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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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muffled screams of anguish
make your displeasure known to them directly into their ear
I used to wonder what profit could be
(My Little Crony)
Until you all shared its magic with me
"Capitalism isn't bad, it's just late-stage capitalism that sucks"
Even if it was true, it's funny because of course the late stage of something comes after and from the early stage of it.
This is also just a labor imperialist perspective. They yearn for the time a few decades ago with stronger unions and slightly less domestic exploitation in the imperial core, they don't care about the exploitation of the global south.
"Double-fisting cigars for 30 years isn't bad for you, it's the cancer that sucks"
That sliver of a few decades between, on the one hand, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and brutal industrial labor including children; and on the other hand, the current “late-stage capitalism” involving debt traps and monopoly —
Those few decades were enough to convince liberals of the “true” benevolent nature of this system. Just don’t look outside of your own immediate circumstances, nor read history; that might ruin the illusion. Don’t even ask your parents what their own life was like during this fabled golden age.
It was great for some heterosexual white men. There were good movies and music I guess?
Late stage capitalism has those things too, just outsourced from the imperial core and periphery to the developing world.
I hate the term "late-stage capitalism" especially in common usage. It just dilutes the critique at this point
I think it serves as a good term for newer leftists who may not be fully convinced in anti-capitalist views yet. It's a less extreme position to be against the current manifestation of capitalism and focus on how we are approaching a more and more dystopic near future than capitalism entirely.
Once someone is convinced late stage capitalism is bad, we can't let this continue and that reformism is not enough, the next step is to convince them capitalism was also a problem in it's earlier stages, for them to analyse history and read the fundamental theory.
Capitalism like: I used to be bad, still am, but I used to as well!
The capitalism that works is always conveniently outside living memory (or in childhood nostalgia - yeah that time you didn't know what rent is was the best period of human history, no shit)
To call capitalism good but late-stage capitalism bad is like saying a kitten is good but a cat not. It makes no sense.
Well, a lot of people seem to think that way with how they adopt baby animals of various species and then abandon them when they are no longer babies.
Ok. But children rule and adult humans ruin my day
If you hear people talking like this irl, I would usually say 'you'd better fucking hope this is late-stage
very popular line in alt/youtube media, jeffrey sachs, yannis varoufakis, and so much more, ‘we need to return to the older good capitalism, just a few bad people in charge right now we have to replace and then we’ll get those nice high speed trains and everyone will be happy
Varoufakis is overhated in my opinion and as far as I am aware he doesn't argue for such things. I'm no superfan of him but he isn't on the same level of garbage as Zizek and Chomsky.
Hasan Piker did an interview of sorts with him and Yanis came across more marxist and leftist than I expected. Just because he isn't a Marxist-Leninist doesn't mean he is a liberal.
Although maybe I just don't know enough about him, feel free to argue otherwise.
Also, besides all that, what's the point in saying "well, it's 'just' late stage capitalism"? We don't really have the option of reverting to an earlier stage, do we? If you want capitalism, this is the capitalism you get, so trying to save the sterling reputation of what you imagine older versions to be like when you concede that this is their legacy seems silly.
Obviously this is not what I'd view as the most profound point one could make about the topic, but I think it might be easier for getting someone to think critically about their thought-terminating excuses.
Gee, it's weird how the good thing turns bad if you give it time, but if you want to replace it, people get mad and demand you just try to make it how it was before it turned bad and change nothing else
Ok but "what if things didnt suck" is a compelling narrative
People who support capitalism the most know the least about how it works.
Has any country successfully turned the clock back to an earlier economic condition or, like everything else, is the only option to not dwell on the past and push forward to something new?
What happens if you turn the clock back? It simply continues to go forward. If you somehow succeeded in turning the clock back, all you would do is to push the problem onto your children.
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Logically one would use the knowlege of the things that did and didn't work in the past to spur people to make something better, but capitalism seems to think improving things is childish idealism.
Depends how you count counter-revolutions, in which case most of the former USSR, Chile, maybe Spain.
The post-USSR wasn't really turning back the clock to pre-USSR though. The post-socialist states and economies bear little to no resemblance to what came before the revolution.
Its not 1:1 but the guys who run sectors of extractive economics aren't entirely dissimilar to robber barons like Yusupov and Nobel (Yes, that Nobel)
Even taking that at face value it doesn't make sense. Capitalism necessarily leads to late stage capitalism. Therefore, even if you could RETVRN you'd just be kicking the can down the road. Which I guess is fine if you don't give a fuck about your grandkids.
"It's corpoporprpomonopolopoocrorprism" 