Capitalism，Economic Crisis, and Socialism: The Prospects for a Transition to Socialism in the Developed Capitalist Countries

Global capitalism remains in a structural crisis that originated in the United States in 2008. History suggests that the resolution has been a new institutional form of capitalism that resolved, at least for a time, the problems that led to the crisis.This paper argues that two possible forms of institutional restructuring within capitalism would address the problems that led to the current crisis. One is a capitalist-dominated statist form of capitalism, the second is social democratic capitalism. But two severe long-term contradictions of capitalism bring more obstacles to these two forms when addressing the crisis. In fact, a reform of capitalism is not the only possible outcome of a structural crisis. A resolution of a structural crisis of capitalism can take the form of a transition to socialism.