Geschichtszeichen

Abstract

Abstract The following paper tries to bring Marx’s crisis theory up to date from a sociological and social-philosophy point of view. Crisis, in line with Marx and Kant, is interpreted as a negative sign of history. Marx’s crisis scenario, while founded in an ever pertinent critique of the destruction of egalitarian individualism by the capitalist system must be considered lacking in complexity for today’s world. Marx underestimated the historical role of the state. A revision of his crisis theory leads to a re-evaluation of the latest two large-scale historical attempts to deal with the crises of modern capitalism; the mixed economy of the Keynesian welfare state, the crisis of which prepared the field for the succeeding crisis, the preventive counterrevolution of neoliberalism. This counterrevolution has plunged democracy into a crisis with slim prospects of escape.