ABSTRACT
Capitalism has faced moments of crisis and even existential threats including wars and revolutions, economic depression, cold war politics, and the threat of impending ecological disaster, but has survived. This has led many to regard capitalism as innately resilient. Central to capitalism’s survival is the role played by the state. The state exists to promote and advantage the broad interests of capitalism. It promotes an ideological perspective has successfully convinced the working class that it shares values that are beyond class. The working class, under such conditions, has become integrated into the state and its organisations effectively co-opted by the institutions of the state.
Capitalism has benefited from a lack of organised and effective opposition. This is due, to a large extent, from dislocations, both theoretical and programmatic within Marxism as well as the force and strength of the state and its capacity to maintain a sense of ideological unity across classes. Capitalism survives, not from any innate superiority, but from a lack of viable opposition and an on-going crisis of leadership.
