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Despite its association with eighteenth-century conceptions of rationality & individualism, game theory provides a tool to analyze strategic individual & collective action. The application of game theory to three issues in Marxian political economy is illustrated: (1) class formation & class action; (2) growth & class struggle; & (3) bargaining problems. Game theory can provide valuable insights for Marxists, but its use is open to several criticisms: (A) Marxian political economy's grounding in a holistic, dialectical, or relational approach; (B) absence of a path from individual level to aggregate decisions; (C) its essentially static nature & incompatiblity with the dynamism of Marxian political economy; & (D) its possession of the weaknesses of the positivist program in the social sciences. 3 Figures, 23 References. D. Generoli

Social scientists seem to do a good job predicting some major events in history and a spectacularly poor job with others. This paper is concerned with the puzzle that this poses. It investigates systems of interaction and suggests that, in principle, some criteria can be established to aid our intuitions about what might and might not be predictable. It differs from the more usual approaches which tend to treat history in monolithic terms. Instead it examines a simple concrete model of processes like economic growth and coalition formation.