Breakdown theory and intellectual history: An introduction to the relevant issues

This study reconstructs the history of Western Marxist theories of the break down of capitalism. For the last hundred years, Western Marxists have devoted a significant portion of their work to speculations concerning the fate of capitalism. The history of theories of breakdown is a history of attempts to read past and present tendencies, to find the future, and to capture it in systematic speculative thought. That body of speculative thought, directed towards a specific historical event, is the object of study here.