Faced with the credit crunch, some economic commentators began talking about 'zombie banks' - financial institutions that were incapable of fulfilling any positive function and represented a threat to everyone else. Chris Harman now argues that capitalism as a whole is a zombie system - dead to achieving human goals but capable of sudden spurts of activity that cause chaos. He shows that the roots of the current crisis lie not financial speculation but much deeper - in a crisis of profitability.