Friday 21 July 2023

What is this "late-stage capitalism" we hear so much about?


"Apparently people have been talking about 'late capitalism' for a long time (... this [for example from a] book [that] was published in 1948):
It used to be commonly asserted that the existence of a supply of labour in excess of the demand was the result of 'the exhaustion of investment opportunities' which was said to be a feature of 'a late stage of capitalism.'
(I looked it up; the term was coined in the early 20th century, and 'began to be used by socialists in continental Europe towards the end of the 1930s and in the 1940s, when many economists believed capitalism was doomed.')

3 comments:

Terry said...

"Late-stage capitalism" is analogous to late-stage life.

MarkT said...

"Late stage capitalism", in the minds of those who use the term means something like:

"I want my wishful thinking and utopian ideals to be real, and therefore hoping the practical realities that capitalism is attuned to will disappear".

Peter Cresswell said...

@Mark T:
In that sense, it's a bit like 'market failure,' i.e., the market doesn't deliver my utopian ideals, therefore it's failed.

@Terry V:
Very true.