Twilight Capitalism

Karl Marx and the Decay of the Profit System

Twenty-first-century capitalism has little more to offer than a menu of despair: pandemics, deepening inequality, worsening depression, runaway climate change, intensifying authoritarianism and escalating militarism.

Twilight Capitalism offers a wide-ranging analysis of the origins, implications and scope of the “combined” social crisis of 2020 and beyond. A compelling case is made that Karl Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism, along with his program of class-struggle socialism, is essential to understanding and addressing the most important social, economic and ecological problems of our time.

“Over the next few years, we will be treated to many studies addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global capitalism. It is a great relief that one of the first books to emerge links the present capitalist crisis to the underlying crisis-ridden tendencies of global capitalist economy—providing invaluable empirical and theoretical context along the way, and emphatically reminding us that the problem is nothing other than capitalism itself. The incandescence of this work must illuminate discussions for years to come.” — Thom Workman, Professor of Political Science, University of New Brunswick