On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing. — Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)
Author: Krist WM
WTF is happening?
In just a few years, Artificial Intelligence has transformed from a niche research pursuit into a global fixation—driven by trillion‑dollar valuations, geopolitical rivalry, and breathless promises of a technological revolution. Yet beneath the hype, something surreal is taking shape. The very tech CEOs building the most powerful AI systems are also warning, sometimes in the same breath, that these systems could threaten humanity’s survival.
They appear before governments to discuss “existential risks,” sign open letters predicting catastrophe, and call for sweeping regulation—all while pouring unprecedented amounts of money, data, energy, and political leverage into making AI faster, larger, and more capable. The contradiction borders on absurd: a billionaire class racing to scale a technology they claim might destroy us.
A closer look at the underlying, competitive forces driving this process helps to bring clarity. Karl Marx’s analysis of technological change—particularly, as outlined later, his concept of extra‑Mehrwert— can be applied to effectively explain this dynamic. Through this it is possible to perceive that AI development mirrors earlier cycles of disruptive innovation in which competitive pressures force capitalists to adopt new technologies, not because they are socially beneficial, but because failing to do so means being out‑competed. The result is a system that accelerates innovation regardless of its social, ecological, or political consequences.
But today’s AI arms race unfolds within far more dangerous conditions than previous technological revolutions: accelerating ecological breakdown, intensifying climate shocks, the threat of mass labour displacement, and the growing military risks associated with autonomous and nuclear‑adjacent systems.
Against this backdrop, one solution emerges with uncomfortable clarity. Real security will not come from markets or from states—both of which are structurally tied to the competitive logic driving these crises. It will come from the solidaristic networks people build with one another. These forms of collective organisation, mutual aid, and everyday cooperation have carried communities through countless past crises, and they may be the only structures capable enough to withstand the range of worst‑case scenarios now on the horizon.
Existential Threats: Technological Progress in Late Modernity
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal‑scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” — Center for AIS Safety, 2024 Impact Report
At first glance, this statement resembles the familiar anxieties surrounding Artificial Intelligence that have intensified in recent years. Many critics dismiss such “doomer” warnings as little more than cynical hype, especially for a technology that has yet to fully demonstrate the epoch‑defining impact its proponents promise. Yet the growing pattern of hiring freezes and capital withdrawal from white‑collar sectors—those most exposed to early automation through large language models—suggests that even today’s comparatively limited AI systems may be having disruptive effects on labour markets. And with staggering levels of investment flowing into AI, there is an expectation that this technology will eventually justify its sky‑high valuations—despite warnings from several financial institutions that AI may already be severely overvalued.
The circular investment patterns, spiralling debt burdens, and speculative optimism sustaining the immense costs of data centres, energy infrastructure, and research and development strongly resemble previous economic bubbles—whether the dot‑com boom of the 1990s or the sub‑prime mortgage explosion preceding the 2008 financial crash. In both cases, media hype, state funding, aggressive marketing, and elaborate financial repackaging were unable to conceal the basic truth: the underlying enterprises were incapable of delivering the returns that investors had projected.
Yet the statement above contains something genuinely unusual. It is not only critics, analysts, and political figures such as Bernie Sanders who warn of the runaway dangers of AI; some of the most prominent pioneers of the field do so as well. Geoffrey Hinton—often referred to as the “Godfather of AI”—has repeatedly sounded the alarm over existential risks. He is, unsurprisingly, the first signatory of the AI risk statement. But following him are Sam Altman (OpenAI/ChatGPT), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), and Dario Amodei (Anthropic)—in effect, the leading architects of the technology itself.
This is a remarkable sight. Here we have the creators, advocates, and chief executives of companies developing advanced AI systems publicly warning of their own inventions’ potentially catastrophic consequences. One might ask whether George Stephenson, had he possessed prophetic insight, would have accompanied the maiden voyage of Locomotive No. 1 with a dire warning about the fossil‑fuel technologies that would accelerate climate change, drive species extinctions, and endanger humanity.
Such contradictions may be intrinsic to what the sociologist Ulrich Beck called the “manufactured risks” of late modernity—risks inseparable from technological progress itself. In that regard, AI may be a relatively modest concern compared to long‑established threats such as climate breakdown or nuclear war.
The existential dangers associated with technological progress are, sadly, not new. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous reflection—“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”—captured his horror at what the Manhattan Project had unleashed. Motivated by the belief that Nazi Germany was close to developing nuclear weapons, Oppenheimer and his colleagues felt compelled to pursue the technology first, only dimly grasping how profoundly nuclear arms would reshape global politics for decades.
A similar “new Cold War” mentality colours contemporary debates about AI: many argue that Western development must outrun authoritarian states such as China, which, it is feared, could weaponise AI for domestic repression or geopolitical ambition. Yet this ethical positioning sits uneasily with the enthusiasm with which some AI companies advertise their tools’ roles in military targeting, surveillance, and harmful social applications—including the spread of deepfakes and misinformation.
Inter‑state rivalry undoubtedly influences AI development. The US and Chinese governments are major investors, and the promise of security, productivity, and military advantage is a compelling incentive. But reducing AI progress to a simple contest between great powers overlooks the complex interplay of factors driving technological change: market competition, scientific discovery, state investment, cultural exchange, and conflict. Nations may champion their domestic elites, but their economies are deeply embedded within global networks of capital, supply chains, and innovation. The shockwaves caused by China’s “DeepSeek” AI model in 2023—developed at a fraction of the cost of US equivalents—were driven less by national security concerns than by fears that US AI companies were wildly overvalued, threatening investor confidence and the balance of global markets.
If we take the Center for AIS Safety’s warning seriously, the primary concern is not national security, nor the preservation of Western democracy, but global, existential risk. The threat described is not merely that “the wrong actors” might get there first, but that the technology itself may have potentially runaway consequences—from catastrophic disruption of labour markets to, at worst, posing a grave threat to human survival.
Critics argue that Altman and his counterparts are engaging in strategic self‑mythologising: exaggerating AI’s power to inflate company valuations, secure government funding under the guise of safety, or erect regulatory barriers that lock out smaller competitors. Such tactics are familiar—Microsoft, Apple, and others have long used regulation and intellectual‑property regimes to consolidate monopolies and entrench their infrastructure within state systems. Regardless, the position of the AI magnates, while admittedly representing a more extreme expression of the phenomenon, is not actually inconsistent with many of the underlying logics that drive technological innovation within a capitalist market.
On the surface, it may appear contradictory for AI executives to call for tougher regulation while simultaneously accelerating development. But this dual posture reflects the logic of capitalist competition itself. Capitalism rewards innovation that disrupts existing systems—even as it generates instability that ultimately threatens the system on which it relies. Marx recognised this dynamic in Capital: technology is both capitalism’s engine and its instrument of upheaval.
‘Extra-Mehrwert’ – Technological Innovation and ‘Super Profits’
‘Since the worker has sunk to the level of a machine, he can be confronted by the machine as a competitor.’ – Karl Marx (1844) ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts’
Marx’s writings on technology have received renewed attention in recent years, particularly in light of how central technological innovation has become to the ecological and social crises of the 21st century. Much of this interest has focused on the Grundrisse or on his discussions of the “tendency of the rate of profit to fall”, but it is worth returning to Volume I of Capital to understand his analysis of technological innovation more directly. The dramatic transformations of the nineteenth century, which Marx closely observed, may ultimately prove as seismic as those unfolding today.
At the heart of Marx’s argument lies a simple observation: capitalism is a system of relentless competition—a “war of all against all.” This struggle pushes wages downward, worsens working conditions, concentrates wealth into fewer hands, and enables large firms to crush smaller rivals. Marx emphasised that these pressures weigh just as heavily on capitalists as on workers. No individual capitalist can simply opt out; abstaining from competition means being out‑produced, out‑priced, and eventually ruined. This was central to Marx’s insistence that the problem was structural, not moral. It is the system that demanded exploitative behaviour, not the personal failings of individual capitalists.
Crucially, competition is not confined to wages, prices, or market share. Technology—what Marx called “constant capital”—plays a decisive role. Capitalists are compelled to continually revolutionise their production processes. Standing still means rising costs, shrinking profits, and eventual failure. This dynamic can be illustrated through the following example:
Sam owns a small bakery. He employs one baker, Jordan.
Jordan works 10 hours a day. In the first 5 hours, he produces enough bread to cover the value of his daily wage (“necessary labour”). In the remaining 5 hours, he produces “surplus value,” which Sam appropriates as profit.
But when a rival bakery begins undercutting Sam’s prices, he faces a problem. He cannot indefinitely extend Jordan’s working day, nor can he cut wages without risking resignation. Instead, Sam invests in a new dough‑mixing machine.
Before the machine, Jordan could produce 100 loaves per day. With the machine, he can now produce 200. Competitors still require 10 minutes of labour per loaf—the “socially necessary labour time.” Jordan now needs only 5. This gap allows Sam to extract what Marx calls extra‑surplus value (Extra‑Mehrwert): he sells bread at the same market price, but his costs are now lower. The difference becomes additional profit, earned solely because his competitors have not yet upgraded their machinery.
Eventually, however, they must. If they do not, they will face above‑market labour costs, declining profits, and, ultimately, bankruptcy. Sam might even temporarily price his bread below cost to drive rivals out of business and buy up their bakeries. He becomes celebrated as an entrepreneur and “innovator,” but the market he has shaped now forces all bakers to adopt similar technologies merely to survive. Even Sam cannot rest; any future innovation by a competitor threatens to erode his advantage.
This is what business theory now calls “first‑mover advantage,” but for Marx it was something more structural: an unavoidable compulsion. You innovate to survive.
Sam’s behaviour benefits him personally but destabilises the system as a whole. He is, as Marx put it, “a gravedigger of the capitalist class”—inadvertently undermining the very conditions that make capitalist competition possible.
These dynamics also intersect with ecological and social limits. Jordan may seek to sabotage the de‑skilling effects of the new machine by organising with other bakers, as the Luddites once did. The machines may require large amounts of energy, degrading local ecosystems, reducing crop yields, or creating pollution that necessitates further costly interventions such as filters or cooling systems. All of these additional pressures squeeze profits, accelerate the risk of crisis, and intensify class conflict as capitalists attempt to protect their wealth by cutting wages, reducing standards, or raising prices.
Left unchecked, an economy full of Sams becomes dangerously unstable. The race to the bottom threatens even other wealthy actors, while public health suffers from cost‑cutting, industrial pollution, and declining regulation. Ecological systems degrade, food and water become insecure, and unemployed workers may turn to revolt. At this point, even elites become vulnerable.
It is for this reason that governance—regulation, oversight, and state intervention—is needed to contain the destructive effects of individual capitalist behaviour and preserve the system as a whole. The state, in other words, plays a constitutive role in preventing capitalism from collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
The Janus-faced State
‘I TOLD YOU MAN, I TOLD YOU ABOUT STATES.” Bakunin (Apoc)
Since antiquity, elites have relied on systems of regulation and control—through geographical capture, violence, and myth‑making—to facilitate the extraction of surplus from local populations. Many such systems collapsed under the weight of disease, famine, war, or the very inequalities they produced. Those that endured, most persistently the modern nation‑state, evolved into increasingly sophisticated institutions capable not only of serving elite interests but also of managing the systemic instability generated by capitalism’s cycles of expansion and crisis.
In contemporary societies, states attempt—though often fail—to balance the short‑term interests of domestic elites with the longer‑term requirements of the “collective capitalist,” the stability of the system as a whole. Regulations are introduced to protect the economy’s long‑term viability, often against the objections of capitalist factions whose immediate profits depend on avoiding such constraints. Many gains associated with the post‑WWII social‑democratic settlement in the UK, for example, were achieved through hard‑won struggle but simultaneously served to pacify a population exhausted by global conflict and to channel class compromise into the expansion of new productive technologies.
Today’s declining public trust in Western governments and liberal‑democratic institutions—and the corresponding rise of the populist right—reflects the withdrawal of states from this system‑maintaining function. Decades of neoliberal orthodoxy, cuts to public services, and the assault on organised labour throughout the 1980s and 1990s have left societies characterised by political volatility, social fragmentation, and grotesque inequalities in wealth. The result is a class of increasingly emboldened billionaires (soon to be trillionaires) presiding over states that struggle to maintain legitimacy.
Marxist theorists of the twentieth century recognised this dual role of the state: not merely an instrument of elite control, as Marx and Engels famously described it, but also a key manager of capitalism’s internal tensions. States did not simply follow the immediate desires of dominant groups; they also intervened to mediate conflicts between different sections of capital and to manage crises produced by imperial competition and uneven development.
These dynamics were especially visible in the major wars of the twentieth century. The First World War and associated imperial conflicts were famously analysed by Luxemburg and Lenin as the result of a scramble for “super‑profits.” Mature imperial powers sought new territories to exploit labour and resources, while late‑industrialising states—particularly Germany, Italy, and Austria‑Hungary—faced mounting internal pressures due to their relative economic backwardness. As global markets and colonial possessions were carved up, these “late starters” turned to militarism to resolve both geopolitical and domestic tensions. The catastrophic result was a conflict that cost an estimated 15 to 22 million lives.
The Second World War can similarly be understood through the lens of a renewed competition over emerging technological systems—oil, mechanisation, electrification, and modern industry. These technologies created advantages for states capable of securing key resources, such as oil, rubber, and steel. Germany and Japan, and to a more complex extent the Soviet Union (USSR), entered the conflict seeking territorial expansion and resource security to sustain industrial and military modernisation. The eventual victors, especially the United States and the USSR, possessed or gained access to vast reserves of these critical inputs. These material advantages shaped their wartime strategies and underwrote their post‑war global influence. The brutal history of state‑socialist projects—Stalin’s Five‑Year Plans, Mao’s Great Leap Forward—should also be understood as attempts by “red” elites to compete in the global technological race, often at catastrophic human cost.
Thus the state has always played a dual, Janus‑faced role. On one side, it pacifies social conflict, containing capitalism’s internal contradictions to ensure long‑term stability. On the other, it accelerates competition—both domestic and international—empowering elite groups with the means to expand through war, extraction, or imperial conquest. At times these functions converge: “social peace” at home has historically been purchased through the exploitation of colonies abroad. At other times, particularly under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, the repressive tools developed to maintain social order are turned inward, unleashing violence on domestic populations.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
We need to improve the AI regulatory system and mechanisms, and firmly grasp the initiative in AI development and governance. – Xi Jinping (2025)
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR marked one clear victor in the brutal competitions of the twentieth century: the United States. As a result, many of the defining innovations of the late twentieth and early twenty‑first centuries—the internet, smartphones, social media—are firmly in the hands of US corporate elites. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla have transformed global social and economic life in profound ways, supported by the far‑reaching infrastructure of US geopolitical power.
Competition has existed—Japanese electronics, German engineering, Chinese manufacturing—but for at least the last fifty years, the global game has been played on a field tilted decisively in America’s favour. This advantage is underpinned by the central pillar of US dominance: the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This unique privilege allows the US to sanction rivals, shape geopolitical behaviour, and sustain extraordinary levels of public and private investment, including the recent explosion of funding into AI, through its treasury and financial system.
Yet cracks are increasingly visible. The last decade has seen the emergence of a more multipolar order dominated by three regional power blocs: the United States, China, and a more economically constrained Russia. Each commands significant military, territorial, and technological capacity. At the centre of this new landscape lies a contest over the technologies that will anchor the next long cycle of global accumulation.
States and corporations today are locked in a race to secure control over the technological systems fundamental to future economic power: rare earth minerals, robotics, artificial intelligence, battery storage, and the development of electric and autonomous vehicles. The first bloc to capture these technologies and turn them into sustained productivity gains—the “super profits” Marx termed extra‑Mehrwert—stands to shape the contours of the twenty‑first‑century world economy.
This competition is not merely industrial; it is systemic. It encompasses education strategies, supply‑chain redesign, military investments, data‑centre construction, special economic zones, and new state‑led industrial policies designed to cultivate strategic advantage. China’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to reshape global infrastructure and secure critical resources, and Trump’s extraordinary (if unrealised) attempt to “purchase” Greenland for its rare earth deposits and geostrategic value, can both be seen as moves within this escalating technological and geopolitical game.
But this gambit unfolds under conditions far more perilous than those faced in earlier periods of imperial rivalry. Today’s great‑power competition is fused with accelerating ecological breakdown, rising climate volatility, and the possibility of large‑scale food and water insecurity. The transition to automation and AI threatens mass redundancy across wide sectors of the global workforce. At the same time, tensions between nuclear‑armed states heighten the risks dramatically, with each bloc seeking technological superiority not only in economic production but also in weapons systems, intelligence capabilities, and autonomous war‑fighting tools.
Taken together, these dynamics suggest that contemporary global competition is not simply a replay of nineteenth‑ or twentieth‑century imperial rivalries. It represents a qualitatively new configuration of crisis tendencies within global capitalism—a new and far more dangerous gamble.
Technological supremacy, geopolitical rivalry, ecological limits, and social instability now converge in unprecedented ways. In this context, the state’s Janus‑faced role becomes even more pronounced: on one side, manager of systemic stability; on the other, accelerator of elite competition and national ambition. The stakes of failure extend far beyond the decline of individual industries or the displacement of one hegemon by another. What is at risk is not simply an “American” or “Chinese” century, but the viability of the planetary systems upon which human life depends.
‘No friends but the mountains’
‘The species in which peace and mutual support are the rule, prosper, while the unsociable species decay.’ – P. Kropotkin (1902), ‘Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution’
Re‑enter Sam Altman—or Sam the Baker—whose ambition outstrips even his own understanding of the forces he unleashes. Standing at the frontier of a new technological contest, he embodies a system in which the ultimate winner may gain unprecedented advantages: the power to reshape production, accumulate extraordinary personal wealth, and define the next epoch of economic development. Yet for the near‑winners—or those who simply back the wrong technological bet—the same contest threatens financial ruin, geopolitical decline, or complete irrelevance. The simultaneous demand for ever greater investment in an unproven technology, coupled with dire warnings about its dangers, perfectly illustrates the contradictions at the heart of capitalism: a system driven to innovate in ways that destabilise its own foundations.
For ordinary people, however, the concerns are far more immediate.
Will I lose my job? Will my country be pulled into war? Will the technologies meant to mitigate climate breakdown instead accelerate it, as energy‑hungry data centres expand across the world? Will I be able to afford food, water, housing? Who will hold these new industrial titans to account? How do I protect my privacy, my family, my community?
These anxieties will define the coming decades as this new technological cycle gathers pace.
In response, communities will need to cultivate resilience rooted in solidarity, mutual aid, and systems of care. History shows that when states falter or markets collapse, people turn to each other. Community kitchens, neighbourhood councils, volunteer health networks, and shared‑resource systems have repeatedly proven more agile and effective than centralised institutions in times of crisis.
During natural disasters—Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011, or the more recent COVID‑19 pandemic—ordinary people organised faster and more responsively than their governments. Mutual‑aid networks distributed food, medicine, water, and shelter when official systems buckled. Grassroots groups set up communication hubs, conducted welfare checks, and coordinated evacuations. In Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, community‑run solar microgrids, informal clinics, and local farming cooperatives became lifelines when the state was absent. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, neighbourhood organisations provided tools, security, sanitation, and rebuilt homes long before international agencies managed to act.
And we have seen similar patterns closer to home. During the Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay campaign in the UK, thousands of households facing impossible energy bills pledged to refuse to accept the logic of individual responsibility for systemic crises. We saw here the kernel of networks of collective support to resist predatory pricing and defend one another from the consequences of falling into arrears.
While it has received less media attention than the street-based violence from ICE officers, similar structures were also in place in the streets of Minnesota as communities mobilised to protect their friends and neighbours from ICE raids. Residents used phone trees, street patrols, and rapid‑response networks to warn families, de-escalate confrontations, and provide food and medical supplies to those sheltering at home. These were not abstract gestures of kindness; they were deliberate, organised acts of everyday solidarity that shielded entire communities.
These examples show that communities of solidarity are not merely moral ideals but practical infrastructures of survival—flexible, decentralised, and responsive in ways that bureaucratic systems rarely are. As climate shocks intensify, as automation threatens widespread job losses, and as geopolitics grow increasingly volatile, these networks will become ever more essential.
Future organisers will need to care, nurture, and support. They must learn from, and help strengthen, the often invisible forms of mutual aid and solidarity that already sustain daily life. When systems falter, are disrupted, or even collapse, these networks will be the ones that preserve and empower communities. By embedding ourselves in such spaces now, we cultivate not only resilience, but the foundations for imagining and building alternatives to a system whose contradictions are becoming increasingly difficult to control. We begin, in other words, to chart a path beyond the destructive competition in which one plausible outcome is the collapse of the planetary conditions necessary for life—a gamble whose stakes are intolerably high.
There is a famous Kurdish saying: “No friends but the mountains.” It captures a hard‑won truth: when states collapse, alliances shift, or great‑power interests crush local needs, the only reliable sources of protection are one’s own community and the land beneath one’s feet. For the Kurds, it speaks both to tragedy and to hope. External powers have repeatedly failed them, yet through solidarity, collective organisation, and deep mutual support, they have cultivated forms of resilience that endure when institutions fall away.
The lesson is clear. In moments of crisis, ordinary people cannot rely on distant elites, global markets, or geopolitical blocs to safeguard their futures. We must instead cultivate the forms of solidarity that outlast institutions, weather storms, and sustain life when systems fail.
