The latest buzzword on the lips of young people in particular is “End Stage Capitalism” Loosely defined by AI it is characterized by extreme wealth gaps, monopolization by a few large and powerful corporations, non-productive profit seeking (ie subscriptions for automobile and software features instead of outright purchases, shrinkflation and cheapening of product ingredients.) Stagnant wages in the face of higher productivity and loss of job opportunity. And I’d add…cronyism, which is the partnership of lawmakers kept in power by contributions by those who wish to preserve their advantage without earning it via competition.
There actually is no such thing as “end stage capitalism”. It’s not a natural progression the way a disease progresses untreated. What we are really witnessing is the natural tendency of power to gather more power, and then protect itself by forceful government regulation and garnering huge wealth to enable wielding that force.
The problem with a term like “end stage capitalism” is that it slips easily off the lips of people who have been steeped in socialist beliefs from early education onward, and pushes capitalism, the one method of meritocracy, into the category of “evil” and “harmful to society.” **
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This term should be countered with “no such thing” and defined instead as what we really are witnessing, undue and unearned power exerted by a few to the detriment of the many.
Isn’t there an argument that we aren’t even entering ‘birth stage capitalism’?
Where is the capitalism they are saying is in the end stage?
State Media? Public funded universities? State annexation of Venezuela and Iran resources? State ownership of gas stations? State censorship of late night comedy shows? Dividend checks sent for votes? Bribes to judges? Street executions? Weaponized DOJ? State importation of meat? State fingers in every pie?
I read the phrase ‘end stage capitalism’ and wonder where is the capitalism? How can it end if I am not sure it ever started? Maybe they mean end stage consumerism or commercialism.
“A mixed economy has to reach the day when it faces a final crossroad: either the private sector regains its freedom and starts rebuilding—or it gives up and lets the absolute state take over the shambles.”
As soon as the federal and state governments authorized taking of wages (your labor) to redistribute to their whim, true capitalism was corrupted. If you work eight hours and four of them are working involuntarily with threat of punishment then public funded universities, state ownership, and regulated business such as cannabis are what results. It all comes down to who is pointing a weapon at you.
The first thing that struck me about the definition was ‘extreme wealth gaps’. Many say that is the situation now. Very emotive, except for inconvenient facts.
The world’s total GDP is around $81 trillion; the population is roughly 8 billion, which puts the average annual income at $10,125 (data 4 years old).
This would be insufficient to provide all the services a single person needs in an advanced technological society. If it were equally distributed, the services wouldn’t be funded and thus wouldn’t work. Things like roads, bridges, public infrastructure, military, communication infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. wouldn’t exist.
These days, I find Rand more common sense than anything else. The usual rhetoric from those who obviously don’t do the bare minimum of critical thinking (what we call the Pub test here in Australia) falls apart easily.
In other words, they are advocating that we are all taken back to the dark ages.
Reasonable. But perhaps, like a pendulum, it swings between what we in Australia call centre-left and centre-right. At present, Australia is definitely centre-left, but its problems are far too obvious, and the swing to at least centre-right has begun. A far-from-optimal situation, of course, and one can only hope we eventually have full freedom.
The “extreme wealth gaps,” and the “K-shaped economy” as it has come to be known, come largely from the Cantillon effect. In other words, central banks print money, and distribute it to big banks and the government. The printed money is not distributed equally. People who are closer to the freshly-printed money are closer to the up side of the K, while everybody else experiences inflation and is on the down side of the K. (People who get freshly-printed money are also constantly looking for places to invest it, and they have a herd mentality, and this drives the stock market up, and can benefit people who also happen to be genuinely productive, because of promises of ROI.)
Money-printing is not part of “capitalism” and even Francisco’s money speech said that money should be gold – because the government can’t print gold.
It is still possible to have an aristocracy that receives tax money and distributes it… but inflation is an “invisible tax” and it seems like free money to the people receiving it.
At first, a little money-printing only causes a little distortion, but there is always more and more. If bankers or Congress had the discipline to cap inflation or deficits at 2%, they could just as easily cap them at 0%. They don’t want discipline. The ability to be whimsical is the point for them. As a result, every fiat currency in history has eventually ended in hyperinflation and devaluation to zero.
People blame “capitalism” for this, but it’s actually a product of government intervention.
Capitalism requires a separation of state and economics.
You are talking about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Used judiciously its OK, but its proponents often break its rules, one of which is not to print money when it starts to cause inflation. That they ignore this fundamental rule (ie reality) leads to the type of problems we are seeing where I live in Australia (recession, inflation, high intrest rates etc.), and people ‘wake up’ to the truth - there is no free lunch.