In the early days of capitalism there was plenty of authentic scarcity for it to work against. Its problems probably weren't any less, but the juice was plausibly worth the squeeze because the alternatives were terrible.
Now, most of us are working to maintain artificial scarcities, rather than mitigate authentic ones, and there are a lot more of us. So the a randomly chosen effect of our system is more likely to be negative because it's being chosen in a context that's very far from that long lost age when capitalism seemed necessary.
I think that's what makes it late-stage, when it's found to have more side-effect than desired effect. Like a yeast which started turning sugar into alcohol at a prodigious rate but then later the alcohol concentration is toxic to it and more effort is spent trying to filter it out than anything to do with its original purpose.
Capitalism is still necessary, we just forgot what it took to save capitalism from itself during the great depression and have opened ourselves up to turning into modern Russia.
Now, most of us are working to maintain artificial scarcities, rather than mitigate authentic ones, and there are a lot more of us. So the a randomly chosen effect of our system is more likely to be negative because it's being chosen in a context that's very far from that long lost age when capitalism seemed necessary.
I think that's what makes it late-stage, when it's found to have more side-effect than desired effect. Like a yeast which started turning sugar into alcohol at a prodigious rate but then later the alcohol concentration is toxic to it and more effort is spent trying to filter it out than anything to do with its original purpose.