Best part is none of this is utopian,even the mammoths bit if Cairo was communist
Fun fact: The USSR actually tried to experiment with 6 hour work days.
Can we please kill the “late stage” capitalism meme it’s a total misnomer
Why is that? Economic systems like capitalism clearly have early, middle, and later phases, and the superstructures are affected by what stage we’re at.
I have a problem with the whole “look at how many gas station!!! The strip Mall!” memes being taken as an actual theory of voyeuristically observing decay of social structures and labor conditions like it magically signals the epoch of capitalism ending.
EDIT: Kinda wrong to say voyeuristically I mean hey we’re all experiencing it and it sucks. I just literally get the urge to point at other bad things happening elsewhere and be like “this is a chain reaction which will make my current worsening conditions part of a great boiling-over”.
This is just the ruling class sucking up profits it’s not capitalism imploding this is just what it does.
Why is this late stage capitalism but 19th century child labor wasn’t? Oh because the perks of being a tech wagie are finally eroding.
You are all stinky.
Part of it is optimistic. If it’s late stage, it might be over tomorrow.
Part of it is comedy. Let people have their fun. And let humour be a vehicle for agitprop.
Part of it is theoretical. We’re clearly in the midst of the monopoly finance stage of capitalism theorised by Lenin in Imperialism. Back then, Lenin could only see the buds of imperialism. Today it’s in full flower.
Then there’s Kwame Nkrumah who observed that post-WWII, the contradictions of capitalism were becoming antagonistic in the imperial core. The solution was to export those contradictions to the ex-colonies. This is Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism.
There’s no where left to go, nowhere else to export the contradictions unless it’s back to the imperial core. This does seem to be happening, but once it does the international divides between the working classes will dissolve.
Capitalism is unlikely to solve that. Although it will try: see plummeting living conditions in the global north and attempts to colonise space. But really, there isn’t much theoretical room for capitalism to develop into a yet further stage.
I’m only kind of stinky 😔
But IMO I think late stage capitalism is, yes, bad for describing shit that already existed in the Gilded Age, but as Redtea says I’d rather let it be a tool for the radicalization funnel.
However, I DO think it could be fully useful in describing the completely degenerate depths the system has reached towards to artificially lengthen its lifespan. Corporate Wokeism, credit cards, NFTs, a pro-war anticommunist Compatible “Left,” all the miscellaneous interpersonal social poisons, all the new methods of advertisement, gig economy, social media, etc. etc. I think someone with a logical mind and a vivid imagination could have envisioned all of these nuances 100 years ago, and the whispers of its arrival were definitely already there, but capitalism was much less self aware, much more openly and proudly evil. Things have gotten so convulted, so deep, so evolved.
