https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism Jump to content [ ] Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation * Main page * Contents * Current events * Random article * About Wikipedia * Contact us * Donate Contribute * Help * Learn to edit * Community portal * Recent changes * Upload file Languages Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [wikipe] Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia Search [ ] [Search] [Go] * Create account * Log in [ ] Personal tools * Create account * Log in Pages for logged out editors learn more * Contributions * Talk [ ] Contents move to sidebar hide * (Top) * 1History of the term * 2Ernest Mandel * 3Fredric Jameson * 4Modern usage of the phrase and further evolution * 5In popular culture * 6See also * 7References * 8Further reading * 9External links Toggle the table of contents [ ] Toggle the table of contents Late capitalism [ ] 12 languages * l`rby@ * Deutsch * Espanol * Francais * hangugeo * Italiano * `bryt * Ri Ben Yu * Norsk bokmal * Portugues * Svenska * aithy Edit links * Article * Talk [ ] English * Read * Edit * View history [ ] Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions * Read * Edit * View history General * What links here * Related changes * Upload file * Special pages * Permanent link * Page information * Cite this page * Wikidata item Print/export * Download as PDF * Printable version From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Description of the dominant post-WWII post-industrial global economy and its excesses This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help [40px] to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Part of a series on Marxism Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Theoretical works * Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 * The German Ideology * Wage Labour and Capital * The Communist Manifesto * The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte * Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie * A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy * Das Kapital * Critique of the Gotha Programme * Dialectics of Nature * Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism * The State and Revolution * History and Class Consciousness * On Contradiction * Prison Notebooks * Dialectic of Enlightenment * The Wretched of the Earth * Guerrilla Warfare * Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses * Women, Race and Class * Empire (Hardt and Negri book) Philosophy * Historical materialism * Dialectical materialism * Philosophy of nature Critique of political economy * Capital (accumulation) * Crisis theory * Commodity * Concrete and abstract labor * Factors of production * Falling profit-rate tendency * Means of production * Mode of production + Asiatic + Capitalist + Socialist * Productive forces * Scientific socialism * Surplus product * Socially necessary labour time * Value-form * Wage labour Sociology * Alienation * Base and superstructure * Bourgeoisie * Class * Class consciousness * Class struggle * Classless society * Commodity fetishism * Communist society * Critique of political economy * Cultural hegemony * Democracy * Dictatorship of the proletariat * Exploitation * Human nature * Ideology * Immiseration * Imperialism * Lumpenproletariat * Metabolic rift * Proletariat * Private property * Relations of production * Reification * State theory * Working class History * Philosophy in the Soviet Union * Primitive accumulation * Proletarian revolution * World revolution Aspects * Aesthetics * Archaeology * Criminology * Cultural analysis * Cultural Studies * Ethics * Feminism * Film theory * Geography * Historiography * Literary criticism * Marxism and religion * Sociology * Philosophy Classical variants * Hegelian * Humanist * Western Orthodox variants * Analytical * Instrumental * Leninism + Trotskyism * Open * Neo * Structural Marxism-Leninism * Anti-revisionism * Maoism + Marxism-Leninism-Maoism * Socialism with Chinese characteristics * Titoism Left communist variants * Bordigism * Communization * Council communism Libertarian variants * Autonomism * Situationism Other variants * Austromarxism * Eurocommunism * Feminist * Neo-Gramscianism * Post * Revisionist * Third World People * Marx * Engels * Morris * Lafargue * Kautsky * Plekhanov * Du Bois * Connolly * Lenin * Luxemburg * Kollontai * Hilferding * Trotsky * Bloch * Lukacs * Korsch * Bukharin * Serge * Gramsci * Benjamin * Mao * Mariategui * Horkheimer * Dutt * Brecht * Marcuse * Fromm * Lefebvre * James * Adorno * Padmore * Sartre * Beauvoir * Nkrumah * Sweezy * Emmanuel * Hill * Bettelheim * Draper * Jones * Hobsbawm * Althusser * Williams * Freire * Mandel * Sivanandan * Miliband * Cabral * Thompson * Bauman * Fanon * Berger * Guevara * Guattari * Meszaros * O'Connor * Wallerstein * Mies * Debord * Amin * Hall * Parenti * Negri * Jameson * Harvey * Laclau * Poulantzas * Badiou * Altvater * Anderson * Lowy * Vogel * Sison * Ranciere * Blackburn * Cohen * Therborn * Ahmad * Ture * Postone * Rodney * Spivak * Newton * Sakai * Wood * Federici * Wolff * Balibar * Eagleton * Mouffe * Rowbotham * Davis * Panitch * Haraway * Davis * Wright * Holloway * Jessop * Zizek * Sankara * Miles * Roediger * Hennessy * Marcos * Prashad * Kelley * Fisher * Li * Malm * Seymour * Toscano * Bhattacharya * Moufawad-Paul * Srnicek * Saito Related topics * 21st-century communist theorists * Anarcho-communism * Creative destruction * Critical theory * Criticism of Marxism * Communism * History of communism * Left-wing politics * Marxian economics + New Left + Old Left * Political ecology * Social democracy * Socialism + Libertarian + Revolutionary + Utopian * Left-wing populism * Vulgar Marxism * Workers' council * Historical determinism * Economic determinism Related categories Karl Marx Philosophy of history * Outline * # Communism portal * # Philosophy portal * icon Socialism portal * v * t * e Part of a series on Capitalism Dollar sign capitalism logo Concepts * Austerity * Business * Business cycle * Businessperson * Capital * Capital accumulation * Capital markets * Company * Corporation * Competitive markets * Economic interventionism * Economic liberalism * Economic surplus * Entrepreneurship * Fictitious capital * Financial market * Free price system * Free market * Goods and services * Investor * Invisible hand * Visible hand * Liberalization * Marginalism * Money * Private property * Privatization * Profit * Rent seeking * Supply and demand * Surplus value * Value * Wage labour Economic systems * Anglo-Saxon * Authoritarian * Corporate * Dirigist * Free-market * Humanistic * Laissez-faire * Liberal * Libertarian * Market * Mercantilist * Mixed * Monopoly * State * National * Neoliberal * Nordic * Private * Raw * Regulated market * Regulatory * Rhine * Social * State * State-sponsored * Welfare Economic theories * American * Austrian * Chartalism + MMT * Chicago * Classical * Institutional * Keynesian + Neo- + New + Post- * Market monetarism * Critique of political economy * Critique of work * Marxist * Monetarist * Neoclassical * New institutional * Supply-side Origins * Age of Enlightenment * Capitalism and Islam * Commercial Revolution * Feudalism * Industrial Revolution * Mercantilism * Primitive accumulation * Physiocracy * Simple commodity production Development * Advanced * Consumer * Community * Corporate * Crony * Finance * Global * Illiberal * Late * Marxist * Merchant * Progressive * Rentier * State monopoly * Technological People * Adam Smith * John Stuart Mill * David Ricardo * Thomas Robert Malthus * Jean-Baptiste Say * Karl Marx * Milton Friedman * Friedrich Hayek * John Maynard Keynes * Alfred Marshall * Vilfredo Pareto * Leon Walras * Ludwig von Mises * Ayn Rand * Murray Rothbard * Joseph Schumpeter * Thorstein Veblen * Max Weber * Ronald Coase Related topics * Anti-capitalism * Capitalist realism * Capitalist state * Consumerism * Crisis theory * Criticism of capitalism * Critique of political economy * Critique of work * Cronyism * Culture of capitalism * Evergreening * Exploitation of labour * Globalization * History * History of theory * Market economy * Periodizations of capitalism * Perspectives on capitalism * Post-capitalism * Speculation * Spontaneous order * Venture philanthropy * Wage slavery Ideologies * Anarcho * Authoritarian * Classical liberalism * Democratic * Dirigisme * Eco * Humanistic * Inclusive * Liberal * Liberalism * Libertarian * Neo * Neoliberalism * Objectivism * Ordoliberalism * Privatism * Right-libertarianism * Third Way * icon Capitalism portal * icon Business portal * v * t * e Late capitalism, late-stage capitalism, or end-stage capitalism is a term first used in print by German economist Werner Sombart around the turn of the 20th century.^[1] In the late 2010s, the term began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to perceived absurdities, contradictions, crises, injustices, inequality, and exploitation created by modern business development.^[2]^[3] Later capitalism refers to the historical epoch since 1940, including the post-World War II economic expansion called the "golden age of capitalism". The expression already existed for a long time in continental Europe, before it gained popularity in the English-speaking world through the English translation of Ernest Mandel's book Late Capitalism, published in 1975. The German original edition of Mandel's work was subtitled in "an attempt at an explanation", meaning that Mandel tried to provide an orthodox Marxist explanation of the post-war epoch in terms of Marx's theory of the capitalist mode of production. Mandel suggested that important qualitative changes occurred within the capitalist system during and after World War II and that there are limits to capitalist development. History of the term[edit] The term "late capitalism" (Spatkapitalismus) was first used by Werner Sombart in his magnum opus Der Moderne Kapitalismus, which was published from 1902 through 1927, and subsequent writings; Sombart divided capitalism into different stages: (1) proto-capitalist society from the early middle ages up to 1500 AD, (2) early capitalism in 1500-1800, (3) the heyday of capitalism ( Hochkapitalismus) from 1800 to the first World War, and (4) late capitalism since then. Sombart's work was never translated into English, but historians sometimes do refer to late bourgeois society in contrast to early bourgeois society in the 17th and 18th century, or classical bourgeois society in the 19th and early 20th century. Vladimir Lenin famously declared that there are no "absolutely hopeless situations" for capitalism.^[4] The Communist International stated that with the first World War, a new world epoch of wars and revolutions had opened, and it defined state monopoly capitalism as the highest and final stage of capitalism.^[5] The term late capitalism 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.^[6] At the end of World War II, many economists, including Joseph Schumpeter and Paul Samuelson, believed the end of capitalism could be near, in that the economic problems might be insurmountable.^[7] The term was used in the 1960s in Germany and Austria, by Western Marxists writing in the tradition of the Frankfurt School and Austromarxism. Leo Michielsen and Andre Gorz popularized the term "neo-capitalism" in France and Belgium, with new analyses of the new post-war capitalism.^[8] Jacques Derrida preferred neo-capitalism to post- or late-capitalism.^[9] Theodor Adorno preferred "late capitalism" over "industrial society," which was the theme of the 16th Congress of German Sociologists in 1968.^[10] In 1971, Leo Kofler published a book called Technologische Rationalitat im Spatkapitalismus (Technological Rationality in Late Capitalism). Claus Offe published his essay "Spatkapitalismus - Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung" (Late capitalism - an attempt at a conceptual definition) in 1972.^[11] In 1973, Jurgen Habermas published his Legitimationsprobleme im Spatkapitalismus (Legitimacy problems in late capitalism).^[12] In 1975, Ernest Mandel published his PhD thesis Late Capitalism in English at New Left Books. Herbert Marcuse also accepted the term.^[13] Immanuel Wallerstein believed that capitalism was in the process of being replaced by another world system.^[14] The American literary critic and cultural theorist Frederic Jameson thought Rudolf Hilferding's term the latest stage of capitalism (jungster Kapitalismus) perhaps more prudent and less prophetic-sounding^[15] but Jameson often used "late capitalism" in his writings. Hegel's theme of "the end of history" was rekindled by Kojeve in his Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. The "end of history" is discussed by Francis Fukuyama in the sense that liberal democracy is the ultimate form of society, which cannot be surpassed by anything that is superior to it, because there does not and cannot exist anything superior. In modern usage, late capitalism often refers to a new mix of high-tech advances, the concentration of (speculative) financial capital, post-Fordism (transition of mass production in huge factories, as pioneered by Henry Ford, towards specialized markets based on small flexible manufacturing units),^[16] and a growing income inequality.^[17] Ernest Mandel[edit] According to the Marxist economist Ernest Mandel, who popularised the term with his 1972 PhD dissertation, late-stage capitalism will be dominated by the machinations--or perhaps better, fluidities--of financial capital;^[18] and also by the increasing commodification and industrialisation of ever more inclusive sectors of human life. Mandel believed that "[f]ar from representing a 'post-industrial society', late capitalism [...] constitutes generalized universal industrialization for the first time in history".^[19] Up to the mid-1960s, Mandel preferred to use the term "neo-capitalism", which was most often used by intellectuals in Belgium and France around that time.^[20] This term drew attention to new characterististics of capitalism, but at the time ultra-leftist Marxists objected to it, because, according to them, it might suggest that capitalism was no longer capitalism, and it might lead to reformist errors rather than the overthrow of capitalism. In his work Late Capitalism, Mandel distinguished three periods in the development of the capitalist mode of production. * Freely competitive capitalist production, roughly from 1700 to 1870, through the growth of industrial capital in domestic markets. * The phase of monopoly capitalism, roughly from 1870 to 1940, is characterized by the imperialist competition for international markets, and the exploitation of colonial territories. * The epoch of late capitalism emerging out of the Second World War , which has as its dominant features the multinational corporation, globalized markets and labor, mass consumption, and the space of liquid multinational flows of capital.^[21] In the tradition of the orthodox Marxists, Mandel tried to characterize the nature of the modern epoch as a whole, with reference to the main laws of motion of capitalism specified by Marx. ^[22] Mandel's aim was to explain the unexpected revival of capitalism after World War II, contrary to leftist prognostications, and the long economic boom which showed the fastest economic growth ever seen in human history.^[23] His work has produced a new interest in the theory of long waves in economic development.^[24] Fredric Jameson[edit] Main article: Fredric Jameson Fredric Jameson borrowed Mandel's vision as a basis for his widely cited Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.^[25] Jameson's postmodernity involves a new mode of cultural production (developments in literature, film, fine art, video, social theory, etc.) which differs markedly from the preceding era of Modernism, particularly in its treatment of subject position, temporality and narrative. In the modernist era, the dominant ideology was that society could be re-engineered on the basis of scientific and technical knowledge, and on the basis of a popular consensus about the meaning of progress. From the second half of the 20th century, however, modernism was gradually eclipsed by postmodernism, which is skeptical about social engineering and features a lack of consensus about the meaning of progress. In the wake of rapid technological and social change, all the old certainties have broken down. This begins to destabilize every part of life, making almost everything malleable, changeable, transient and impermanent. Jameson argues that "every position on postmodernism today -- whether apologia or stigmatization -- is also...necessarily an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today".^[26] A section of Jameson's analysis has been reproduced on the Marxists Internet Archive. Jameson regards the late capitalist stage as a new and previously unparalleled development with a global reach -- whether defined as a multinational or informational capitalism. At the same time, late capitalism diverges from Marx's prognosis for the final stage of capitalism.^[27] Modern usage of the phrase and further evolution[edit] According to a 2017 article in The Atlantic, the term "late capitalism" is again in vogue to describe modern business culture,^ [1] although with a semantic change or an ironic twist. "Late capitalism" has become a catch-all term for various phenomena that express capitalism's distortions of human life and psyche, which is often used in critique and satire. This usage also conveys a sense that contemporary capitalism cannot go on like it does forever, because the problems created by business are getting too large and unmanageable.^[28] The phrase "late stage capitalism" is used commonly as a critique of the allegedly fascistic qualities that emerge in the later stages of capitalism. Capitalism to many may seem to be free of this exploitation if not taken to the extremes of "late capitalism". A competing viewpoint is that "Capitalism, in its orthodoxy, is a system that relies on authoritative, controlling, and exploitative relationships, most notably between that of capitalists and workers", and that this is not something that emerges out of a devolving system but rather is present in the framework of the system itself.^[29] In popular culture[edit] A character in Thomas Pynchon's 2013 novel Bleeding Edge states "late capitalism is a pyramid racket on a global scale... getting the suckers to believe it's all gonna go on forever."^[30] See also[edit] * Advanced capitalism * Crisis theory * Criticism of capitalism * Cyberpunk * Deindustrialization * Financialization * Global financial system * Great Regression * High-frequency trading * Late modernity * The Limits to Growth * Neo-feudalism * Neoliberalism * New media * Periodizations of capitalism * Post-capitalism * Post-industrial society * Societal collapse * Supercapitalism * Surveillance capitalism * Thomas Malthus * Wall Street * Zombie liberalism References[edit] 1. ^ ^a ^b Lowrey, Annie (May 1, 2017). "Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere: An investigation into a term that seems to perfectly capture the indignities and absurdities of the modern economy". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 29, 2019 . 2. ^ Desmond, Matthew (2019-08-14). "American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-24. 3. ^ "Late capitalism isn't killing us". theweek.com. 2020-01-31. Retrieved 2020-06-24. 4. ^ Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (July 19, 1920), Report On The International Situation And The Fundamental Tasks Of The Communist International, retrieved November 29, 2019 5. ^ Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (June 1916), Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, retrieved November 29, 2019 6. ^ See, for example, Natalie Moszkowska's Zur Dynamik des Spatkapitalismus. Zurich: Verlag Der Aufbruch, 1943. 7. ^ Philip Armstrong, Andrew Glyn and John Harrison, Capitalism Since World War II: The Making and Breakup of the Great Boom. Fontana, 1984, chapter 1. 8. ^ Leo Michielsen, Neo-kapitalisme. Brussel: Jacquemotte Stichting, 1969. Andre Gorz, Strategie ouvriere et neocapitalisme , Paris: Le Seuil, 1964. 9. ^ Catherine Malabou/Jacques Derrida, Counterpath (2004) p. 114-115 10. ^ Theodor W. Adorno (ed.) Spatkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft. Verhandlungen des 16. Deutschen Soziologentages. Stuttgart, 1969. 11. ^ Claus Offe, Strukturprobleme ds kapitalistischen Staates. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972, pp. 7-25. 12. ^ Jurgen Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme im Spatkapitalismus Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973. 13. ^ Herbert Marcuse, "Protosocialism and Late Capitalism: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis Based on Bahro's Analysis". International Journal of Politics, Vol. 10 No. 2/3, Summer-Fall 1980, 25-48. 14. ^ Michele Dillon, Introduction to Sociological Theory (2009) p. 39. 15. ^ M. Hardt/K. Weeks eds., The Jameson Reader (2000) p. 257 16. ^ https://www.dictionary.com/browse/post-fordism 17. ^ Harry Targ, Challenging late Capitalism, Neoliberal Globalization, & Militarism. Carl Davidson, 2006, p. 15-26 18. ^ The Jameson Reader p. 268-269 19. ^ Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism (London: Humanities Press, 1975) p. 387 20. ^ Ernest Mandel, The economics of neocapitalism. Socialist Register 1964, pp. 56-67. 21. ^ The Jameson Reader p. 165-166 22. ^ The Jameson Reader, p. 216-217 23. ^ The Jameson Reader, p. 257 24. ^ Grace K. Hong, The Ruptures of American Capital (2006) p. 152 25. ^ Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 1991. pp. 438. ISBN 8190340328 . OCLC 948832273. 26. ^ The Jameson Reader, p. 190 27. ^ The Jameson Reader p. 164-171 28. ^ Kimberley Amadeo, "Late Stage Capitalism, Its Characteristics, and Why the Term's Trending". The Balance, 24 August 2018.[1]; Youtube late capitalism video [2]. 29. ^ Ford, Derek R. (2019-05-15). Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education: Common Concepts for Contemporary Movements. Brill | Sense. doi:10.1163/9789004400467_003. ISBN 978-90-04-39618-0. S2CID 181799102. 30. ^ Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge (2013) p. 163 Further reading[edit] * Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (1994) * Chris Harman : Mandel's Late Capitalism (July 1978) * Fredric Jameson, "Culture and Finance Capitalism" Critical Inquiry 24 (1997) pp. 246-65 * Kotsko, Adam (2018). Neoliberalism's Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1503607125. * Paul Mattick : Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism (1972) * Immanuel Wallerstein. The Essential Wallerstein (New York: The New Press, 2000), World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). External links[edit] * Youtube late capitalism FAQ video by The Atlantic * v * t * e Capitalism Aspects and perspectives * Anarchy of production * Business cycle * Centralization * Competition * Depression * Deregulation * Economic bubble * Economic development * Economic liberalism * Economic planning * Entrepreneurship * Ecopreneurship * Externality * Financial crisis * Financial Revolution * Globalization * History of capitalist theory General * Industrial Revolution * Invention * Market economy * Market failure * Merchantilism * Meritocracy * Multinational corporation * Nationalization * Oligopoly * Perspectives on capitalism by school of thought * Privatization * Profit * Property rights * Recession * Regulation * Wage labour * Wealth * Anglo-Saxon * Authoritarian * Corporate * Democratic * Dirigist * Free-market * Humanistic * Laissez-faire * Liberal * Libertarian * Market * Mercantilist * Mixed Ideology * Monopoly * National * Neo * Neoliberal * Nordic * Private * Raw * Regulated market * Regulatory * Rhine * Social * State * State-sponsored * Welfare * Advertising * American Dream * Consumerism * Decentralization * Economic freedom * Economic mobility * Individualism * Liberalism Cultural aspects * Liberty * Mainstream * Philanthropy * Private foundation * Private property * Rule of law * Social alienation * Spontaneous order * Corporatism * Economic inequality * Employment * Freedom of association * Labour market flexibility Social aspects * Labour supply * Productivity * Prosperity * Social venture capital * Unemployment * Anti-capitalism * Capitalist propaganda * Critique of political economy Criticism * Critique of work * Market fundamentalism * Marxism * Wage slavery * Anarchism * Anarcho-communism * Anarcho-primitivism * Anarcho-syndicalism * Collectivist anarchism * Communalism * Communism * Economic democracy * Eco-socialism * Free-market socialism Antithesis * Green anarchism * Individualist anarchism * Libertarian socialism * Market anarchism * Market socialism * Mutualism * Post-capitalism * Post-scarcity economy * Sharing economy * Social anarchism * Socialism * Syndicalism Authority control: National Edit this at Wikidata * Germany * Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= Late_capitalism&oldid=1155794885" Categories: * Capitalism * Economic ideologies * Marxian economics Hidden categories: * CS1: Julian-Gregorian uncertainty * Articles with short description * Short description is different from Wikidata * Articles lacking in-text citations from March 2019 * All articles lacking in-text citations * Articles with GND identifiers * This page was last edited on 19 May 2023, at 19:02 (UTC). * Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia(r) is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. * Privacy policy * About Wikipedia * Disclaimers * Contact Wikipedia * Mobile view * Developers * Statistics * Cookie statement * Wikimedia Foundation * Powered by MediaWiki Toggle limited content width