Dr Hannah Murray
Aral BalkanLate-stage capitalism? That was last week. Welcome to extinction-stage capitalism.
LAUREN@aral
Ahhh...Fossil (fuel) Capitalism
Jan Wildeboer 😷
@aral that’s happening since the Club of Rome published their report back in the 1970s, IMHO.
Dennis@aral the last great act of defiance!
Bob Thomson@aral I call it ‘End Stage’ as like a terminal disease, it is consuming it’s host.
Meow.tar.gz 
@aral I think America in particular has now reached peak politician grift. When this happens with an empire, the decline begins. If you look at history, the Romans followed this pattern and certainly the Chinese Dynastic Cycle applies as well.
Timo Tiuraniemi@aral We're going to hear capitalism is the "worst economic system, except for all the others" from the people on the winning side of global exploitation and destruction until there are are no more people to exploit and nature to destroy.
That is, unless we get them to admit they actually know of only a couple of alternatives and that there is no limit to the different ways we could structure our economy if we just used our imagination.
Dave VolekOr we could build an alternative democracy---------------without the capitalists.
https://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/tdg_blog.php
Reading the sections:
1) TDG Main Essays
2) TDG Mechanics
. . . will explain this system.
Eliot 'Dukov' Earle@aral I'm looking forward to post-capitalism. When does that start?
Jiří Fiala Total Landscaping
Josh@aral "Late Stage Capitalism" feels pretty optimistic doesn't it. Like, the fact it's bad means it's gonna end... 😌
Paul Quirk@aral it's not late stage capitalism, it's late stage slavery. When capitalism shows up, democracy follows with human rights. The slaves figure out capitalism gives their work value and that gives them collective power. This does not work for those who don't want to do the necessary dirty work, but also don't want to pay for it, so they blame capitalism so they can try to con us into a system where they can make the people they don't like do the necessary dirty work for nothing again.
Nicole ParsonsIt's folks who want to eat, but wouldn't dream of picking lettuce in 40 degree heat
It's folks who want little "affordable luxuries" like $10 t-shirts but wouldn't dream of sitting in a shipping container for weeks as trafficked undocumented immigrants to get to a "factory" to sew one
It's folks who want cheap meals at a fast food restaurant but wouldn't dream of working in one
It's folks who want inexpensive child care but wouldn't dream of working 12 hour days at subpar wages
Gecko@aral Welcome to the fire capitalism “lifted” so many out of the frying pan into.
PJT NorthExtreme capitalism is certainly terminal.
Speed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸@aral Not going to start a huge debate here, I just have to get something off my chest. My personal emotion, not saying others have to agree, but here goes:
"Late-stage capitalism _fill_in_gripe_" looks, to me, just like rubber-necking at a highway pile-up. A lot of the world, including all the *isms seem a bit "late stage" these days. Changing the course of our societies does not hang on any *ism, or "system". It all boils down to bad faith actors (people and decision-making bodies)1/*
"Late-stage capitalism _fill_in_gripe_" looks, to me, just like rubber-necking at a highway pile-up. A lot of the world, including all the *isms seem a bit "late stage" these days. Changing the course of our societies does not hang on any *ism, or "system". It all boils down to bad faith actors (people and decision-making bodies)1/*
@aral ...actors making decisions that are detrimental to the rest of society.
We should not allow changing all that to be made or broken by picking a new "system". That kind of large scale change has several problems:
1 takes too long
2 requires too many different interests to agree on picking a whole new set of values, and sticking to a plan.
- outcome can not be known, largely due to 1 and 2.
2/*
We should not allow changing all that to be made or broken by picking a new "system". That kind of large scale change has several problems:
1 takes too long
2 requires too many different interests to agree on picking a whole new set of values, and sticking to a plan.
- outcome can not be known, largely due to 1 and 2.
2/*
@aral ...
What to do? Work with what we have. Remove bad-faith actors. Enforce the rules we have. Get individuals and elected and corporate bodies to not make f*cked up decisions, one by one.
This means enacting and enforcing rules and regulations. That, in turn, means getting responsible (i.e. non-bad-faith) individuals elected to both public and corporate bodies.
iow: A LOT OF WORK.
RDWhen I see comments like this ("it's not any 'ism', the system isn't the problem, it's just bad people") I assume the poster knows next to nothing about actual #capitalism
Am I wrong?
@RD4Anarchy @aral Sorry, I'm not up for that right now, I just wanted to get off my chest a feeling of despair I get when I hear "system" or "(commu-/social-/capital-)ism".
Fascism/Nazism is another thing. They definitely need to be diagnosed and rooted out
Fascism/Nazism is another thing. They definitely need to be diagnosed and rooted out
@RD4Anarchy @aral Just FYI I believe Thomas Piketty points out some real problems with how capital accumulates. Ripping it all out and starting over is not an option imo.
Capital must be eliminated or we're all fucked for sure.
Capital has become an autonomous entity that rules over us with a ruthless logic built on toxic premises.
"Capital is a product of people’s labour which has escaped from their control and has come to dominate them in the form of coercive economic laws which they have no alternative but to obey and apply."
(from "State Capitalism" by Adam Buick and John Crump)
Capital is not a real thing in itself, it is a social relationship of dominance and exclusion that was created by violence, theft, genocide and environmental pillage.
@RD4Anarchy @aral "capital must be eliminated" -- elaborate please. I suppose you don't mean somebody should come and demolish my house.
As I already said:
"Capital is not a real thing in itself, it is a social relationship of dominance and exclusion that was created by violence, theft, genocide and environmental pillage."
So no, I don't mean someone should come and demolish your house.
Your house is not capital unless you're renting it out while you live somewhere else. Even if that were the case I would not advocate demolishing the house just because it is being used as capital, but I would advocate eliminating the social relationship of capital because it is just as unjust as slavery. Indeed our current system of wage slavery is an extension of chattel slavery, not a break from it.
@RD4Anarchy @aral That usage makes most of what you say totally opaque to me. For "capital" I should read "financial assets accumulated in whole or part through unethical practices" ? Real assets are not capital? I sell something I made without violating anybody's human rights, and the money is not capital?
@RD4Anarchy @aral I'll shut up now
Capital is best understood as a social relationship, not the "stuff", or numbers in a spreadsheet, that quantify it.
I invite you to explore my pinned toot if you're interested in understanding what I mean:
https://kolektiva.social/@RD4Anarchy/110357255122736031
Especially a couple links I just added to the EcOnOmIcS!!1!! appendix:
What are the myths of capitalist economics?
https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionC.html
"State Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management" by Adam Buick and John Crump
https://files.libcom.org/files/State%20Capitalism.pdf
RD (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image HOW DID WE GET HERE? (a thread of threads, quotes, and links) This is a collection of writings and research concerned with how we got where we are today, which is in fact the story of what has been done *to* us, and what has been *taken from us*. By "us" we're talking about "the 99%", "workers", "wage slaves", all non-owners of private property, "the poor", unhoused people, indigenous people, even plenty of people who swear by capitalism and identify as "capitalist" yet have no capital of their own and no serious hope of ever having any worth speaking of. In other words almost everyone except for the very few who have had the power to exploit us and shape our lives to serve their agenda. We're going to examine institutions and concepts that have deeply altered our world at all levels, both our external and internal realities. By "here" we are talking about climate crisis and myriad other environmental catastrophes resulting from hyper-excessive extraction, consumption and waste; a world of rampant inequality, exploitation and oppression, hunger and starvation, genocide and war; a world of fences, walls, gatekeepers, prisons, police, bullshit jobs and criminalized poverty; a world overrun with cars and preventable disease; a world of vanishing biodiversity and blooming fascism; a world where "democracy" results in being led by some of the worst of humanity; a world ruled by an imaginary but all-powerful and single-minded god: Capital. Our inspiration and structural framework for this survey is this quote from "The Prehistory of Private Property", an important work from political philosopher Karl Widerquist and anthropologist Grant S. McCall: "After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries for enclosure, colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned." https://widerquist.com/books-3/#2b Also recommended: "Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy" https://widerquist.com/books-3/#4b #capitalism #colonialism #enclosure #PrivateProperty #state #police #inequality #anthropology #environment #ClimateCrisis #economics 1/30
@RD4Anarchy @aral I'll check it out. I'll try to sort out where we have totally different understanding of various words, but I have to say capital has conflicting definitions, and I don't like that. Seems we agree that large owners are too big, at least. :-).
Suggesting different term: Major Enterprises, Major Owners. Me, Mo' ! for short.
@RD4Anarchy @aral Sorry for being a bit there-not-there. To put my view another way. If I lived in the US , I'd be living under a bridge, if at all. I live, reasonably happily, in a Nordic country. Both "capitalist" systems.
@RD4Anarchy @aral The term late stage capitalism goes together with marx' theories, which say we will end up some day in a system that is not "capitalist". Entirely the wrong thing to be thinking about if you want to improve the world we live in now, imo.
I don't subscribe to any particular scheme about "phases" of capitalism. I appreciate Marx's contributions to the analysis and critique of capitalism but I don't consider myself a Marxist nor is my understanding based specifically on his ideas. There are numerous other paths to anti-capitalism.
If we were having this discussion back in the early 1800's would you have said that thinking about a post-slavery world would be the wrong thing to do if you wanted to improve the world we're living in now (1800's)?
You would be advocating not the abolition of slavery but rather for making slaves "reasonably happy" somehow?
@RD4Anarchy @aral
Re. end of slavery: that was a set of laws that could be (and were) changed without upending [edit: was changing] the system of government in the US. The changes were not enforced strictly enough by federal govt. , so the south managed to work around the changed laws, but that leaves the point still valid, system of government, financial system was left intact. The agricultural business had a "system" that was obviously ripped apart at the end of slavery.
Re. end of slavery: that was a set of laws that could be (and were) changed without upending [edit: was changing] the system of government in the US. The changes were not enforced strictly enough by federal govt. , so the south managed to work around the changed laws, but that leaves the point still valid, system of government, financial system was left intact. The agricultural business had a "system" that was obviously ripped apart at the end of slavery.
@RD4Anarchy @aral My original comment was specifically about the term "late stage captitalism", it not being usful other than as a joke at the expense of ourselves, how we run the world. By all means, we need jokes, but that one is a bit tired.
@RD4Anarchy @aral
For "anti-capitalism" to be useful, we need an agreed-upon definition of capitalism. In my usage, "capitalism" is a financial system where people own stuff, to buy and sell as they wish. It's still capitalist even if the state imposes taxes and regulations about "stuff", what can be legally owned, how to handle externalities etc.
1/2
For "anti-capitalism" to be useful, we need an agreed-upon definition of capitalism. In my usage, "capitalism" is a financial system where people own stuff, to buy and sell as they wish. It's still capitalist even if the state imposes taxes and regulations about "stuff", what can be legally owned, how to handle externalities etc.
1/2
@RD4Anarchy @aral
Some people take "capitalism" to necessarily mean that the actions taken by entities like Musk, big tobacco, energy companies, agribusiness, Monsanto, big pharma etc. are and should be legal. I belive they can and should be regulated. If that drives them out of business, then so be it.
2/2
Some people take "capitalism" to necessarily mean that the actions taken by entities like Musk, big tobacco, energy companies, agribusiness, Monsanto, big pharma etc. are and should be legal. I belive they can and should be regulated. If that drives them out of business, then so be it.
2/2
Kasey Smith 
@aral Yep. There's no surviving this.
Southern Leftist@aral
It makes us dumb.
It controls us.
You can see when you look deeper.
A work of socialism is no fantasy.
For we can make it happen here.
Be not afraid.
You are safe with us.
It makes us dumb.
It controls us.
You can see when you look deeper.
A work of socialism is no fantasy.
For we can make it happen here.
Be not afraid.
You are safe with us.
Alex 
@aral is there a quick save or something we can revert to?
Not a Spring Onion
costrike@aral final round
gavinisdie 
@aral where is the capitalism Season finale, so we can finally get into a mixed system
EarthOne@aral FDR knew how to fix their immense power grab after they tanked the economy in 1929: massive taxes to level the playing field. It built America into the most powerful nation in world history.
Then Ronald Reagan rolled back regulations and taxes for rich corps. and aided their business move to China, taking US jobs with them. Now they want US govt. to protect them from China's govt.
When they "Take America Back" they mean to post-industrialist, pre-FDR, unfettered greed.
Emma (IPG)@aral and something tells me this still isn't going to be the last stage...
Sperou@aral Is this at least when get to stop going to work??
mounderfod@aral it really does feel that way lately
Extinction (our fate)@aral Sepsis has set in. We're rotting from the second head.
Voron@aral aka #cyberpunk rise of the megacorps your replacement for the nationstate Orwell’s 1984 but it’s not governments Nope it’s business owning billionaire feudal lords
Vectorheart
alcinnz@aral "Late-stage capitalism is such an adorably optimistic phrase" - one of Welcome to Night Vale's Proverbs of the Day