'Great Disorder Under Heaven': The Global Crisis of Capital, Great Power Rivalry and Prospects for Structural Change.

Crises are not only unavoidable they are essential to the law of motion of capital. They constitute the resolution to the over-accumulation of capital so that 'the cycle would run its course anew'. The trajectory of each crisis of capital depends upon the peculiar features and severity of the specific crisis as well as other economic and political factors.The current unprecedented global financial catastrophe is mistakenly seen as the result of exceptional greed and excessive profit-taking by irresponsible capitalists in the United States. This paper argues that the international system of capital is in crisis generated by the contradictions in the processes of capital accumulation and the class struggle globally.The role by which US led finance capital has shaped the global structures of production based on the exploitation of wage labour will be examined. The global crisis of capital has enormous implications for the US as the dominant but declining imperial power. It is the harbinger of greater international instability, fuelling possible power shifts and deepening rivalry. Significant structural changes within nation states and internationally are imminent. Will the irreconcilable contradictions of capital lead to greater exploitation and immiseration of the masses as the solution to its crisis? Or,will new possibilities emerge for humankind to liberate itself finally from the clutches of capital?