Capitalism is Not the (Whole) Problem

Article by Свѣт

By now it should be quite clear that our high-tech capitalist lifestyle and economy isn’t improving the world’s lot, despite the relentless torrents of propaganda labeling it as “progress”. You may have heard that in the last fifty years, the global population of wild animals has been reduced by more than two thirds,[1] or that about a quarter of the U.S. population suffers from mental illness.[2] Now, more than ever, we are in dire need of a true and lasting solution to the countless crises and threats plaguing modern humanity and the biosphere. Let’s examine how socialism — the most dominant economic mode after capitalism — has fared so far in this endeavor.

Socialism, conceived over 150 years ago, has catalyzed numerous revolutions—some achieving limited or immediate aims—but none realizing its long-term vision of a classless utopia. At its peak, half of the world’s governments claimed to follow a socialist ideology. Despite these nations’ claims of success, all former communist regimes either fell (USSR and the Warsaw Pact), subverted Marxist ideology in favor of something more accurately termed as state capitalism (China, Vietnam) or found themselves encircled and dependent on greater powers (Cuba, North Korea). Why did socialism fall off so hard? You have likely already heard a number of plausible explanations: foreign intervention, military inferiority, weak leadership, etc. These are all more or less true, but they are merely symptoms and fail to identify the root of the problem.

The reason that capitalism has succeeded when socialism has largely failed is because capitalism has been more conducive to technological progress than any other economic system to date. The point isn’t that this fact somehow makes socialism bad or evil, or that the lack of “progress” made residents of communist states miserable. Both of these systems work against freedom, dignity and Nature. The point is that capitalism — as a self-propagating system — outcompetes socialism due to its superior economic efficiency and ability to develop and implement technology.

The capitalist nations' inherent and seemingly limitless capacity for innovation, without regard for its long-term effects on humanity and Nature, has allowed them to build booming economies, field armies equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, and wield power over every corner of the globe much more successfully than any communist nation.

On the other hand, the very technological progress that has allowed these nations to thrive economically has also allowed them to subject their citizens and their lands to a never-before-seen scale of abuse: mass surveillance, wage slavery, record incarceration, reckless and wasteful exploitation of natural resources, etc. And those are only problems that are more-or-less intentional and the direct result of conscious decisions: as for the incidental and unforeseen consequences, we are dealing with climate change, pollution, mass extinction, market crashes, poverty, mental illness, increased rates of suicide, social isolation, alienation from Nature, and the list goes on.

Socialism attempts to use the power of technology to advance itself the same as capitalism; it attempts to guide society in the ‘right’ direction — except through autocratic strategy. But that strategy has backfired many times throughout history.

Here’s an emblematic example: during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, the Communist Party of China launched the Four Pests Campaign, seeking to eradicate flies, mosquitos, rats and sparrows. Sparrows were blamed for eating grain; in response, citizens were told to kill them, destroy their nests and scare them away with noise. The campaign was “successful” in eliminating millions of sparrows, but it had disastrous consequences. Since there were fewer sparrows to eat the locusts, locust populations boomed, and locust swarms devoured more crops across China than the sparrows ever could have.

“The development of society can never be subject to rational human control.”[3]

The lesson here is not “heh, communists are stupid, capitalists are smart”; it’s that technology and its effects are inherently unpredictable and it autonomously follows its own path independent of any ideology. The prevailing narrative in modern societies posits: technology is neither good nor bad; it is neutral, and we just need to use it responsibly”. But how can we use it “responsibly” when we have, evidently, been unable to predict its effects? Maybe the failure of the Four Pests campaign could have been foreseen with sufficient knowledge of how ecosystems function. But who could have foreseen the disastrous effects that plastic would eventually have on the environment when the first synthetic polymers were developed? What about the havoc that has been wrought by smartphones and social media on mental health — or really, any other manifestation of modern technology? Even if these problems had been predicted, would a different course of action have been taken? Doubtful.

Modern technology has the tendency of solving one problem at the cost of making one or more appear in its place or in a different area. Of course, we then seek to solve those new problems using more technology; but that causes even more problems. Repeat ad infinitum, until we get so many problems that even the most ideologically pure, competent and powerful economy or government—capitalist or socialist, democratic or autocratic—could never hope to provide a real solution. That is where we are at right now.

It might come as a surprise, but early socialists very much recognized the superiority of preindustrial society over capitalism.[4] But they deemed a return to primitive life impossible, opting to go forward and “fix” industrial society instead.

It’s hard to blame 19th century thinkers for not predicting 21st century problems, but it appears their strategy has failed. Again, all socialist states in the last two centuries were either destroyed or ended up creating societies which are remarkably similar to capitalist ones. By now it should be obvious that stepping outside the industrial framework altogether is a more realistic response to the underlying problems of industrial life, out of which both systems emerge.

The modern (bourgeois) idea that primitive life was ‘awful’ makes little sense. Hunter-gatherers lived in wild Nature: the environment they (& we) evolved for. Why would they be so miserable? I am not aware of any animal which is miserable in its natural habitat. Quite the contrary: animals display signs of depression only when you put them in a cage, a zoo, or some other artificial environment. Humans are exceptional in many ways, yes, but it would be outright paradoxical for them to be unsatisfied in the very conditions they evolved for.

Moreover, industrial civilization is but a blip in the span of human history. Do you really mean to tell me that humans in their present biological form lived for >300,000 years before finding happiness in civilization just ~10,000 years ago, and finally ultimate happiness through modern technology ~300 years ago? It sounds ridiculous… because it is. The fact of the matter is, the modern conception of “progress” is nothing but a self-congratulatory myth.

Furthermore, many of the problems we pointed out in capitalism (oppression,  environmental destruction, social disruption) are present under socialism as well, albeit perhaps in a less acute form. To the extent people living in socialist regimes may have been happier than their capitalist counterparts, it was likely because of their lower level of technological advancement; not in spite of it.

It is no surprise, considering that in the modern world technology is the overwhelmingly dominant force shaping the living conditions of a given society, not ideology. This is not a controversial view. To quote Marx: “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist”[5] It follows that two societies with a similar technological basis will be quite similar in all other aspects, because those other aspects are downstream from technology. For instance, the Cold-War USA was far more similar to the Cold-War USSR than it was to the USA of the 19th-century, even though there was the chasm of ideology separating them. It makes more sense therefore to view capitalism or socialism as symptoms of a wider illness affecting the world: modern technology.

Though the communist-led revolutions of the 20th century originally showed enough promise to strike fear into the heart of the capitalist west, they still failed to build the egalitarian utopia that the revolutionaries envisioned. This is in part because it’s much easier to break down a society than to rebuild it according to a prescribed plan, and then to see results matching the original vision.

Of course, all of these facts are easily obscured by infighting (“but this form of industrialism is slightly less dystopian!”) or arguments about how comfortable the modern techno-industrial lifestyle is. And it is indeed very comfortable for some, if not most. But is it actually good for us? Does it allow us to autonomously experience the power process? Is it good for Nature? Most importantly perhaps, is it compatible with freedom? We, Wilderness Front, insist that it is not. Draw your own conclusions.

“Well let’s talk about machines then! What will happen to people when machines start to do their work for them? Through labor, man has developed himself and become who he is, and the machine he’s crafting replaces him not only in physical, but in intellectual labor as well. If not everyone — the majority... What will people do without labor? How will they develop without it? Will man become more human?” [6]

___________

NOTES:

[1] ScienceAlert Staff. 2020. “In Just 50 Years, Earth’s Wildlife Populations Have Plummeted More Than Two-Thirds.” ScienceAlert. September 10, 2020. https://www.sciencealert.com/animal-populations-around-the-globe-have-dropped-by-two-thirds-in-just-50-years.

[2] National Institute of Mental Health. 2024. “Mental Illness.” National Institute of Mental Health. September 2024. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.

[3] “Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski.” n.d. Wilderness Front. https://www.wildernessfront.com/the-manifesto.

[4] Kumar, Prince. 2025. “Primitive Communism: The Earliest Stage of Human Society • PolSci Institute.” Political Science Institute. October 10, 2025. https://polsci.institute/modern-political-philosophy/primitive-communism-earliest-stage-human-society/#google_vignette.

[5] “The Poverty of Philosophy— Abstracts (Chpt. 2).” n.d. Www.Marxists.Org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/pov-phil/ch02.htm.

[6] Nikolàj Hàjtov, “Under the Train Whistle” March 16, 2014. https://chitanka.info/text/29555-pod-svirkata-na-lokomotiva. (Translated by Wilderness Front)