
The end of capitalism has begun (2015) - ranit
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun
======
Arbalest
But will anyone actually currently alive actually see it? If the market can
stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid, how are we supposed to be
able to predict when this is going to happen? Also, surely change is
inevitable, but who is to say it's going to become as the article says. Reads
too much like a prophecy for my liking.

~~~
abhiyerra
Read an article recently here on Hacker News that with capitalism being based
off the notion of growth, and many places experiencing a stall in population
growth there essentially won’t be new consumers for capitalism to work since
there won’t be new growth and might actually be diminishing growth.

Also wonder if that is why all those companies signed that letter today saying
that shareholder value isn’t paramount. Maybe it is acknowledged that growth
can’t happen forever because it can’t.

~~~
zeristor
This sounds like an invitation to AI consumers, Douglas Adams talked about
clones to buy things culminating in the shoe event horizon.

However connect up some AI’s with bitcoin and a penchant for personalising
their avatar funded by web extortion and you’ve got something which is far
more buzzword compliant.

------
phs318u
> It means driving the wages, social wages and living standards in the west
> down for decades until they meet those of the middle class in China and
> India on the way up.

It bears repeating that this is only possible because borderless corporations
using free-moving capital can arbitrage border-locked labour - people for whom
meaningful freedom of movement (including the freedom to work) is not
possible.

EDITED to correct spelling.

------
mytailorisrich
Perhaps worth noting that the author is very left-wing and used to be a member
of a Troskyst group. The end of capitalism is a matter of ideology for the
author.

~~~
vixen99
Love to know the thought processes of the folk who downvoted this undeniably
factual observation. As Wikipedia points out "In another New Statesman article
published the following year he (Mason) described himself as an "actual
Marxist".

~~~
klez
Hi, I'm the downvoter.

When I downvoted the post, the phrase "The end of capitalism is a matter of
ideology for the author" wasn't there, or I just missed it entirely (in which
case, my bad), so it looked to me like a simple ad-hominem with no rhyme or
reason.

Now I see what the message meant, so I retracted the downvote. Next time I'll
make sure to ask for clarification before hitting the down arrow.

As an aside, Mason can say whatever he wants, but every time I read him I get
the distinct impression that while he may have some left-tinted idea, an a
whole I wouldn't define him as "very left-wing". He looks more like a
proponent of some sort of "humane capitalism".

> As Wikipedia points out "In another New Statesman article published the
> following year he (Mason) described himself as an "actual Marxist".

Not that it matters much, but I can't find it on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Mason_(author)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Mason_\(author\))
(I also checked if someone removed it today, but there's nothing in the
article's history that removed that phrase).

~~~
mytailorisrich
It's Paul Mason:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_(journalist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_\(journalist\))

I did add the second sentence later, but I think that the first is clear
enough in making the point that Mr Mason's take on capitalism is ideological.

~~~
klez
> It's Paul Mason

Ok, it's now clear I need some coffee. Sorry for all this mess.

------
matthewfelgate
Let me guess _another_ Paul Mason article?

That guy is absolutely obsessed with Capitalism like it abused him as a child.

------
drongoking
This article is from 2015. Is the beginning of the ending of capitalism done
beginning?

~~~
sleepysysadmin
The opposite actually; we're seeing the downfall of socialism.

Syriza was defeated by a capitalist right-wing group.

Just sticking to that area of the world: Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania,
Italy, Germany, and Poland is conservative or right wing.

Russia is controlled by a super majority of anti-communists. Russia is being
falsely portrayed as big bad in the media because they are anti-commie;
because of their recent experience with communism.

Socialism/communism is being thrown out the door.

~~~
viklove
Socialism/communism are not the opposite of capitalism, and this is the
strawman that the US government has been using for decades to fleece their own
citizens.

~~~
sleepysysadmin
I would love you to explain it to me.

------
BerislavLopac
One problem with all of those ideas about "the end of capitalism" is that they
are missing the core point of capitalism itself, which is having money (i.e.
financial assets, i.e. the "capital") as a store of value.

The article uses the comparison with the end of feudalism, but feudalism only
ended once one form of value store -- the land -- was replaced by another --
the capital. As long as some form of society exists, there will be a need for
a way to store and transfer value.

