This Isn’t Late Stage Capitalism Anymore. Now It’s End Stage Capitalism.
Why We Need to Begin Asking If Our Civilization Is Going to Survive Capitalism in This Form
by umair haque
There’s a guy buried not so far from where I am now. In an old, old cemetery. He had Some Things to say about capitalism once upon a time, but these days, we can’t really say his name anymore. Where are we these days, with capitalism, anyways? How’s it doing as the paradigm we use to organize our planetary economy?
Here’s a quick reality check. Oil companies are on track to make eye-watering windfall profits this year, of almost $200 billion. Profits. While the mega-scale impacts of climate change hit nation after nation in genuinely catastrophic ways — and interest rates skyrocket, threatening recession, by way of people being plunged into poverty, unable to afford the debts they’ve accrued because, well, they haven’t been able to make ends meet — like the people formerly known as the American middle and working class, who now have maybe $5K in their bank accounts, while the average mortgage payment’s half that alone — for years now.
Make any sense to you? To anyone, outside of a lobbying firm or a fanatical “think tank”?
Meanwhile, one of the world’s communications platforms just got taken over by a billionaire, who wants to use it as a political plaything, reinstating the former President, and basically letting loose the fascists on the rest of the public square.
Doesn’t sound very good, does it?
The internet used to speak, wryly, about a thing called “late stage capitalism.” Wryly, because we’re all entrapped by it, encircled by it, enmeshed in it — and yet few of us really agree with it, except the kind of simpleton who says, “I’m a capitalist, dude!!” even though he’s…just a prole, living off a wage, not capital income, and never will remotely live off dividends, interests, or stocks in his life, nor will his kids.
But now we’re at a different stage. We’ve crossed a line, a threshold’s been broken. This isn’t “late stage capitalism” anymore — now it’s end stage capitalism.
What’s the difference? Well, a lot. What’s “late stage capitalism,” beyond an internet meme, anyways? It’s a concept basically popularized by left-wing thinkers, meaning, here’s a quote that roughly does it justice:
It’s more or less synonymous with neoliberalism. And sure, there are plenty of valid criticisms to make of it.
But where we are now is way, way beyond this. Even this level of malignancy and folly and greed. We’re in a different phase of capitalism now entirely. What kind?
Now we’re in a stage of capitalism where the very institutions responsible for destroying life on planet earth and causing a mass extinction — one of only five previous ones in all of deep history, billions of years of it — are making record-breaking, eye-watering windfall profits. In other words, we’re now at the stage of capitalism where the most “valuable” activity in the economy is…ecocide.
LOL. How long do you think a civilization with an economy like that can survive? When the most profitable activity in the economy is destroying the planet…which of course provides the air, water, food, medicine, every other form of basic imaginable…what kind of a future is left?
That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s one that we need to actually think about, because something is very wrong here.
Here’s another example. We’re now at a stage of capitalism where billionaires are getting so much richer by the year that it’s basically beyond human reckoning. We just kind of shrug now, because our minds go numb at figures like the following. Jeff Bezos’s fortune grew from $18 billion to $134 billion. Elon Musks, from $2 billion to $221billion.
That much capital accumulation? By a handful of people? In ten years? While the average person got poorer? While the planet began to burn, and mega-scale impacts like floods and droughts and famines and fires hit entire countries, regions, continents? While Australia had a “Black Summer,” and Pakistan drowned, and India was forced to stop exporting wheat because its harvest withered in the killing heat? That much…in one decade…while…?
Those are staggering numbers. It’s true that capitalism has always enriched the richest most — why is the most of the world still poor, after all, or why has the American middle and working class fallen into penury? But this, again, is something different. Because of course this is wealth that can’t be spent in ten human lifetimes, let alone a single one — but our civilization isn’t going to last that long at this rate. So the rate of capital accumulation and concentration are now out of control, haywire, crazy town — capital is piling up and concentrating in a tiny number of hands to such a small, extreme degree that our civilization isn’t going to be around for anyone to even spend it on anything.
That’s not just crazy town, it’s crazy town: it’s a “deadweight loss,” in economics terms, a broken system, which can’t allocate capital where it’s actually needed. Which is where? Well, just yesterday one of the latest UN reports concluded that we’re on track for something close to 3C of global warming, which means lights out for our civilization, long before the end of century.
We need to invest capital in preventing the end of our civilization. How much? Helpfully, that UN report gave us an estimate, too. “A global transformation from a heavily fossil fuel- and unsustainable land use-dependent economy to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least US$4–6 trillion a year.” Sound like a lot? It is a lot, and yet even that estimate’s very, very low: “a relatively small (1.5–2 per cent) share of total financial assets managed, but significant (20–28 per cent) in terms of the additional annual resources to be allocated.” Where does that leave us?
The salient question at this juncture of human history, one that nobody much at least in power wants to ask, goes like this: has capitalism failed? I don’t mean that in the way that internet trolls will think I do: that I’m taking away their right to start a gun shop or what have you. I mean as a global system.
So. The most profitable activity in this system right now is destroying the planet. This system is now concentrating capital to such an extreme degree in such a tiny number of hands that our civilization will not survive long enough for anyone to spend it.