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The deepening of the crisis is obvious. This article demonstrates the systemic nature of the crisis, using a long-term perspective. The substitution of neoliberal capitalism for “Fordist” capitalism can be seen as a reaction to the previous crisis which crystallised in the mid-1970s. With each of these periods can be associated specific modes of functioning, based on relatively coherent configurations. But neither one was really “sustainable.” The fall of the profit rate blew the earlier configuration to smithereens. The second configuration required the continuation of tendencies that eventually met their limits. The article describes these two configurations by way of a “synthetic indicator” of the main variables accounting for the basic parameters of capitalist dynamics. The main conclusion is that the potential inherent in these dynamics has now been exhausted, at least within the “old” capitalist countries. The article raises the issue of a potential continuation of such dynamics within “emerging” countries.