Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber
May 27, 2026 · 48 min · 12 segments
Socialists have long predicted capitalism’s overthrow and replacement by a better system. But do we have any reason to believe capitalism must come to an end? On the latest episode of *Confronting…
Vivek ChibberHost
Melissa NaschekHost
When Fukuyama wrote his book, and in the years right after that, there was a sense that there's no alternative, that the Soviet Union is gone, and the only alternative to capitalism, at least in real life, was no longer there, and it looked like there was nothing else that was possible.
And we are in a different world today because even if capitalism's end is not on the horizon, the form in which capitalism has existed the last 40 years, which is neoliberalism, is in absolute crisis.
And certainly once you see that some aspects of the society around you which seemed unshakable a few years ago are suddenly up for grabs, and they're melting, and they're crumbling, and this raised the, I think, the possibility, and in your mind the likelihood, that maybe you could be even more ambitious, that maybe you could actually start to think about bringing down capitalism itself.
Right, and there's been kind of a consistent strain within Marxism predicting that the end of capitalism is either just around the corner or is destined by, they use terms like the laws of historical motion, to end.
And, you know, Marx has tons of quotes that are often used to support this, one of them being that the working class is the gravediggers of capitalism, and-
Yeah, and he said that there's a kind of a sequence in history where economic systems come and go.
And they kind of fall apart and implode when they start impeding technological progress.
So in his language, you know, when the class structure or the relations of production, as he called it, become fetters on the forces of production or in technology, at that moment, these economic systems become unstable.
So Marx and Engels developed this idea that it's not just that capitalism at some day will come to an end, but it's merely the most recent economic system that will have come to an end, and that there's a pattern across different economic systems such that when they do fall apart and are followed by a new one, it's always governed by the same principles.
Right or wrong, it's one of the most elegant theories social science has ever produced.
And what the theory basically said was that across history you have not just one economic system, like it's not like capitalism's always existed.
Right, and this is an important part of Marxist theory itself, the fact that capitalism actually has a distinct beginning.
When Fukuyama wrote his book, and in the years right after that, there was a sense that there's no alternative, that the Soviet Union is gone, and the only alternative to capitalism, at least in real life, was no longer there, and it looked like there was nothing else that was possible.
And we are in a different world today because even if capitalism's end is not on the horizon, the form in which capitalism has existed the last 40 years, which is neoliberalism, is in absolute crisis.
And certainly once you see that some aspects of the society around you which seemed unshakable a few years ago are suddenly up for grabs, and they're melting, and they're crumbling, and this raised the, I think, the possibility, and in your mind the likelihood, that maybe you could be even more ambitious, that maybe you could actually start to think about bringing down capitalism itself.
Right, and there's been kind of a consistent strain within Marxism predicting that the end of capitalism is either just around the corner or is destined by, they use terms like the laws of historical motion, to end.
And, you know, Marx has tons of quotes that are often used to support this, one of them being that the working class is the gravediggers of capitalism, and-
Yeah, and he said that there's a kind of a sequence in history where economic systems come and go.
And they kind of fall apart and implode when they start impeding technological progress.
So in his language, you know, when the class structure or the relations of production, as he called it, become fetters on the forces of production or in technology, at that moment, these economic systems become unstable.
So Marx and Engels developed this idea that it's not just that capitalism at some day will come to an end, but it's merely the most recent economic system that will have come to an end, and that there's a pattern across different economic systems such that when they do fall apart and are followed by a new one, it's always governed by the same principles.
Right or wrong, it's one of the most elegant theories social science has ever produced.
And what the theory basically said was that across history you have not just one economic system, like it's not like capitalism's always existed.
Right, and this is an important part of Marxist theory itself, the fact that capitalism actually has a distinct beginning.
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