and degenerating one‐sided physical activity is abolished, but the processes that dehumanize and denaturalize man by turning labor into a destructive activity are not. At the same time, capitalism degenerates man not only through destructive labor, but also through a consumer way of life that turns man’s body into a container, and through a commercialized form of physical activity that has a destructive character. Ultimately, the nature of the process of man’s   dehumanization   and  denaturalization   can   be   clearly   seen   in   the   context   of capitalism’s despoiling of climate, water, air, soil, the biological rhythm of the organism, constant  mental  stress, overeating,  sterility,  alcoholism,  excessive  use  of  pills,  drug addiction, loneliness, the death of entire nations… The ever deeper capitalist swamp breeds ever more dangerous diseases that affect man’s life‐creating power and, thus, humankind’s reproductive capability.

The destruction of nature means the destruction of humankind’s cultural heritage, created over thousands of years and based on man’s organic connection to nature, from which  develops   man’s   life‐creating   consciousness.   Writing   about   the   domination  of „technological rationality” in a „fully developed industrial society”, Marcuse concludes: „In fully developed industrial society, this insoluble core is progressively whittled down by technological rationality. Obviously, the physical transformation of the world implies the mental  transformation  of  its  symbols,  images  and  ideas.  Obviously,  when  cities  and highways and National Parks replace the villages, valleys, and forests; when motorboats race over the lakes and planes cut through the skies – then these areas lose their character as a qualitatively different reality, as areas of contradiction.“ (14)

Marcuse’s term, „technological rationality”, based on the „physical transformation of the world”, is but another name for destructive capitalist irrationalism, which deals with nature as a life‐creating whole and man as a humanized life‐creating part of nature, as well as with the emancipatory legacy of bourgeois society and the germ of novum created in it, that is, with capitalism as a historically fecund order. Hence the primary existential importance of the preservation of the cultural legacy of man’s life‐creating unity with nature and the perception of nature as a historical, aesthetical and visionary space. In this context, we can clearly see the lethal character of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other escapist and apocalyptic  ideologies  that  deal  with  man  as  a  natural  being,  offering  him  an illusory „heavenly world” to make it easier for him to renounce his fight for the preservation of this world, to renounce his fight against capitalism.

As a reproduction of the capitalist system in its pure sense, sport, with its spectacular character, is the most radical form of capitalism’s degeneration of man. In sport, man is reduced to the object of labor, to the instrument of labor, and to the power of labor. The athlete’s body is a typical product of „technical civilization”, a capitalistically degenerated body. In the process of training, an athlete’s body is „processed” into a „useful object” through the destruction of all naturality and humanity. Sport is dominated by physical mechanics, precision of movements, aesthetics of the machine, de‐eroticization, hypertrophy of some and atrophy of other bodily functions and organs, a spiritless body and movement; instead of the ancient principle metron ariston, the dominant body is aggressive and muscular; the principle of optimum effort is replaced by the principle of „greater effort”; there is an early specialization leading to mental and physical one‐sidedness… Considering the fact that sport is dominated by the absolutized principle of performance with a quantitative character, it is clear why the destruction of man as a biological and human being  in  sport  (capitalism) becomes  inevitable.  Habermas,  Plessner,  Lash,  Krockow, Huizinga, Caillois, Lenk, and other bourgeois theorists have a superficial relation to sport, not because they cannot grasp its essence, but because to indicate the essence of sport means at once to indicate the destructive nature of capitalism, which they are keen to avoid at all costs.

In considering the relation between the use value and the exchange value of goods, more precisely, from the domination of the exchange over the use value, we will arrive at an apt starting point in the critique of record‐mania, the corner stone of modern sport. Record‐ mania  is  based  on  the  absolutized  principle  of  quantitatively  measurable  performance, which is a reflection of the market economy. A record is not a human accomplishment; it is rather the market value of the result. It does not acquire value in terms of the development of human powers, but in terms of the circulation of capital. The ideology of record‐mania is based on destructive irrationalism: the principle citius, altius, fortius, does not indicate man’s creative powers; it rather corresponds to the process of unlimited profit accumulation. The record achievement is „progressive” only in technical terms. The results achieved in sport are not conditioned by man’s qualities as a biological and human being but are the expression of the „progressive” nature of capitalism. A striving to set new records leads to the complete destruction of man as a natural and human being. In the process of breaking records, man’s creative powers become a destructive force, while man as a biological and human being becomes a technical object. Sport is the machinery producing (self)destructive people. It is a clear example of how capitalism, through the absolutized principle of quantitative performance (profit) produces a degenerated body and a degenerated consciousness. It reflects man’s mental transformation in monopolistic capitalism: from „the man beast”, the anthropological model corresponding to laisser‐faire capitalism, we have come to the man „self‐destructor” who represents the anthropological model suited to monopolistic capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. In Hellenic society, the cult of the winner had a religious character and a festive form; in capitalist society, the cult of the winner has a destructive character and a spectacular form. The capitalist propaganda machinery has turned the robotized „champions” into „Supermen”, who have become the highest value challenge for young people.

Sport is a typical example of people’s identification with the prevailing model of „man” imposed by contemporary capitalism, which is based on the destruction of man as a human and natural being. Guided by the value and existential model imposed by capitalist „progress”, sportsmen  „voluntarily”  ruin their  bodies  and  readily  sacrifice  their lives  in order to win a medal. Physical doping is based on mental doping. It is a fanatically self‐ destructive  consciousness   deriving   from   social   conditions   that   deprive   man   of  the possibility to realize his human qualities and, thus, earn respect and ensure his existence. An athlete’s body is destroyed by the excessive use of medications and doping substances and by subjecting it to the sort of strenuous exertion in the process of training that turns the body into a machine and man into a self‐destructive fanatic. Enduring or blocking pain, which is the organism’s natural defensive response to over‐exertion, is one of the most important prerequisites for achieving „top” results. The purpose of pharmaceutical substances is, above all, to enable the athlete to „conquer pain” in order to subject his body to excessive, (self)destructive levels of exertion. The road to victory and record‐breaking leads to the destruction of man’s instinctive nature, hypertrophy of some and atrophy of other organic functions, mutilation of organs and limbs, deformation of the erotic being and biological  rhythm  of  the  organism,  modification  of  cells  and  metabolism,  muscular and nerve structure, genetic degeneration, creation of (self)destructive, sado‐masochistic character…

Capitalism is dominated by the ecocidal principle fully expressed in sport. Man’s relation to the living world is marked by his readiness to be self‐destructive and his systematic work toward self‐destruction. Considering that the body is man’s immediate nature, man’s relation to the body in sport indicates his relation to nature. A man whose body is the means for realizing inhuman goals cannot recognize nature as a life‐generating whole. Sport is one of the most efficient means for the destruction of man’s natural being and the creation of an ecocidal consciousness. Sport turns the body into a mechanism and nature into a technical space, while society is transformed into a horde of dehumanized and denaturalized „competitors”. An athlete (just like a coach, a physician, or the entire „sports machine”) does not perceive his body as a natural organism; he rather treats it as the instrument for a better performance. Instead of humanizing man’s natural existence and being dominated by a humanized natural movement, sport transforms man’s body into a machine and turns movement into a mechanical motion. Instead of a bodily poetics, it is dominated by a bodily mechanics. The „development of human powers“ is based on the criteria that inevitably result in the destruction of man as a human and biological being. Sport is not only the „cheapest spiritual food for the working masses that keeps them under control” (Coubertin), but it also serves as an instrument for the destruction of humanistic sociability and humanistic naturality, which are the basic links to humankind’s integration in the fight for the survival of life. At the same time, stadiums and sports centers have become the most important „natural” and „social” spaces for young people. The need for a natural and social life has become the need for a stadium and a sports center, just as the need for healthy water and food has become the need for Coca‐Cola and „hamburgers”. The „sportivization” of the world is one of the most aggressive and most efficient ways of dealing with „traditional humankind” ‐ with man as a human and natural being. A „sports machinery” has become the laboratory where capitalism produces the prototype of a „new man”, one meant to become the driving force in the creation of a capitalistically degenerated future. It is no accident that the principle „Record‐holders are born in test tubes!” has become a guide for „top” sport. Sports „progress” suggests that man as a natural and human being has become the main obstacle to the development of capitalism.

When creating a vision of the future, we should bear in mind the consequences of capitalism as a destructive order. The question of the humanization of man as a natural being can be posed as a concrete historical question only in relation to the capitalist destruction of nature and man as a natural being. Capitalism specifically eliminates man’s organic bond with nature through the destruction of nature and man as a sensual (natural) being by transforming nature into a technical space and man into a robot. Capitalistically mutated man has become part of „technical civilization”, and he is no longer capable of living in nature as an organic component. The way of life and the sensual impressions coming from a capitalistically degenerated world mutilate man as a natural and human being: the process of denaturalization is, at the same time, the process of man’s dehumanization. Instead of being a „force for liberation”, the senses have become the instrument for the development of a destructive („consumer“) man and, thus, the means for the destruction of man and nature. The destruction of nature as a life‐creating whole obliterates man’s life‐creating being, the basis for the humanization of the senses and the development of his creative being. If man does not perceive nature as a life‐creating whole, he cannot perceive himself as an autonomous life‐creating being. Without a life‐creating nature, man cannot be a humanized life‐creating being. Nature is an ecological whole with its own life‐creating rhythm. Man can survive as a life‐creating being only when he is in synch with the beat of the original natural rhythm of life that is overcome (humanized) by a libertarian‐creative rhythm. As part of a „technical civilization” dominated by the rhythm of capitalist reproduction, man is doomed to degeneration and destruction. Since capitalism denaturalizes man, his „de‐alienation“ demands not only man’s humanization, but also his naturalization, a regeneration of his original natural being. Man is part of nature, and it is only in a healthy natural environment that he can develop as an authentic natural being. Only in a humane society can the emancipatory potentials of the human senses be brought to life. Human eroticism should be a humanized and not a mechanized naturality. From Marx’s concept of alienation, it can be assumed that human sensuality can be redeemed by a re‐activation of the senses in a way that promotes the development of man’s universal creative being. But if capitalism destroys man as a human and natural being, then more than a mere reactivation is needed: there must be a restoration of the capitalistically degenerated and mutilated senses.

Marx’s analysis in Capital of the capitalist exploitation of the soil indicates his understanding of the relationship of capitalism to nature. Marx: „Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centers, and causing an ever‐increasing preponderance of urban population, on the one hand, concentrates the historical driving force of society; on the other  hand,  it  disturbs  the  circulation  of  matter  between  man  and  the  soil,  i.e.,  it prevents the return to the soil of those of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and fabric; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to the continued fertility of the soil. By so doing, it at once destroys the health of the urban laborer and the intellectual life of the rural laborer… In modern agriculture, as in the manufacturing industries, the increased productivity and output of labor are bought at the cost of pathologically laying waste to labor‐power, itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art not only of robbing the laborer, but of robbing the soil, as well; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a period of time is progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country bases its development on the foundation of modern industry, as does the United States, for example, the more rapid is this process of destruction.” (2)

Marx does not relate to nature in terms of its possible obliteration as a life‐ generating whole, but as an object of labor, and he criticizes capitalism for its excessive exhaustion of the soil, which deprives it of fertility. The same critique can be applied to previous historical periods: exhaustion of the soil and the working people is typical of both slavery and feudalism. What is the specificity of capitalist exploitation of nature and man? Departing from Marx’s critique of capitalism, the key difference between capitalism and previous social‐economic formations is that production under capitalism is aimed at making profit and not at meeting human needs. Rather than the „ever‐increasing preponderance of urban populations”, itself, it is the intensified process of agricultural production aimed at profit that results in the increased exhaustion of the soil, regardless of its potential for fertility and people’s real needs. In addition, capitalism increases the fertility of the soil by ruining the soil as the „lasting source of that fertility”. Marx realized that the problem is not primarily in the limited potential of the soil, but in the capitalist method of soil cultivation, which deprives it of its most important quality – natural fertility. However, Marx does not understand that the specificity of the capitalist method of soil exploitation is that it ruins the natural fertility of the soil through artificial fertilization, which means by turning the soil into a   technical   space   and   man   into   a   technical   vehicle   for   ruining   nature.   Moreover, contemporary food production indicates that capitalism does not even need the soil. In the food industry, raw material is obtained artificially and the whole process of production is carried out in technical conditions, by technical means and in a technical manner. The ultimate result of capitalism’s ecocidal barbarism is that capitalism obviates not only the soil, but also the very planet on which we live, as well as man as a natural and human being. Capitalistically degenerated scientists and their „sponsors” from the world of capital and politics have discarded the Earth as man’s cosmic home, along with „traditional humanity”.

Marx’s critique of the capitalist exploitation of nature is presented within the context of the critique of hyper‐production. For Marx, capitalism is not an ecocidal, but an exploitative order. The issues are taken at the level of production and consumption. Marx overlooks  the fact  that  capitalist  production  implies  not  only  the  consumption  of  raw materials, energy and human labor, but also the destruction of nature as a life‐generating force and man as a natural and human being. For Marx, rather than implying the ecocidal nature of capitalism, and, in that context, the endangered survival of humanity, ruining the soil is one of the harmful effects of industrialization. At the same time, Marx overlooks the fact that the exhaustion of natural resources does not only have a mechanical and quantitative character, but also a qualitative character, which means that it conditions the concrete nature of capitalist progress, the nature of the bourgeoisie and the working class, the nature of the class struggle and socialist revolution, the relationship to the future and even the possibility of a future… As far as the working process is concerned, by developing technical means intensively  to  cultivate  of  the  soil,  capitalism  magnifies  the  productivity  of  labor  and reduced the amount of physical labor and, thus, the physical exhaustion of workers.

According to Marx, capitalism transforms nature by turning it into useful objects and thus increases the certainty of human survival and expands the borders of human freedom through material goods and the development of man’s creative powers. At the same time, Marx indicates the danger in exploiting the soil to such an extent that it is robbed of its natural fertility and the survival of future generations is threatened, because a future society should be based on a rational cultivation of nature that involves its regeneration. Marx relativizes the importance of the truth that capitalism threatens the survival of future generations. He criticizes capitalism for its exhaustion of the soil, but the consequences are projected into the future, which acquires an abstract dimension. Given the fact that capitalism creates possibilities for artificial fertilization of the soil and manages increasingly to penetrate the Earth and thus provide new raw materials and energy resources, and their more efficient exploitation, the question of the soil’s exhaustion is being relativized. Indeed, capitalism has been threatening the survival of future generations by increasingly ruining nature ever since its  beginning.  What  was  perceived  by  Marx  as  a  possible  existential danger, unless in the meantime the working class abolishes capitalism and establishes a qualitatively different relation to the soil, has actually been in place since the emergence of capitalism (which was indicated by Fourier in early 19th   century and, half a century later, by the chief of the Seattle tribe), reaching its peak in the „consumer society“. What appears in Marx as a potential existential threat to future generations, in the form of excessive exhaustion of the soil, has turned today into a real threat to the survival of humankind, in the form of the destruction of nature as a life‐generating whole. At the same time, capitalism threatens humankind’s survival not only by robbing the soil, but also by robbing man of his own fertility. As a totalitarian destructive order, capitalism will make future generations face in an increasingly dramatic way not only a fatal ecological crisis, but also their own biological degeneration. The capitalist mode of developing the productive forces has doomed man to biological demise not only by cutting the organic link between man and nature, but also by robbing nature of its natural qualities and man of his human qualities. This comes about by the de‐naturalizing of nature and the de‐humanizing and de‐naturalizing of man, turning nature into a technical space and man into a technical object.

Marx’s „labor theory of value“, according to which the land acquires value through its cultivation, indicates Marx’s reductionist approach to nature. Above all, nature is reduced to the object of labor, and man’s relation to nature is reduced to its cultivation. According to John Foster and Brett Clark, man and nature are for Marx „two original agencies“ in the creation of wealth that „continue to cooperate“. (3) They „defend“ Marx by citing his quotation of William Petty („founder of classical political economy“) at the beginning of Capital: „Labor is the father of material wealth, the Earth is its mother“. What is important in Foster and Clark’s analyses is that they observe Marx’s difference between „value“ and „wealth“. Marx’s warning that Earth is the wealth that belongs to humanity and must, therefore, not become private property and the object of limitless exploitation is one of the basic principles on which a contemporary critique of capitalism should be based.

Foster and Clark’s relation to Marx’s views on the capitalist exploitation of the soil comes from their (mis)understanding of the nature of capitalism and the character of its relation to nature. Like Marx, they do not differentiate between the exhaustion of the soil as a source of raw material and the destruction of nature as a life‐generating whole. Capitalism not only deprives the soil of its fertility, it also changes the climate, exterminates animal species, pollutes the air, contaminates water, destroys forests, genetically disfigures man and neuters his life‐creating potential, creates technical means by which to annihilate humankind and other life on the planet within seconds… Foster and Clark also claim that, according to Marx, the capitalists’ relation to the world is based on the principle: „Après moi le déluge!“ („After me, the Flood!“) and that Marx often mentioned capitalism’s vampirical treatment of nature, akin to a living corpse that survives by sucking blood from the world.

However, the capitalists’ relation to the world is not based on the principle „After me, the Flood!“, since capitalism avails itself of the consequences of global destruction for its own development. Capitalists do not see the future relative to capitalism, they see it as the future of capitalism, which is „eternal“. In that context, a myth has been created about „limitless possibilities for the development of science and technology“ and, deriving from that, the illusion that capitalism is capable of „endless regeneration“ and „perfectioning“. Modern Olympism, as the pinnacle of the ideology of globalism and the means for deifying the capitalist order, indicates the capitalist relation to the future. The Olympic Games are a „spring festivity“ (Coubertin) and thus represent the restoration of the life force to capitalism, whereas the quadriennial recurrence of the Olympics (the Olympiads) indicates the endless character of the capitalist future.

In their fragmentary approach to Marx’s thought, Foster and Clark seek to shift the main emphasis of Marx’s critique of capitalism to those issues that are becoming the key existential concerns in the contemporary world. Thus, Marx’s thought loses its historical authenticity, and the ideas constituting the essence of his thought are called into question. If certain of Marx’s views on the capitalist exploitation of nature are to be used as the basis for a critique of capitalism as an ecocidal order, it cannot be done independently of Marx’s most important ideas and the basic intention of his critique of capitalism. Marx’s views on the capitalist   exchaustion   of   the   soil   undoubtedly   acquire   a   greater   importance   with capitalism’s increasingly dramatic destruction of the environment. What is arguable is whether they should be given a dominant position in Marx’s thought. Considering the ever more plausible possibility of the destruction of global life, the question is whether Marx’s views on the excessive exhaustion of the soil can serve as the basis for the development of a contemporary critique of capitalism. In any case, they can acquire a proper place only in the context of a critique of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. This refers also to Marx’s warning that nature cannot become a privately owned property and, as such, a limitless object for capitalist exploitation. From being a generator of the development of productive forces, private property has turned into the generator of global destruction.

The specificity of the capitalist exploitation of nature is not only the fact that capitalism deprives the soil of its fertility, but that it destroys nature as a life‐generating whole and that its relation to nature has a „creative“ character. Capitalism does not create a humanist or naturalist but a „technical civilization“ and thus turns nature into a technical space and man into a machine. Rather than creating a possibility (based on a greater productivity of labor, reduction of working time and humanization of working processes) for a „leap from the realm of neccesity to the realm of freedom“ (Engels), capitalist development of  the productive  forces  is  reduced  to  a  technical  „perfectioning“  of  the existing world, in practice becoming a means for the degeneration and destruction, through technology,  of nature  and  man  as  a  cultural  and  biological  being.  The  life  power  of capitalism is based on its de‐humanized and de‐naturalized creative powers: capitalism destroys the natural and human world by creating a „new“ – „technical world“ and a man suited to that world. Destruction through creation – this is the driving force of capitalist progress. Through  that  process,  capitalism  absorbs people  into  its  existential  and  value orbit,  turning  man’s  creative  potential  into  a  destructive  power  and  giving  the  entire process a spectacular dimension (the esthetics of destruction). Instead of increasing the certainty of human survival and creating a possibility for the final liberation of humanity from the natural elements, the development of capitalism’s productive forces calls, ever more dramatically, into question the survival of humanity as well as man’s freedom. Marx’s view that capitalism exhausts natural resources, and consequently threatens the survival of future generations, also leads to the conclusion that the capitalist mode of development of its productive forces, rather than assuring humanity’s survival, calls it into question. However, according to Marx, the uncertainty of humanity’s existence is not based on the destructive nature of capitalism, but on the chaotic character of the market economy, which acts  as  a  natural  law  and  is based  on  the  absolutized  principle  of profit  maximization. Indeed, capitalism is not based on naturalistic irrationalism, which implies the struggle of living beings for survival and has a fecund character, but on destructive irrationalism, based on the fight between capitalist corporations for survival according to the principle „Destroy the competition!“.

In spite of the efforts of dominant propaganda machinery to convince the public that, with science and technology, capitalism is capable of „healing“ its negative consequences,  in view of  its  increasingly  dramatic  ecocidal  practices,  capitalism  has dispelled the illusion that science and technology can repair its effects toward the destruction of nature and man. Instead of developing a faith in the future, capitalist progress creates a fear of the future. In the most developed capitalist countries, the greatest fear is of failure. In response, through their propaganda machinery, capitalists seek to turn the fear of capitalism into a „fear of nature“, which, due to the prospect of destruction, becomes the source of the immediate threat. Contemporary man’s „fear of nature“ surpasses „primitive“ man’s fear of the natural elements, since today it is not based on local elementary disasters, but on the more and more likely probability of complete annihilation of all life on the planet. Capitalism has exhausted natural resources, polluted the environment, ruined the living world and changed the climate to such an extent, producing at the same time the means and the technique for such horrible destructive power, that the annihilation of humankind has become  its  immediate  future. Humankind  stands  between  the  contemporary  Scylla  and Charybdis: „wild“ nature and the death agony of capitalism, while its rulers, in an attempt to stop its collapse through the creation of a new world, are only too ready to annihilate the whole of humanity. The probabilities for the survival of humankind and the planet, itself, are approaching absolute zero.

According to Marx, nature by itself, which means as a self‐contained entity, does not exist for man. Nature as a given is an abstraction, more precisely, for man, it is sheer externality. It is only through man’s (self)conscious, active and changing relation to his natural environment that it becomes for him a specific (concrete) externity. For „primitive” man, nature was an immediate living environment and as such the source of life and death. By man’s becoming, primarily through labor, a self‐conscious and authentic human being, nature becames for him a concrete otherness and his natural being acquired a human dimension. It is about the relation of man to nature and the concrete historical character of that relation which depends on the degree of man’s liberation from nature. Without his active and changing relation to nature, man cannot acquire the notion of nature as such, nor can he acquire the notion of himself as a specific natural and authentic human being.

The thesis that „nature is a social category” (Marx) means that a concrete, historically conditioned, sociability is the basis of a concrete relation to nature and that as such it is a starting point for understanding man’s relation to nature. The same can be said both for capitalism and for other social‐economic formations: sociability is based on labor. The characteristics of the capitalist labor make it akin to previous forms of labor: it is a means for liberating man from his dependance on the elements of nature and the mode of development of man’s creative powers. In other words, through labor, man ensures survival and  opens  spaces  of  freedom.  The  specific  character  of  capitalist  labor  conditions  the specific character of sociability and thus a specific relation of man to nature. According to Marx, capitalist labor is based on the absolutized principle of profit and it insists on the increasingly more productive exploitation of nature. It causes alienation of man from nature by depriving him of nature as the „object of his production”. Marx overlooked the fact that capitalist labor does not only involve „possession” and „use”, but also destruction of nature, which means that it makes man increasingly dependent on a mutilated nature. Ultimately, man’s relation to himself, other people and nature is not mediated by „alienated labor”, but by  the  destructive  nature  of  the  capitalist  way  of  reproduction.  Since  nature  is  man’s „anorganic body” (Marx), the destruction of nature is at the same time the destruction of man as a natural and therefore a human being. In the process of capitalist reproduction, man is „alienated” not only from himself and his „organic” nature, but, by becoming a tool for the reproduction of capital, he is degenerated as a natural and human being. At the same time, the destruction of nature produces an ever bigger existential crisis, which affects the overall social life and which, ultimately, leads to the destruction of humanity.

In modern times, the relation to nature and the conception of nature are conditioned by the specific character of capitalist mastering over nature by capitalistically developed productive forces. In the contemporary world, the governing relation to nature and man appears in the form of a totalizing commercialization of nature and society. It is about a „consumer society” dominated by destructive labor and consumerism with a destructive and totalitarian character, which means that the capitalistically conditioned life has turned into the destruction of nature and man. If we depart from Marx’s most important methodological postulate that the „anatomy of man is key to understanding the anatomy of a monkey”, then „consumer society”, as the highest level in the development of capitalism, is the starting point for determining the sociability which mediates between man and nature. And this historical period is missing from Marx’s critique of capitalism.

Marx does not come to the concept of nature relative to the destructive capitalist practice, based on the capitalist mode of development of the productive forces, which processes nature by reducing it to the space of the reproduction of capital and destroys its life‐creating potential,  but  on  the  basis  of  human  practice  as  a  process  of  change  that realizes the emancipatory potential of the material world. In fact, it is only relative to the ever increasing possibility of the destruction of the living world that nature becomes for man what in its essence it really is: a life‐creating whole. Sociability does not only involve man’s concrete relation to nature, but also nature as a life‐generating whole and man as a life‐creating  being, who  is  an  integral  part  of  nature.  Nature  is  a  specifically  organized matter with its own „dialectic” of development, which conditioned man’s becoming the highest form in the development of matter. It has an authenticity, which man must respect in order to survive as a living and a human being. Man’s relation to nature is possible because nature is an authentic life‐generating whole and is conditioned by its character, i.e, by the character of man as a natural being. Nature as a life‐generating whole is a concrete material world for man and, as such, is, above all, the living environment which conditions man’s development as a physical, intellectual, erotic, life‐creating, historical, aesthetical, social, visionary, libertarian being… Man’s authenticity as an emancipated natural being is directly conditioned by nature’s authenticity as a life‐creating (generative) organic whole. Man „carries” nature in his body and draws strength in the natural environment in which he lives. Changes in nature directly affect man as a natural (physical) and human being. The ever more dramatic consequences of the capitalist destructive relation to nature indicate that man can survive only as its life‐creating part. This was realized, as long ago as the middle of the 19th century, by the Chief of the North‐American Seattle tribe, who, together with his people, directly experienced the ecocidal and genocidal nature of capitalism.

The cult of nature in „primitive peoples” was based on their fear of natural forces. In the Native‐American Chief, it is not the fear of natural forces that is the basis of a cultish relation to nature, but the natives’ existential dependancy on nature and their fear of white colonizers, who destroy the living world and thus the foundation of their survival. His cult of nature does not  express  his  fear  of  nature,  but  his  feeling  of  gratitude  because  nature enables his people to live and to survive. Nature acquires the status of a beneficent mother, who supplies her children with air, water, food, light, warmth… For the Native‐American Chief, nature is not just simple matter, but a life‐creating organism. Hence, he anthropomorphizes or personalizes not only animals, but also mountains, rivers, prairies… Nature is not a raw material and, as such, the object of processing and usage, it is rather a life‐creating whole and, as such, a „great being” from which man originated. Man is not the „master and possessor of nature” (Descartes), nor someone who, by way of labor and conquered natural forces (technique), turns it into useful objects (Marx), but a „thread in spinning wheel of life”. The world is a life‐creating organic whole, where everything is connected through mutual conditioning. The survival of the whole is conditioned by the survival of its parts, which are existentially interdependent, whereas the survival of each part is conditioned by the survival of the whole. At the same time, nature represents a peculiar womb, where man can survive only as its organic part. The Chief indicates that it is not only the body but, together with the body, the entire animate and inanimate nature that represents man’s selfness. The Chief’s belief that nature is the „spinning wheel of life“ and that man is „but a thread” indicates the ontic dimension of nature and that man can survive only as a part of nature and if nature as a whole is not threatened. A life‐creating pantheism is the basis of the ontological conception of nature and man as a natural being. The life‐ creating character of nature as a life‐creating whole is the basis, boundary and landmark of human activity. At the same time, for the Native‐American Chief, the human community is not a specifically social, but a natural community and as such a mere part of nature as a life‐ generating whole. Consequently, man is not a social, but a natural being.

The Chief does not talk about liberation of man from natural elements, and man’s certain existence is not achieved by conquering them but by complete subjection to natural forces. Nature is not man’s „enemy”, it is not a „source of danger and uncertainty”, it is not „wild” and „cruel”, but, as a life‐generating whole, it makes man more noble. The Chief is not starting from a „progress” and „emancipation”, but from the endangered living world and man,  and,  in  that  context,  from  the  destructive  relation  of  capitalism  to  nature,  which appears in the shape of European colonizers, and thus to man as a part of nature. His naturalism does not have a libertarian and visionary, but a conservative and adaptive character. He does not strive for a world of free people, but to preserve a life where man is completely subjugated to nature. His approach to nature has an anti‐exploitatory and, at the same time, an anti‐emancipatory character. In the Chief, nature’s life‐creating potentials are not manifested by human creative and cultivating practice. For him, the life of a man who is in complete harmony with natural processes is at the same time in a noble (life‐creating) relation to nature. In that context, there appears the native religion that is, in fact, a deification (and thus eternalization) of the life of man as an integral part of nature, wheares, by way of man’s life activity, natural processes have an antropological manifestation. The North‐American native is the embodiment of a man who lives in complete „unity” with nature and as such is the highest possible (natural) form of man. It is precisely by living „at one” with nature that man asserts his human nature and vice versa: the breaking of that unity with nature leads to man’s deformation as a natural and thus a human being and to the destruction of life (humanity). Humanism is reduced to a deified naturalism.

The notion that man is a libertarian being is the starting point of Marx’s relation to nature. From there it follows that man’s relation to nature is based on the conflict between determinism and freedom: nature is non‐freedom – man is freedom. Unconstrained nature restricts man’s freedom and threatens his survival. The purpose of history is to liberate man from natural determinism and promote his becoming a free human being – which means an emancipated natural being. According to Marx, man in a natural state is a mere attribute of nature and as such its slave. At the same time, his existence is constantly threatened since he is not able to produce food, to create a safe shelter, to cure himself… Marx sees in the liberation of man from his subjugation to natural forces and his liberation from mere naturalness (by overcoming man’s instinctive nature through the development of universal creative powers and thus man’s becoming an emancipated natural being) the basic precondition for human freedom and, at the same time, the basic precondition for ensuring humanity’s certain existence. There is no „reconciliation” with nature as long as man does not  conquer  natural forces.  Nature  acquires  the  possibility  of  being made  „rational”  by man’s acquiring control over it through the development of productive forces. Capitalism, as an order which establishes man’s power over natural forces and uses them as a means to turn nature into useful objects, creates the possibility for a „leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom” (Engels), which means for a leap from an uncertain to a certain existence. On the historical road to freedom, nature is reduced to the object of processing, while the capitalist development of productive forces has a revolutionary and thus a progressive character.

According to the North‐American Chief, the struggle for survival is not based on the Social Darwinist principle of the „war of all against all” (on which liberal capitalism is based), but on the co‐existence of all with all, including both animate and inanimate nature, which enables man’s survival. Instead of a „perfectioning” of the animal species according to the principle of the „survival of the fittest”, the dominant principle is that the survival of each living being is the basic condition for the survival of all, whereas the survival of living beings is viewed in the context of the survival of the natural living environment. According to Darwin, living beings mutate while adapting to their surroundings, and those who do not manage to adapt must perish. The Chief has in mind a harmonious co‐existence of living beings and man’s active adaptation to the natural conditions in which he lives, which means that he has in mind man’s struggle to prevent changes in nature and the living world which will call his survival into  question.  His  interpretation  of  the relation between man and nature does not appear relative to natural processes, but relative to a new mode of interacting with nature and thus to people living in nature brought by the white man (capitalism). The white man is the one who disturbs the existential balance in nature, which is based on the co‐existence of living beings and the natural (living) environment, and thus jeopardizes the survival of animals and humans. It is no longer about man’s mutation being conditioned by his adaptation to the natural living environment, but about the capitalist mutation, which is conditioned by man’s adaptation to the technical world through technical means and in a technical way. It does not bring about the perfecting of the human race, but it rather leads to its degeneration and destruction. Darwin is concerned with the origin and development of animal species; the Chief is concerned with the threatened existence of animal species and man. Nature becomes the unique living (life‐creating) organism and acquires an integrating ontological dimension though the idea of a „mother” as the „spinning wheel of life“.

Marx’s „humanism‐naturalism” does not only appear relative to sheer nature, but (just as with the Chief) relative to capitalism. „Humanism” is not only the overcoming of the natural order,  but  also  of  the  social  order  based  on  people’s  struggle  for  survival.  The critique of the natural state becomes the critique of liberal capitalism, which is based on Social Darwinism. A ruthless struggle for survival between animal species, the „right of might” – all that is derived from the „natural state” and becomes a „natural” excuse for capitalism as well as proof of its eternal character. Marx overlooks the specific character of the capitalist struggle for survival. In nature, the struggle for survival is the basis of the survival and development of the living world. It conditions the existential totality of the living world and the development from lower to higher life principles, which means the creation of qualitatively new living forms: it has a life‐creating (generative) character. In capitalism,  the struggle  for  survival  is  led  by  way  of  the  absolutized  principle  of performance with a quantifying character, which is based on the principle of an endless increase  in  profit.  The struggle  for  victory  (elimination)  which  is  achieved  through  an increased quantitatively measurable performance is the capitalist way of „overcoming” natural selection. Capitalist Darwinism is a capitalistically degenerated natural selection, based on the absolutized principle of quantitatively measurable performance (market‐ profit), meaning, on the destruction of the generative (life‐creating) character of natural selection, which offers the possibility of creating higher living forms – a new quality of life. Instead of creating new forms, capitalism destroys the existing living forms and degenerates man by depriving him of naturalness (denaturalization) and humanity (dehumanization). Actually, it destroys man as a living being and turns him into a robot, while turning nature and society into a technical world. The capitalist struggle for survival does not have a life‐ creating, but a destructive (annihilating) character. In monopolistic capitalism, ruled by the principles „Big fish devour small fish!” and „Destroy the competition!”, there is a final struggle with the principle „Competition breeds quality!”, on which „progress” in liberal capitalism is based. The struggle for survival is sublated by the destruction of life. It is not based on the struggle among people for survival, but on the struggle for survival among capitalist concerns, which means that the struggle is not guided by the existential needs of human beings, as is the case in nature, but on inhuman interests of capitalism, which are oppossed to life. It is not driven by poverty, but by acquisition of profit and the development of a „consumer society” based on that process, where creation and acquisition of commodities become a way of destroying man as a cultural and biological being, and as a part of nature. Ultimatelly, competition does not only involve elimination of the weaker, but also destruction of man as a living being and nature as a life‐generating whole.

Unlike the North‐American Chief, who regards man as a part of nature and who creates a mythological bond between man and nature, for Marx, man has become an emancipated natural being by acquiring the ability to have, as a specifically creative and liberating  being, an  evolving  relation  to  nature.  Hence  the  idea  of  the  humanization  of nature elaborated in Marx’s Economic and Phylosophic Manuscripts of 1844. According to Marx, nature does not have its life‐creating authenticity and ecological unity; it is rather reduced to chaotic processes. Marx deals with the idea that nature has an ontic dimension, which means that the conception of nature is independent of man’s concrete historical relation to it and thus has a non‐social and non‐historical character. When writing about the „destructiveness” of capitalism (in Outline of a Critique of Political Economy), Marx has in mind the overcoming of the „idolatric relation to nature”, since „capital constantly revolutionizes everything by destroying the obstacles which prevent the development of productive  forces,  expansion  of needs,  diversity  of  production  and  exploitation  and exchange of natural and intelectual forces”. (1) Marx overlooks the fact that capitalist destruction of the idolatric relation to nature, which he welcomes, does not have a life‐creating and emancipatory, but an anti‐existential character. To deal with the idolatric relation to nature which relies on the „revolutionary” character of capitalism means, at the same time, to deal with nature as a life‐creating (generative) whole, and man as but an organic part of it. In „primitive” prehistoric as well as precapitalist forms of life, man, in spite of his subjugated position relative to nature, lived, developed and survived – just as the living world on Earth. After two centuries of living under capitalism, humanity is on the brink of the abyss. Considering the scope of the destruction caused by capitalism, it can be concluded that, in terms of existence, even the most primitive human communities are superior to capitalism. Hence it is no surprise that an increasing number of people turn to religions that  have an  idolatric  relation  to  nature.  In that  context,  the  letter  of  the  Seattle  Chief became something of a icon particularly because it, in an exceptionally vivid and visionary way,  indicates  the  tendencies  in capitalist  development  that  lead  to  the  destruction  of nature and man. In the contemporary world, the issue of the North‐American natives’ perishing has become the issue of humanity’s survival. This is what has brought the Chief’s letter so close to an growing number of people, who rightfully view the perishing of life on the planet as their own perishing.

The philosophy of life of the Seattle Chief comes from the life philosophy of North‐ American natives: the way of ensuring existence conditioned their relation to nature. They do not treat nature based on the labor used to turn nature into useful objects; they treat it as users of nature’s gifts (gatherers and hunters). By living as part of nature and being unable to change it and thereby ensure their existence, natives were particularly vulnerable when it came to disturbing the established balance in nature. Their relation to buffaloes is indicative of their attitude. They were vitally concerned about a decrease in the number of buffaloes and killed only as many as was necessary to ensure their existence. The way in which American capitalism destroyed North‐American natives indicates the true nature of capitalism: genocide over the natives is based on an ecocidal relation to the living environment. The economic expansion of capitalism, which means turning nature into an economic space through its technicization, brought about a systematic destruction of nature and thus the destruction of indigenous peoples. American natives were primarily destroyed by the elimination of their living environment beginning with the animal species on which they depended. Starting from that fact, the Chief arrived at a truth with a fatal significance for humanity: that which befalls animals, befalls man as well. The Chief’s „prediction” does not have a religious or speculative, but an empirical character: it is based on the immediate life experience of the North‐American natives. By living in unity with nature, they experienced the ecocidal nature of capitalisam in the most dramatic way and thus were able to understand its essence and its consequences, which will enevitably befall humanity with the destruction of nature. As far as towns are concerned, they are totalized capitalist spaces and thus are capitalist ghettoes. In towns, nature is shrunken into „green spaces”, into a surrogate for the natural environment, which is ogranized on the principles of technical rationality and escapist functionality.

By trying to create a model based on the life of North‐American natives toward which contemporary man can strive, fanatical „naturalists” overlook important „details” of the life of North‐American natives that do not fit into the idyllic picture they are trying to create. A direct existential dependency on nature conditioned the relations among native tribes. Their attempt to protect the territory that represented their living space (above all, their hunting grounds) led to constant fights. Native tribes were in a state of constant warfare that led to extermination. It directly affected the way of life, customs, morals and religion of North‐American natives. The role model of young natives was not a peace‐loving and reasonable man, but a „great warrior”, who bravely fights for the survival of his tribe and ruthlessly deals with members of enemy tribes. European colonizers skillfully used the conflicts among indigenous peoples – by siding alternately with one or another – in order to subdue and exterminate them. The currently much‐idealized life of North‐American natives was, in fact, one of the causes of their downfall. It was only when man managed to ensure his existence through labor, and thus liberate himself from direct dependency on nature, that real social conditions for a peaceful co‐existence of peoples were created. The creation of a class society prevented the pacifist potential of the human community, whose survival is based on labor, from being realized.

Marx’s critique of capitalism is one of the concrete historical forms of the critique of capitalism. It is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the development of the contemporary critique of capitalism. The increasingly dramatic ecological and social crisis, created by capitalism, requires a new revolutionary thought which is not based only on essential, but above all on existential humanism. It is, indeed, about the creation of a contemporary class consciousness in the proletariat (intellectual and manual workers), also bringing into question Marx’s ideas on which his conceptions of a socialist revolution and future are based, which are considered to be the unquestionable starting point in a leftist critique of capitalism.

Marx’s thought „covers“ the totality of man’s life as a social and historical being and offers the possibility of searching for answers to a number of crucial questions posed by contemporary   man.   It   lacks,   however,   the   most   important   point:   analysis   of   the development  of  capitalism  as  a  destructive  order  and,  in  that  context,  consideration  of man’s possible future. The question is not „whether Marx knew“ or „whether he could have known“ that capitalism is a destructive order (as in his time the capitalist destruction of nature and man had not acquire the dramatic proportions it has today), but that Marx’s critique  of  capitalism  overlooks  its  essence  –  which  then  casts  doubt  on  its  accuracy, political doctrine based on it and the idea of the future arising therefrom. Marx’s thought moved critique of capitalism from the existential (Fourier) to the essential sphere and thus contributed to the crippling of the class (self)consciousness of workers, as well as to the crippling of the critique of capitalism and therefore crippling of the political struggle against capitalism. In his critique of capitalism Marx overlooked the most important point: the struggle against capitalism is not only a struggle for man’s freedom, it is at the same time a struggle for the very survival of mankind.

As far as the notion that Marx’s thought indicates the destructive nature of capitalism is concerned, the question is why Marx, in his most important political paper, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, as well as in other texts in which he calls for workers to fight against capitalism, does not point out the destructive nature of capitalism and does not call for workers to fight in order to prevent the destruction of life on Earth? If Marx concluded that capitalism is a life‐destroying order, isn’t it logical that a call to fight for the preservation of life would be, if not of utmost importanance (which by its nature it is supposed to be), then certainly one of the most important parts of his revolutionary program? Would not the historical (social) being of the working class, in that case, be also conditioned by the ecocidal nature of capitalism, and would not the transformation of workers from a class in itself into a class for itself also involve the development of an emancipated ecological consciousness? Would it not be the case, then, that the workers, as a class and as human beings, not only have the „task“ of dealing with the class society and liberate mankind from oppression, but also to prevent its destruction?

The true nature of Marx’s critique of capitalism can be seen in the writings of his followers. Capitalist destruction of life and man as a biological and human being has not become the subject of a serious analysis of Marxist theoreticians. Not even the most radical Marxist critics of capitalism have pointed to the truth that capitalism is essentially a destructive order. If Marx in his own time did not emphasize the destructive tendencies in the development of capitalism, why did not his followers do that when it became obvious that capitalism destroys nature and man? The answer is simple: they did not develop a critique of capitalism that departed from the tendencies of its development, but rather engaged in interpretations of Marx’s critique of capitalism, insisting on the notions already superseded  by  capitalism. Marx’s  writings  have  become  a  peculiar  Bible,  from  which

„truths“ are elicited in the form of „true“ quotes, whose truthfulness is proved by a tautological verbal juggling. They do not contain the most important truth: capitalism destroys nature as a life‐generating  whole and man as a biological and human being, thus destroying  the very possibility of future, which means not only the possibility of the world becoming a human world, but also the possibility of its survival. The worst part is that

„defending“ Marx turns into a struggle against the attempts to show the true nature of capitalism and the ever more dramatical existential crisis created by capitalist „progress“, and thus the struggle with the critical thought and political fight based on the truth that capitalism is a totalitarian destructive order.

If we bear in mind that for Marx history is the only true science and that the idea of a historicity of the human society is the building stone of his revolutionary thought, it becomes more obvious why capitalism cannot be a destructive order. According to Marx, capitalism is a historical order. This makes up its concrete essence and is the basis for its endurance. Capitalism is a historical order in two ways: as a result and as a condition of the historical development of society. In both cases it is a historical necessity. In other words, capitalism by its historical being cannot be an order with which history ends, particularly not an order annulling history. History has its rises and falls, but no force is capable of stopping the wheel of history forever. Marx’s theory of history has a metaphorical form and anthropological character. Speaking of history, Marx actually speaks of man and his indestructible need for freedom and his ability to create, by means of developing his universal  creative  powers  and through  his  struggle  against  injustice,  a  humane  world.

Historical periods in the development of mankind are but stairs along which man climbs and falls only to attain, in spite of all obstacles and falls, the heights which open the horizon of an unconditioned freedom. Freedom is the „spirit“ giving purpose to human life and as such is the connecting tissue of history. Marx’s conception of historicity of society is based on a libertarian optimism: communism is a necessity because man’s freedom is a necessity. Libertarian optimism presuposses existential optimism based on the development of productive forces with which man becomes free from the natural determinism and develops his creative powers. Since freedom is the essential point of Marx’s conception of the historicity of society and unquestionable condition of the future, Marx’s notion of history is, naturally, based on existential apriorism.

At the methodological level, Marx’s thought offers a possibility of development of the contemporary critique of capitalism. Departing from Marx’s most important methodological postulate,  that  the  „anatomy  of  man  is  the  key  to  understanding  the anatomy of a monkey“, there is a need to develop such a critique of capitalism that takes into account monopolistic capitalism in its last („consumer“) phase of development, which fully developed the contradictions of capitalism as a destructive order, increasingly threatening the survival of mankind. The most developed forms of critique of capitalism, corresponding to the highest phase of its development, represent the starting point for understanding the previous forms of its critique: in the light of the most developed forms of critique, previous forms acquire a concrete historical legitimacy. Marx’s most important postulates become concretely historically recognizible and acquire a political (changing) value only in the context of a developed critique of capitalism as an order questioning the survival of man and life on the planet. Without that, they are reduced to abstract humanist rhetoric, which leads a critical‐changing mind away from the fundamental existential questions. Marx’s critique of capitalism as an exploitative order has not lost its significance in  the  contemporary  world. However,  it  acquires  a  concrete  historical  meaning  in  the context of capitalism’s becoming a totalitarian order of destruction. The struggle against capitalism is not only a libertarian and economic question for workers, it has rather become the basic existential question for mankind.

In spite of using a scientific method and attaining scientific results, Marx’s thought has a political rather than a scientific nature. Marx is interested neither in scientific nor in philosophical „objectivism“, but in the revolutionary practice of the oppressed. His thought is a libertarian critique of capitalism, which is meant to call for workers finally to deal with class society. Marx’s critique of capitalism is intended to develop in the proletariat an uncompromising critical‐changing consciousness, and not to direct mind to theoretical discussions. It recognizes itself as the „consciousness of practice which changes the world“, i.e., as an instrument in class struggle. The humaneness of man is not attained by empty contemplations, but through the struggle for freedom, which involves the development of man’s creative and libertarian being. Science and philosophy do not have an objective dimension, they are rather instruments in the class struggle. It is Benjamin’s and Brecht’s view when it comes to art, and Bloch’s view when it comes to sport and physical culture. Revolutionary practice of the oppressed is the power which should turn the objective possibilities of freedom into real possibilities for man’s liberation.

For Marx, truth is a synonym for freedom. It has an absolute rather than a relative character and is based on man’s nature as a universal creative being of freedom, and on the historical development of society. Truth is attained not by theoretical discussions, but through a struggle for freedom, which involves realization of genuine human powers and turning society into a community of free people. Truth has a concrete‐historical nature, which means that its essence is determined by the concrete possibilities of acquiring freedom in a concrete historical time. For Marx, revolution is not a basic ontological, gnoseological and axiological principle, but the basic libertarian principle. It is not the theoretical consciousness which should lead workers in their struggle against the ruling order and for the future, but their concrete social existence, their status as hired workers, existential uncertainty, everyday humiliation… The revolutionary consciousness of workers reflects their need for freedom and social justice. At the same time, a scientific approach to Marx’s theory does not serve only to point out the inhumane nature of capitalism and its temporary  character  and  thus  inevitable  demise,  but  to  create  barriers  to  a  natural‐ scientific determinism (fatalism) and sheer revolutionary voluntarism, which may lead to the socialist revolution being carried out too early and thus being a failure (hence his critical attitude towards the Paris Commune even before its formation), which can have unforseeable negative consequences on the development of the workers’ movement. This „detail“ also indicated the significance Marx attaches to the revolutionary enthusiasm of workers, as well as to their revolutionary self‐consciousness based on the objective assessment of concrete social (historical) conditions making a revolution possible. Marx was aware that socialist revolution could be successful, which means it could pave the way to a communist society, only if it was carried out at the right place (the most developed capitalist states of Europe) and at the right moment (at the peak of the economic and, based on that, general social crisis). Marx’s thought offers the possiblity of establishing a principle difference between a workers’ uprising and a socialist revolution. A workers’ uprising is not in itself a socialist revolution; it is a socialist revolution only to the extent it abolishes capitalism in such a way as to enable it to establish a (socialist) order which supersedes capitalism  and  opens  a  possibility  for  creating  a  communist society.  In  other  words,  a socialist revolution is possible on the basis of an economic and thus a general social crisis, which involves the completely developed contradictions of capitalism. Only on the basis of an authentic socialist revolution can a genuine socialist society be created, which, as such, presuposses a definite overcoming of capitalism. If a true socialist society is formed, capitalism is no longer possible. The true sign of the final overcoming of capitalism is when a socialist society becomes a communist society.

Marx’s  theory  is  not  concerned  with  possible  forms  of  the  development  of capitalism (and, in that context, with the possible forms of political/class struggle by both the bourgeoisie and the workers), but with their abolishment (overcoming), and, in that context, it departs from a politically instrumentalized myth that the fall of capitalism is imminent. The essential point of the XI Thesis on Feuerbach is to give primary importance to a changing practice, since, according to Marx, in the most developed capitalist states in Europe, possibilities for revolutionary changes had already been created. It is not only about the critique of bourgeois philosophy, but about the reasonable world, on which Kant and Hegel insist, not resulting from philosophers’ thought, but from the political struggle of social layers deprived of their rights. The French Revolution was carried out by the oppressed working „masses“ and the bourgeoisie deprived of their rights, while German classical philosophy took advantage of the political struggle of the despised, to turn the revolutionary  spirit  into philosophical  postulates,  which  became  the  foundation  of  a political theory and practice that was supposed to create in Germany a civil society and a single state – and at the same time to prevent a bourgeois revolution. „Mindless“ working „masses“ became a moving force in creating a reasonable world. Marx departs from the guiding ideas of the French Revolution not as a means for obtaining a „humanist“ legitimacy for the ruling order, but as the basic political principle in the fight for a humane world. He departs from the humanist ideals of modern times, wishing that they be realised. His predominant vision is that of a future which is not based on the creation of an idealized image of a future society, but on a critique of capitalism and a faith in libertarian dignity and man’s creative powers: man as a realized universal creative being of freedom – that is the „image“ of the future.

Tacitly, it is not only the nature of capitalism, attained empirically and through scientific analysis, which conditions a political struggle against capitalism, it is also the nature of a political struggle which is estimated to be able to bring about the destruction of capitalism. Ultimately, it is the concrete nature and capabilities of the working classes as the agent of a revolution which condition the attitude towards capitalism itself and thus determine its character. The very „nature of capitalism“ becomes intrumentalized for the purpose  of  a more  efficient  political  struggle  against  capitalism.  Marx’s  thesis  that  the „correct theory is the consciousness of a world‐changing practice“, indicates that changing the world is the criterion by which the accuracy of a theory should be judged. Since there is no changing of the world without the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, it follows that an correct theory can (and should) pose primarily those questions which offer a possibility of changes, and this means those which can motivate man to fight for a new world as a concrete social being, departing from concrete (existential) challenges. The question of survival of man and humankind was on the daily agenda too abstract for a man who was forced, by immediate existential threat which he experienced every day as hired labor, to start the struggle for changing his social position as a slave. For Marx, the primary question was not the ecological, but the economic crisis, and in that context the existential plight of the working class. It turned out that the economic crisis more directly and dramatically affects man than does the ecological crisis. If the ecological crisis created by capitalism  could  have  been  politically  instrumentalized  in  the  second  half  of  the  19th century and if it could have incited workers to fight against capitalism, would Marx have ignored Fourier’s warning, from the early 19th century, about destruction of nature and change in climate; namely, would he have „overlooked“ that capitalism is by its nature a destructive order, and would Engels in the last decade of his creative work, when he warned about the destruction of nature, have shifted responsibility from capitalism to humankind by using an abstract „we“?

The manner of posing a question and reaching an answer reflects the concrete relation of man towards existential and essential issues (ultimately, towards a concrete world and future) forced by a concrete historical period. Questions are posed in one way when there is existential certainty (on which the modern manner of thinking is based) and when the possible annihilation of the world has an abstract character (in five or ten million years), and in quite a different way when humankind faces an ever more realistic possibility of destruction. In the XI Thesis on Feuerbach, Marx gave priority to the creative‐changing principle over the contemplative one, but changing of the world does not appear in Marx in relation to an ever more realistic possibility of its destruction; it rather appears relative to injustice and the limited possibilities of the development of productive forces based on private property, i.e., relative to emancipatory possibilities created in the bourgeois society and man’s creative possibilities as a universal creative being of freedom. Marx’s thought is also based on existential certainty, and the relation between theory and practice is viewed in an essential context. Things acquire a different meaning when this question is posed in an existential context, i.e., when an increasingly realistic possibility that capitalism will bring about the end of humankind is taken into consideration.

By becoming a totalitarian destructive order, capitalism called into question the modern way of thinking based on existential apriorism and the corresponding idea of progress.  In  that context,  humanism  with  its  essential  character  and  its  critique  of capitalism that departs from the essential criteria were also called into question. By increasingly destroying life on Earth, capitalism abolishes that ontological relativism based on existential certainty. What indeed exists is, thus, determined by capitalist annihilation with its totalitarian character. Nothing is no longer just not being or essential nothingness, but a complete and final perishing of humankind.

It is necessary to create a way of thinking that will enable proper understanding of the  ruling tendency  of  global  development  and,  on  the  basis  of  the  humanist  legacy, establish a broad social movement that will work to prevent the destruction of life. From a historical point of view, the mind acquired self‐consciousness from man’s struggle for freedom. Considering the fact that capitalism dramatically threatens the survival of the living world, the contemporary mind can acquire self‐consciousness from the struggle of humankind for survival. The criticism of capitalism based on essential relativism should be replaced by a criticism that departs from the existential challenges capitalism poses for humankind. Instead of a dominating destructive mindlessness, which leads to total annihilation, a life‐ creating mind should be affirmed, a mind that can create a humane world.

The life‐creating quality as a universal and totalizing principle should become the starting point in the struggle against capitalism. It acquires a concrete historical meaning relative to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order from the life‐creating potential of nature and man. The life‐creating quality means bringing to life the life‐creating potential of the matter, living nature, man, history, human society… The most important result of the practice of life‐creating must be a society that is a community of free and creative people and nature as a cultivated life‐creating whole. Capitalism does not animate but rather destroys the life‐creating potential of matter, living nature, history… It instrumentalizes and degenerates man’s life‐creating powers: they are used to create a „technical world“, where there is no place for either nature or man.

The human life‐creating quality involves freedom, which means overcoming sheer naturalness through an active and changing relation to nature and through the creation of a new world. The specific life‐creating potentials of man, as the highest form in the evolution of nature, represent a bond between nature and man and are the bases for the evolution of man as a specific natural being. It is about turning man from a sheer natural being into a libertarian being. Through a cultivated life‐creating practice, man turns from a generic being into an emancipated life‐creating being, which does not only reproduce its life‐creating capacity, but creates his own world. In that sense, we should differentiate between the life‐ creating quality as the creation of sheer life and the life‐creating quality as the creation of a humane world. In other words, a difference should be made between naturalistic and historical life‐creating principles: the essence of the naturalistic life‐creating principle is determinism; the essence of the historical life‐creating principle is freedom.

The life‐creating nature of man, as a natural and human being, can be realized only in nature as a life‐generating whole. Man’s active relation to nature gives a possibility to overcome sheer naturalness, if that means the preservation and development of nature’s life‐creating powers. The life‐creating principle is the umbilical cord connecting man and nature and turning them into a life‐creating whole. Living nature is not mere matter, but, through the life‐creating process of evolution, a formed and thus specific matter, which as such forms the basis of the human world as a specific universe. It is organized as a life‐ creating organic whole that creates higher living forms, which means that it is characterized by a life‐creating activism. Man is the highest life‐creating form in the evolution of living matter through which nature became a self‐conscious, life‐creating whole. Man’s libertarian and creative practice is the power which gives matter a historical dimension, which means that through it a meaningless mechanical movement becomes a meaningful historical movement. Man’s universal and creative being, which has limitless self‐reproductive potential, represents the basis of the human life‐creating principle. Each creative act opens in man a new creative space, and so on, ad infinitum. Man’s becoming a self‐conscious historical being, which means a being of the future, is the most important result of the realization of nature’s life‐creating potentials, and the ability to create its future is the most authentic expression of the life‐creating force of human society.

Not only does capitalism, as a totalitarian destructive order, destroy history, it also destroys the  evolution  of  living  beings,  which  above  all  means  the  evolution  of  human beings as the highest form of life on the Earth. It is a capitalistically conditioned mutation of man, which amounts to a his degeneration as a natural, creative and social being. Capitalism destroys man’s naturally‐and historically‐conditioned life‐creating potential and reduces him to a technically organized entity, at the same time reducing human society to a mechanical ant colony. Thus, it degenerates and destroys the life‐creating potential of living matter accumulated in the human genome over more than three billion years of evolution, as well as man’s creative capabilities, which are the product of historical development and can only be realized within society as a humanized natural community. In essence, capitalism devalues and abolishes man as a humane and natural being. The ever more present thesis that „traditional humankind” has become obsolete and that a race of cyborgs should be created, indicates that man as a human and natural being has become an obstacle to the further development of capitalism and, as such, is an unnecessary being.

The bridge to the future man has built during his historical existence has begun to crumble. The capitalist propaganda machinery works to prevent man from becoming aware of that process. To make matters worse, capitalistically degenerated life creates a type of consciousness that prevents people from realizing the nature of the looming threat against humankind. Capitalism imposes a way of thinking that does not allow man to pursue answers to questions that are of vital importance to his survival and freedom. At the same time, the economic downfall of capitalism, which directly threatens the lives of an growing number of people, marginalizes the questions which are of paramount importance to the survival of humankind and relativizes their dramatic character. How important is the destruction of forests and the melting of glaciers to a man whose family is dying in poverty? The most fatal consequences come from the fact that the existential challenge posed by capitalism to humankind stands in complete contradiction to the nature of man created by capitalism. That man is a petty bourgeois, who does not feel any responsibility for the survival of the world or for whom the question of survival comes down to the question of his personal survival. A spontaneous reaction of the atomized petty bourgeois to the increasingly realistic possibility of global annihilation is not to prevent global demise, but rather to find a safe retreat for himself. All the more so as the preservation of the bridge poses a challenge which far surpasses man’s individual powers, and man, as a lonely individual, feels helplessness before the imminent cataclysm. The most important task of the life‐creating mind is to point out the existential importance of sociability and, thus, to increase the need of man for his fellows. Without an emancipated and fighting sociability, man is condemned to a solitary and lethal hopelessness.