Traditionally, Marxists are sympathetic to technological progress. They often proclaim that only the further development of productive forces prepares the material conditions for the post-capitalist mode of production. While the late Herbert Marcuse (1992) came to explicitly emphasize the environmentally destructive aspects of capitalist production, even he was optimistic about the possibility of technological advancement as the major force for human emancipation beyond scarcity and poverty through the famous dialectics of quantity and quality. He suggested that the biological foundation

Unfortunately, the Promethean dream of realizing freedom through technical progress has not been realised. Or, to put it in terms of the dialectic, the dialectical transformation of quantity to quality happens only in such a way that technical ‘progress’ comes to exert an uncontrollable destructive power over the planet.

Despite its history of failure, Promethean ideas are again coming back to have a great influence within political ecology. In fact, ecomodernist ideas become hegemonic as the ecological crisis deepens. Now the development and application of gigantic technologies and science seems to be the only solution that is fast enough and on a sufficient scale to tackle the serious threat of climate breakdown. The new advocates of Prometheanism argue that environmentalists, by contrast, are too naïve in calling for slowing down and scaling down to live in harmony with nature. Environmental Prometheanism is ‘a lesser evil’ (Symons 2019: 52).

Contemporary Marxism is also responding to this situation. For example, Alberto Toscano (2011) insists upon reviving the ‘Promethean’ ideals of the left in order to envision a post-capitalist world.