New Books in Economics William I. Robinson, "Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Apr 30, 2026
William I. Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara and author on global capitalism, outlines how intertwined economic, political, ecological, and social breakdowns are straining capitalism. He discusses the 1970s structural shift, systemic risk, militarized accumulation, climate-driven supply shocks, and prospects for global resistance and socialist alternatives.
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1970s Structural Crisis Launched Globalization
- Capital experiences recurring structural crises roughly every 40–50 years driven by internal dynamics rather than external shocks.
- The 1970s crisis led capital to globalize and build a transnational capitalist class, which postponed rather than resolved capitalism's deeper contradictions.
Profit Drive Creates Overaccumulation And Underconsumption
- Capital must constantly expand and seeks profit by lowering wages or replacing labor with technology, producing recurrent crises of insufficient demand and falling profit rates.
- Rising organic composition of capital (more machines, fewer workers) reduces profit and discourages investment, triggering stagnation.
Lights-Out Factories And Mass Tech Layoffs
- Robinson cites Xiaomi's lights-out smartphone factory and Amazon's plan to replace 500,000 warehouse workers as concrete examples of automation-driven displacement.
- He links Oracle's layoff of 60,000 tech workers and AI development to intensified unemployment and crisis dynamics.
