Marxists believed that the capitalism would necessarily end in collapse. This was certainly the position of Friedrich Engels and subsequent Marxism. But was this Marx's own position? There is no simple answer since Marx's position changed over time.

Stedman Jones argues that it is possible to distinguish three distinct phases in Marx's picture of what capitalism was and how it might end. In this lecture he will examine each of these phases and Marx’s ideas, together with Friedrich Engels's editing of the unpublished manuscript of Capital to explain how the assumption arose.