> you could make the argument that late-stage capitalism and the emergence of neufeudalism
Just because someone made up some words doesn't mean you have to use them. There's nothing late about the capitalism (it's not going anywhere) nor neo about the feudalism (the UK's terrible land use policies are AFAIK all historical).
Although the opposition have now just announced they're going to make everyone poorer, which would be a weird policy and I suppose anti-capitalist, except it's already been happening since 2005-ish.
?? What about not using GDP as a primary indicator of economic/social health is making everyone poorer. GDP as a measure was invented as a wartime metric, at the time it made sense. However later even it's "inventor" Kuznets warned about it's use as primary metric. Let's not even get into the complexity of calculating it (the UN instructions come to >700 pages).
GDP already isn't used as the only indicator of economic health (don't know about "primary"). But some British people invented a philosophy called degrowth as a way of explaining how their country's falling real incomes are good actually, and calling for it to be the official policy is pretty worrying.
This is different from America, where people briefly got into degrowth after reading The Population Bomb, but mostly got it out of their system after noticing none of it actually came true.
(Economic growth does not actually use more resources like the idea implies. That's not efficient since you have to pay for the resources. It uses the same ones more productively.)
No, productivity is good. For an example of the reverse, as the UK's economy has been shrinking in recent years, carwashes have been de-automating and replacing machines with handwashing.
Luckily, humans are never satisfied and continue demanding new things, so making things cheaper doesn't reduce the total market.
But also, those new things can be services or digital goods or 100% recycled, which is why the US uses less water per year and emits less CO2 per year in 2023 than it did in the 60s. (No, that's not because we outsourced it to China.)
neufeudalism is just a natural evolution of neoliberalism.
It's where your become a modern equivalent of medieval serf, your bionic eyes become obsolete and unsupported [1], all contracts between you and corporations are extremely one-sided, you own no property and no land.
You may think you own your TV and your car. But fixing 'your' car without paying the Lord is a crime - because of IP law and DMCA.
Actually someone at Samsung wakes up one day and decides that your TV, car, or front door should stop working today. Your have no right and no recourse. Or you have theoretical rights that can only enforced with a 10-year long court battle costing millions of dollars. However any offense against the lord, er, I mean, corporation, is prosecuted by the king, I mean state, for free.
The lord to collects the 30% Apple tax. The Lord himself does not pay any tax. The lord pledges loyalty to the king, and provides the king with access to it's territory and resources - the king may access information held by any serf on OneDrive, ICloud, Buttcloud, etc. the Kings must compete with one another to woo the Lord to their. The Kings of China and US constantly battle for territorial access to different lords.
Recently some plebs petitioned Lord Elon to remove filthy Russian peasants from his kingdom by disabling all Teslas in Russia. [3]
> In modern usage, late capitalism often refers to a new mix of high-tech advances, the concentration of (speculative) financial capital, post-Fordism, and a growing income inequality.
I think that definition is at least meaningful, and seems to align with how I've heard people use the phrase.
> Roberts said that the term’s current usage departs somewhat from its original meaning. “It’s not this sense that things are getting so bad that the revolution is going to come,” he told me, “but rather that we see the ligaments of the international system that socialists will be able to seize and use.”
Late stage to me indicates that some sort of optimal state has been reached, not that the thing will be gone soon. Late stage construction is a nearly complete building for instance. Late stage capitalism is certainly used in this manner as it's meant to refer to the end result of poor incentives being applied over a long period of time.
Just because someone made up some words doesn't mean you have to use them. There's nothing late about the capitalism (it's not going anywhere) nor neo about the feudalism (the UK's terrible land use policies are AFAIK all historical).
Although the opposition have now just announced they're going to make everyone poorer, which would be a weird policy and I suppose anti-capitalist, except it's already been happening since 2005-ish.
https://twitter.com/josiahmortimer/status/161536476319783731...