Abstract
The demise of the USSR and the transition of Leninist polities from socialism/state capitalism to capitalism have obviously led to a crisis in Marxian theory. If thought of as a theory of a socialist state, it has become irrelevant. But Marx was not theorising about socialism but about capitalism. The obverse side of the demise of the Soviet Union is the continued survival, and indeed efflorescence, of capitalism. Far from being late (troisième age) or being ripe for demise after its highest/latest phase of imperialism coming to an end, capitalism in the centenary year of volume III of Capital is not only alive, but also well and kicking (Mandel, 1978; Lenin, 1916). Are the methods and tools of Capital and of Marxism in general helpful in explaining this phenomenon?
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Desai, M. (1998). Profitability and the Persistence of Capitalism. In: Bellofiore, R. (eds) Marxian Economics: A Reappraisal. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26121-5_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26121-5_18
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