
Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere - philngo
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/late-capitalism/524943/?single_page=true
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dopamean
I thought the phrase was "late stage capitalism" – implying that capitalism is
a disease like cancer.

~~~
iamdave
I've seen some people and some attitudes out there that believe it really is.
Some of the same people have no problem biting the hand that feeds them, it
seems. Or rather, biting the hand that they're asking "please sir, can I have
some more" of.

~~~
VonGuard
I think the fundamental reason people latch onto it as "Late Stage" is because
they see the future of this way of building a society as very grim. And I am
inclined to agree with them.

Capitalism is one thing, but fundamentalist capitalism, which is preached in
the US (not followed, mind you, we have lots of monopolies and very closed
markets), is something of a horror show of awful virtues. The trick is,
capitalism in the US has ALWAYS been a horror show. This country was literally
founded on the ideals of slavery and not paying taxes. England wasn't cool
with slavery when we founded this nation, but we sure were. If this country
wasn't founded on slavery, then the 3/5ths compromise would never have taken
place, and we'd have ended the practice at inception.

It is a good thing that we now no longer have an actual price tag on the heads
of human beings in this country, but is it really so difficult to see such a
thing coming about again, with corporations as the "owners," and individuals
as the investment properties? Apple was colluding to keep employee pay down, a
few years back, showing this type of behavior already fomenting again.

"Late Stage Capitalism" refers, really, to early stage capitalism as it
existed in the US: that view that money is more important than human life.
That the only reasonable pursuit of humans is money. It beacons to the
hollowness of the American life, where your job defines you more than any
other single attribute.

Yes, there is no real alternative in our modern world. The term "Late Stage
Capitalism," however, insinuates that there is a solution out there, and we'll
be moving on to it sometime in the next couple of decades. What will that be?
I personally feel as though we'll splinter into border less societies with
their own crypto currencies, populated by people who live in the real world
societies as ghosts, without tax-paying jobs or rent paying housing. Some sort
of reputation-based world like a Doctorow novel, but with the real government
still in place, but being ignored and circumvented by people in a million
ways.

Think of this like a game of Civilization. You start as a dictatorship, but
you can research better forms of government. Civ always stopped at Democracy,
like that was the be all and end all. But that's just because humanity hasn't
yet discovered the next good way of organizing large groups for mutual
protections. We will, some day.

~~~
skilesare
I'd love your feed back on my proposal for a kind of post capitalism. It seems
to propose some of the things you expect:
[http://skilesare.github.io/immortality](http://skilesare.github.io/immortality)

~~~
VonGuard
Well, I can certainly see you've put a great deal of work into it!

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Afforess
Late Stage Capitalism is the realization that mankind produces enough material
wealth to satisfy the bottom two tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for
every single person in the world and the frustration that we haven't bothered
to try.

~~~
thatswrong0
And the ignorance about the fact that distribution and management of said
material wealth has always been and will always be a difficult problem to
solve. Yes, we produce enough food in the world such that no one should go
hungry. No, we don't have the infrastructure (actual, political, economic) to
distribute it.

Organizing people is hard. Dealing with corruption is hard. Nothing suggested
by Late Stage Capitalist meme spreaders even comes close to solving those
problems.

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gozur88
This term is a combination of spin and wishful thinking by Marxists.
Capitalism isn't going anywhere.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Capitalism will never go away. Just as monarchism still exists on various
corporate boards in some form. And just as anarchism still exists in some form
in a capitalist society.

But capital allocation will cease to be the dominant protocol for social
organization.

~~~
gozur88
I don't see any realistic alternative. Capitalism creates wealth more
efficiently than any other system, and over the long run even the poorest
people in a capitalist country will be wealthier than people in countries with
command economies.

The problems we're having today result from corruption, which can happen with
any system.

~~~
goalieca
What if, and this is a big what if, computer science could solve the
efficiency problem of a centralized economy.

~~~
thescribe
It seems to me that would just make the programmer the central planner.

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minikites
I'm looking forward to most of the comments here being variations on this
comic: [http://i.imgur.com/qM9ZJv3.png](http://i.imgur.com/qM9ZJv3.png)

As it turns out, one can in fact criticize something they participate in
(especially when participation is necessary to survive).

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ahoy
It's not a new term. It's everywhere because socialist and social-democratic
ideas are getting fairly popular in the US.

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meri_dian
>"Mandel did warn about the forces of automation, globalization, and wage
stagnation, and feared that they would tear at the social fabric by making
workers miserable."

Funny. Most people are living better lives today in the era of High Capitalism
than they ever have in the past. As technology growth - spurred by the
incentives capitalism generates - continues, and new products and services are
created by the capitalist system, people's lives will continue to improve.

What's beautiful about capitalism is that it, through automation, is
eliminating drudgery and danger from people's work. Eventually when we reach
very high levels of automation in society, we may be able to transition to an
economy in which people don't have to work (much) but still get to own things
through universal basic income or some other sort of scheme.

So no revolution needed to get us to the promised land folks. Capitalism is
taking us there.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Capitalism is taking some there. Not all. Most. The averages look good. When
you look outside a standard deviation or two there is intergenerational
suffering with no end.

So, you're right. As long as you can plug your nose and ignore the people at
the very bottom, everything is pretty good!

~~~
meri_dian
Under capitalism the people at the very bottom have it much better than they
ever have had it, just like the rest of the population. And things continue to
improve.

In fact it's plausible that as automation picks up it's the people at the
bottom who will stand to gain the most.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I assume you're talking about bottom income bracket. I was not. I was talking
about bottom in terms of power. Income is only one form of power. The people
truly at the bottom are being held there by triangulated cultural practices.
Capitalism is not seeking to lift them up because they serve a crucial purpose
as a warning to those who might question the social order.

I am thinking of people at the intersection of some combination of poverty,
domestic violence, addiction, racism, gender politics, etc. One or two of
these issues can be overcome, but when you pile several into one family you
get a machine that can be permanently stuck in suffering.

~~~
zzzzzzzza
"I am thinking of people at the intersection of some combination of poverty,
domestic violence, addiction, racism, gender politics, etc."

Have you ever met any of these people? Domestic violence, addiction, poverty;
anyone with that trifecta is probably not a very pleasant person to know, much
less employ. Giving people with an addiction more resources is not going to
help them unless you're talking about opening up a methadone clinic, which is
plenty compatible with capitalism.

