This compelling and ground breaking volume brings together Marxist scholars from around the world to offer an empirically grounded defense of Marx’s law of profitability and its central role in explaining capitalist crises. Despite their recurring nature, most mainstream economists hold fast to the notion that the free market system’s periodic breakdowns are nothing more than temporary aberrations from an otherwise unbroken and irresistible path toward global prosperity. For Marxists, on the other hand, this fundamental flaw has long been acknowledged as a central feature of the capitalist mode of production. While earlier important works have established that Marx’s theoretical assumptions are realistic and logically consistent, this is the first attempt to go further by presenting evidence that his law of the tendency of the rate of profits to fall “best fits the facts.” The World in Crisis takes readers through the data and figures so often intentionally obscured by the business press to show how falling profit rates are the best explanation for the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis. Far from a dusty academic discussion, the political implications of the analysis found in this book are urgent and immediate.