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This paper will argue that within actually-existing neoliberal capitalism today there are crucial contradictions which cannot be overcome. Among these are the inability to generate sufficient employment, inequality on a global scale, the continuation of imperialism and imperialist wars, continued enclosure and pauperization, ecological crises, overproduction and under consumption, the enormous waste of human potential on a global scale, and the forging of a global working class which is in an ever more precarious position. At the same time, neoliberalism tends to fragment consciousness, drowning class awareness in a sea of consumerism, which is making organizing and class struggle more difficult. Resistance tends to take perverted or alienated forms as seen in religious fundamentalism, ethnic chauvinism and random terrorist acts, often in reaction to state terrorism. The ruling classes encourage these tendencies to help divert attention from the crucial contradictions of exploitation under capitalism and imperialism. At the same time, the tools of propaganda in the global media have become more pervasive. Unable to deal with these contradictions, the powers at the helm of the global economy, following the reigning ideology, claim that the solution is more and deeper neoliberalism, which can only further exacerbate the crises. Neoliberalism, as we know, is not liberal and not new. It is statist, in the service of capital. Its adherents recognize that democracy slows capital accumulation. It is class struggle from above against workers and poor around the world. Some indications of the unfolding global crisis of actually-existing capitalism will be observed below, followed by some observations about the process of class formation on a global scale. While the "essential product," the working class, is being formed on a global scale, the essential and unified class struggle has yet to emerge. While new and creative forms of class struggle are emerging, the theoretical historical process of transition to socialism, some superior and more rational economic system, remains uncertain. Clearly the seminal minds of socialist thought in the nineteenth century underestimated the difficulties of this dialectical movement. Actually existing capitalism, while brutal, bleeding and wounded, could not be brought down by the massive efforts to build alternative societies during the twentieth century. While this is the challenge of contemporary history, during and beyond the age of neoliberalism, and might prevent the onrushing demise of the human species, through weapons of mass annihilation, such considerations have today largely been buried beneath the 'end of history' ideology of the neoliberal era. The global population, it seems, is being herded, lemming-like, in an opposite direction, toward an unseen sharp precipice. Adapted from the source document.