Historically, those on the Left have found it convenient to use a simplified Marxist mantra about economic crises. The argument goes something like this: crises are what happen when the contradictions inherent in capitalist accumulation reach a point of intensity after which capitalism is subjected to system-wide pressure from within. Yet the argument fails to specify what the contradictions are or why they must intensify over time. Not only is this mantra a bit vague, it’s also transhistorical: it can be used anywhere, at any time, to talk about any downturn. Marx’s original intention was, in fact, to root a concept of crisis in a scientifically demonstrable cause and thereby prove the inevitability of crisis in a capitalist system. But as we’ll see the mechanism by which Marx explained economic crises – his law of the general “tendency for profit-rates to decline” – has been quite seriously challenged.