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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  

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2. The capitalist mode of economic production is
fundamentally unstable. It cannot guarantee, except for
very limited periods, continued employment for the
masses, a decent standard of living, and sufficient profit
for the entrepreneurs to justify continued production.
The consequence is growing mass misery culminating
in the crisis and breakdown of the system of produc-
tion. The deficiencies and fate of capitalism are not
due to any specific persons or human actions, but flow
from the law of value and surplus value in a com-
modity-producing society. The collapse of capitalism
and its replacement by a socialist classless society are
inevitable.