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A contradiction of modern capitalism is that the need for a global consumer market, where practically the entire population is included, causes workers to acquire technology and use it for their purposes.

Of the almost 8 billion inhabitants of planet Earth, more than 5 billion have regular access to the Internet. In other words, two thirds of the world’s population uses the Internet on a daily basis. In countries with more developed capitalism, where the proletariat is traditionally more organized and politicized, the rate is even higher. For example, in northern Europe, 97% of the population uses the Internet regularly, as well as in North America. In Western Europe, this rate is 95%. Even on continents historically explored and oppressed by these first ones, the rate is very high: 9 out of 10 inhabitants of Eastern Europe, 8 out of 10 Latin Americans, 7 out of 10 Asians and North Africans. Even though East Africa is the poorest region on the planet, one in four inhabitants uses the Internet.

It is a power never seen in the history of humanity in the hands of ordinary people. The popularization of this power is developing rapidly. Fifteen years ago, people had to have a desktop or notebook computer to access their favorite websites or chat with friends. Today, the overwhelming majority use smartphones not only for the services they used to do on the computer, but also to record videos and photos and spread them around the world on social media. Around 60% of Internet users access social networks, which means an absurd democratization of both the production and acquisition of knowledge of current and historical facts.

The huge demonstrations that have been taking place in Europe, the United States and in various parts of the world in recent months against the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza have reached such large proportions precisely because of the access to photos, videos and reports of the reality in Gaza. And this only happened thanks to social media, predominantly, and independent journalism channels. To a large extent, thanks to the Palestinians themselves who share their cruel reality with the world from the rubble of Gaza. If they depended on traditional media outlets, controlled by the bourgeoisie, in which ordinary citizens are only recipients, these people would not be knowing the truth about the genocide and would not mobilize against it.

The massive demonstrations, occupations of universities and sabotage of companies sponsoring the genocide only occur due to the information that people are receiving, producing and sharing. Perhaps the first great demonstration of the revolutionary power of social media occurred at the beginning of the 2010s, when the entire North Africa and the Middle East were swept by popular uprisings that took on such importance thanks to the dissemination on social media, at that time still incipient. Something similar happened in 2011 with Occupy Wall Street in the USA and in 2013 in Brazil.

The street revolt against the genocide in Gaza is the latest example of how dangerous social media are for the ruling classes globally. That’s why they have tried to censor publications, profiles, access and even ban some platforms, such as Tik Tok in the United States and Telegram in Brazil.

For now, this empowerment is only occurring with mass, cheap and individual technologies. But it is inevitable that technology developed for the ruling classes (as all inventions in history were) passes into the hands of the people. In Karl Marx’s reasoning, it will be when the productive forces revolt against the relations of production.

Artificial Intelligence is just the latest innovation that makes it clear that society can get rid of its evils, such as excessive and unnecessary work by the majority for the appropriation of its fruits by the minority, or like hunger, disease and environmental disasters. Robots can already do the manual domestic and professional tasks of a wide range of individuals, and even intellectual work can be done by A.I. Scientists develop mechanisms that can enable people who have lost movement to move again by implanting chips and prostheses integrated into the body that obey the brain’s thoughts. Mourners can return to see their lost loved ones through the almost exact reproduction of their physical and psychic characteristics through computing and robotics. In China, engineers created “sponge cities” whose asphalt is soft and absorbs rainwater, putting an end to flooding and – who knows? – with the pain and injuries caused by the impact of a person falling to the ground.

The Houthis are sinking ships and shooting down planes costing millions of dollars in the Red Sea using drones costing less than 2 thousand dollars, which are being countered (unsuccessfully) by American weapons that cost 2 million dollars in a single shot. Hamas also used drones that can be purchased on Amazon to breach the Israeli security system on October 7th. They are setting an example for the entire global population of how technology produced by humanity’s enemies can serve as a weapon to defeat themselves in the most important sphere: politics – and in war as an extension of politics, as Clausewitz taught.

Pimple-faced teenagers manage to use their own cheap computer and pirated programs to hack large companies. Well-trained hackers can rob banks with great ease. Technology developed in recent years – often by ordinary people in their garages – exceptionally reduces production costs and exponentially increases labor productivity.

But the need to extract surplus value and, above all, to keep workers away from critical thinking and their independent organization (which require time outside of work obligations), prevents the ruling class from properly employing technology, robotics and A.I. in everyday life for the benefit of the great proletarian masses. A worker’s working day can be reduced by half, increasing production gains, without having to reduce his salary. Unemployment can be easily eradicated with this. But the big capitalists need to have an industrial reserve army so that competition between workers reduces their wages and always pressures them to maintain subservience to the bosses.

The monopolistic system – imperialism, in Vladimir Lenin’s description – is the great opponent of innovation and freedom. A classic example is the pharmaceutical industry. It is not in the interest of the monopolies that control it to produce a cure for all diseases, although existing technology already allows it, because then they will no longer sell medicines. No disease, no profit. Electronic product companies, on the other hand, manufacture crap that becomes obsolete in a few years to sell new models to customers. In 2016, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published a study that showed that global food production was enough to feed the entire global population. However, at least 735 million people still suffer from hunger, with more than 120 million becoming hungry between 2019 and 2022. We live in a system that causes hunger, despite having all the means to eradicate it.

A long time ago, capitalism stopped leading to progress and became a regime that prevents this progress and brings about the regression of human civilization. Another proof of this is the increasingly serious attempts to “regulate” the use of social media and A.I. – this is nothing more than a maneuver by the imperialist bourgeoisie to prevent common people from freely using this technology, because the ruling class already knows which are the risks.

The objective conditions for the liberation of human beings already exist in most countries, it is only a matter of time before the subjective conditions for this are fully developed – that is, for workers to become aware that current capitalist production relations are the great obstacle to the full development of human faculties and the complete well-being of all individuals.

Only overcoming the capitalist system can resume progressive development and free the productive forces, revolutionizing production relations in which workers, that is, ordinary people, control the means of production, governments and society. Thus, what we have seen so far in relation to technological development will have a new boom, with the creative awakening and the democratic and popular management of systems so that technology is at the service of man. The tendency is for technological development, driven by economic development, to immediately reach a new level and increase man’s ability to transform nature to infinity. Everything we see in science fiction films will become reality.