ABSTRACT
The theoretical problems raised by treating capitalism as a mere passing stage go very deep. A foundational claim of historical materialism is that the capitalist mode of production is fundamentally different from those that came before it, not least in terms of its unparalleled transformation of nature as well as societies. The implications of having regarded capitalism as a mere passing stage must also be addressed in terms of the impact this has had on socialist strategy, and the ways in which working people as well as intellectuals were mobilized to support it. Karl Marx actually sounded a rather different note in Capital, in fact, reinforcing in many ways the Communist Manifesto’s claims on revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie’s capacity to transform the world. The conjuncture in which Friedrich Engels wrote the 1887 Preface was very different than when Capital was published in 1867.
