1. The rise and fall of class societies

In order to define the decadence of capitalism, our approach will be as follows:

 - by looking at the main social transformations of the historical process we will draw out the general concept of the decadence of a mode of production; we will then apply this general concept to the specific case of capitalism and try to deduce the political consequences that flow from it.

 - and, in doing this, we will, like Marx, consider first “the material transformation of the economic conditions of production”, and secondly “the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophical - in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out”.