Providing a Marxian analysis of the origins, implications, and scope of the current economic downturn, this critique of global capitalism argues that the ongoing crisis is not merely a result of overProduction and problems with credit and finance, but rather a deep-seated systemic failure of capitalism itself. The discussion clearly roots the present economic slump in the history of capitalism and contends that, in order to find a more permanent solution, the crisis needs to be understood structurally, as the result of a failed theory, rather than as an aberration.