Seems like it'd be cheaper to just give it away as UBI, no? Especially considering a million dollars for a transient job versus paying someone a million dollars over their lifetime.
This whole late stage capitalism transition is going to be painful.
>This whole late stage capitalism transition is going to be painful.
The phrase "late stage capitalism" is one I've seen crop up only in the last year or so, and mostly in the context of the subreddit of the same name.
Can you recommend some reading outside of that subreddit? I find the subreddit's content narrowminded to the point that I thought it was satire at first, but I'm open to the topic in general. Especially interested in what makes these (supposedly undesirable) aspects of capitalism "late stage" rather than just "fully realized". What I mean by that is much of what people complain about under the title "late stage capitalism" is just "regular capitalism less mired by things that aren't capitalism".
edit: also unhelpful is that the wiki describes it as a marxist idea representing an era from the 40s onward, while it's typically discussed in terms of changes that have occurred relative to times like the late 60s/reagan-era/post-ww2 era that are themselves technically "late stage capitalism"
I'm mobile at the moment, but will noodle on further books that I'd consider contributors to the "late stage capitalism" school of thought (IMHO, as an amateur macroeconomic scholar). I am also open to rebuttals!
I haven't read it since undergrad, but he broke up the stages of capitalism in three parts, with the earliest being a free market capitalism up until the mid 19th century, then monopoly capitalism up until around WWII, and late capitalism following that era. It is dominated by a pervasive industrialization that is fairly unrestrained by national borders and a global culture centered around mass consumerism.
I don't see how talking of a late stage of capitalism presumes a known end state. It only requires the assumption that 1) capitalism is not going to be around forever, and 2) we're closer to the point where it's going to be replaced by something else, than we are to the point where it replaced the socioeconomic system that preceded it. You don't have to believe that the following system is necessarily socialism or communism, nor do you have to believe that it's going to be the last such transition.
You don't just need to believe you are past the midpoint: you must believe that you have crossed a threshold where current events and circumstances are precipitating or portending the end. While logically, this could be the belief of anyone who expects any non-capitalist system to be around the corner, it is in fact used primarily by Marxists/socialists/communists. Do you have examples of other groups using the term late-stage capitalism?
Why is Marxism a failure to understand the current and future state of economics (and the impacts of technology) but capitalism is immune to this somehow?
I don't see any substance to your post. My response would be that it is easy to see the weakness of the current system, to identify the pressure points and where it will fail, collapse. It is not as easy to see where we are going.
Because one is not good at the latter does not mean the critique of the former is illegitimate.
So can you please contribute something other than incendiary platitudes? You lower the state of discourse on this site.
ETA:
> Of course, they've been predicting this 'late stage' and inevitable 'collapse of capitalism' since the 19th century.
Are you suggesting that perhaps things have not significantly changed in regards to technology and the economy since the 19th century?
In my opinion Banthum has given an accurate description of certain branches of literalist Marxism. The theory has a descriptive part and a predictive/prescriptive part. The descriptive part is about human economic development through various phases up to Industrialization and is fairly accurate with respect to the societies Marx was studying. The predictive part is extrapolating this by adding further stages of Socialism and eventual Communism.
Precisely because Marxism makes predictions, it can fail to understand the current and future state of economics, while capitalism is just an economic system that exists and doesn't have to understand anything (just as Communism would be).
> it is easy to see the weakness of the current system, to identify the pressure points and where it will fail, collapse.
I don't think it is actually that simple. Marx saw the working conditions of coal miners in Germany as a weakness that would lead to an uprising. That revolution never happened and their working conditions improved within the system (unions likely played a part). I'm actually not aware of any Marxist revolution in an already industrialized country. (The Soviet Union and Mao's China famously miscalculated their industrialization plans.)
Today we might identify Automation as the weakness that will lead to a Socialist restructuring of society, with shared ownership of the means of production and all that. But it might all come differently and we could end up in a completely stratified society, without replacing Capitalism.
> Because one is not good at the latter does not mean the critique of the former is illegitimate.
I don't think Banthum was trying to insinuate that, but talking about something that's still happening as "late stage" is a bit presumptuous about your ability to tell the future.
> Are you suggesting that perhaps things have not significantly changed in regards to technology and the economy since the 19th century?
The complete opposite, I would think. Since the various problems plaguing the Capitalist system at the time didn't lead to its downfall and have mostly disappeared, any similar claim needs some very good arguments to explain why it will be different this time.
> a global communist state of society where human nature no longer applies and people are no longer self-interested.
Until 300 generations back, all of human society was "a global communist state of society". Over the past 300 generations, domination by an idle class of heirs over the working people of the world has spread.
How is "a global communist state of society" a place where "human nature no longer applies", when that was the only form of society at all 10,000 years back to the dawn of humanity, whereas the current dominant economic system has only been predominant for the past few centuries, and has endured massive crises, recessions, revolutions, depressions etc.?
What does this even mean? Sounds like an activist buzzword. What evidence do we have that there are even "stages" to capitalism much less that we are in a later stage?
Capitalism is showing its flaws if we're paying a million dollars per job just to bring the job to our soil, although I suppose it's better then just keeping Foxconn products (or products that integrate their components) out at ports (or tariff them, like Russia with phones without a GLONASS chipset).
So it's not capitalism at all. It's something else.
Undue influence of individuals with power (via money or other mechanisms) is hardly unique to capitalist systems. Every socialist country has had the exact same problems with corruption and misuse of power. It's also pretty trivial to argue that such corruptions and abuses are far far more toxic under socialism because there is no "pressure relief valve" in the form of competition. Socialism is predicated on a monopsony, and over time a market with a monopsony will likely result in monopolies on the sell side. You eventually end up with no alternative to the corrupt choices.
"Late stage capitalism" is a political term that was likely created by someone that considers themselves a temporarily embarrassed bolshevik central planner.
Capitalism existing under a state that will subsidize the needs of capital is still capitalism. There never was a period where 'pure capitalism' existed, so it's a bit disingenuous to claim that the system we have isn't capitalism.
The outsourcing and automation and optimizing away of blue collar American jobs was already capitalism working as intended. Somehow, Trump and the Republicans have sold middle America a bill of goods and convinced them that globalism and capitalism are opposed to one another, when they are the same.
What's happening here is very much anti-capitalist.
I kind of halfway agree with the OP, I just wouldn't consider it a flaw of capitalism.
From a capitalist point of view, blue collar jobs lost in the US to outsourcing and automation deserved to be lost. The market optimized for a better solution for consumers, and that solution was cheaper labor and automation.
A true pro-capitalist party would admit that, rather than pander to coal miners and steel workers, and would try to make the US more competitive in the modern, global marketplace rather than try to drag the entire world back into the tar pit of American industrial dominance.
A true pro-capitalist party would even embrace socialist programs like nationalized healthcare and education, if that would make it easier for displaced workers to re-educate themselves and re-enter the workplace, and compete more readily with labor throughout the world, and take the burden of healthcare off of employers. Invest in infrastructure and technology. There's probably even a capitalist argument for basic income allowing the repeal of the minimum wage.
But "write as big a check as necessary and party like it's 1949" is just pandering, it's not even a serious attempt at a solution for anything.
> The market optimized for a better solution for consumers, and that solution was cheaper labor and automation.
While not optimizing for the externality that those consumers are also the labor that's displaced thus destroying their ability to consume and thus not not a better solution for consumers after all.
The market is not magic, it fails often and it's very annoying to continually hear people brush off those failures with the no true Scottsman fallacy. If capitalism means to you only a perfect free market then it's a meaningless term because no such thing exists and more importantly that ivory tower definition is not what people are referring to when they use the word, capitalism as implemented in the real world is what they're referring to and jumping in and claiming "that's not capitalism" adds nothing to the conversation.
So yes, that is capitalism, because this kind of thing is exactly what capitalists do: they curry for favors from government to get into protected positions to avoid competition. Capitalism is what capitalists do, and this is exactly the shit they do. Crony capitalism is still capitalism.
> So yes, that is humanity, because this kind of thing is exactly what humans do: they curry for favors from government to get into protected positions to reap all the benefits.
FTFY. The problem you describe is a human problem that will happen in any system, capitalist, socialist or mix of the two. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Capitalism simply provides power in a normal distribution proportional to wealth. Socialism provides power in a power law distribution and the head of that distributions constitutes absolute power.
I think he is saying that this is not capitalism. The existence of bailouts and government programs to direct the markets is not capitalism's 'need' for those programs, despite any politician's attempt to sell that idea.
Not based on what the article says. If the factory never would have been built in the first place, the taxes never would have been paid.
Before: 0 jobs, $0 taxes (factory doesn't exist)
After: 13,000 jobs, $100M taxes (down from $300M if no tax concessions were given, as per article)
The incentives would cost the state about $200 million a year but Foxconn's payroll in Wisconsin could reach $700 million a year, Walker's office said.
Also the $3B is the cost over a decade, not in a single year.
> If the factory never would have been built in the first place, the taxes never would have been paid.
That does not make the incentives any difference than a cash payment in exchange for building the factory.
> The incentives would cost the state about $200 million a year but Foxconn's payroll in Wisconsin could reach $700 million a year, Walker's office said
The relationship between “would” and “could” in that sentence is quite important.
> That does not make the incentives any difference than a cash payment in exchange for building the factory.
Sure it does. A state writing a check for, say $100 million dollars requires spending $100 million dollars (possibly borrowing it to do so). Giving $100 million dollars in tax reductions requires spending $0. The former may not be feasible, while the latter generally is, so the two are not equivalent.
Giving $100 million in tax incentives, conditioned on a specific act, requires just as much spending (or more, if the income from the cash payment itself would have been taxable) as giving a $100 million cash payment, with the same conditions, with no special tax treatment.
That people can fail to see this may explain why these deals are politically popular, though.
If you keep more of your money through a change in tax policy, you are suggesting that the government gave you money? I'd argue that you are keeping what was yours all along.
Being bled less isn't the same as receiving a blood donation.
> If you keep more of your money through a change in tax policy, you are suggesting that the government gave you money?
That's a complicated question in the case of generally applicable changes in tax policy, like a new tax credit available to anyone who posts on internet discussion boards.
It's a simple, straightforward “yes” when the change in tax policy only applies to me, and only for a specific action (post on HN about the Foxconn factory deal, and get $5000 of your federal income tax.)
The latter is more like a government contract (but without the competitive aspects and other controls designed to assure fairness and public value.)
It really is a choice between three outcomes. (1) No factory is built, no taxes collected. (2) Factory is built, company pays full sticker price on the taxes. (1) is unappealing because nothing is created. So we arrive at (3), where the company understandably wants to renegotiate the sticker price on the taxes and the taxing body doesn't want to end up in scenario (1), so they come to an agreement somewhere in the middle.
Why is this translated into the company received cash from the taxing entity?
Is there a way to find out how much Foxconn pays in U.S. taxes right now? Or how much revenue they earn in the U.S.? If Apple has Foxconn make phones in Taiwan, and Apple then ships phones to the U.S., then Foxconn doesn't pay any taxes to the U.S. on those transactions, right? Only Apple would right? If Foxconn doesn't pay any tax to the U.S. right now (???), and they build a factory in the U.S. and don't pay any taxes in the future, then it is a wash (except for now the U.S. employees would be paying income tax, etc.). Or am I missing a piece of the puzzle? (As in, maybe Foxconn is currently paying a lot in U.S. taxes from whatever operations they have in the U.S. currently?)
Let's say you want to take a portion of my income in exchange for career services that has a cost of 1,000 dollars a year for you to provide.
You say "pay me 20% of your 100k job" netting you 19k, I refuse to pay that steep of a fee and counter with "take 10% or nothing" netting you 9k.
I don't believe its fair to say that you have lost 10k if you accept my terms as the alternative is receive nothing. You have increased your revenue by 9 thousand dollars as opposed to earning 0 dollars. The option you proposed is simply not on the table and can't really be considered.
Those taxes are a cost of doing business in the state - akin to the rent on a property. If nobody wants to rent your property at your asking price, you can let it sit empty and get zero, or lower your price and get more than zero. You are not "forgoing" anything by lowering your price in that case. You never had that revenue to give up in the first place.
Corporate welfare has existed in every "stage" of capitalism, and the justifications suit the political moods of the day (jobs for one polity, greentech for another). This isn't anything new, and capitalism would be better off without it.
> What evidence do we have that there are even "stages" to capitalism
Uh, the fact that history exists, and that within the set of historic systems which follow the basic system of property rights distinguishing capitalism [0], there's a clear sequence of different specific systems in history.
> much less that we are in a later stage?
The same is also evidence that the current stage is later than the previous ones, those it is admittedly speculative (until capitalism is displaced) that it is the latest stage.
[0] There's some debate over whether the mixed economy that is currently dominant in the developed world is properly a “stage” of capitalism (the system dominant in the 19th century and first labelled “capitalism” by it's critics) and not a successor system with some common features, but we can leave that debate aside for now.
Seems like a repackaging of the arguments against socialism. Arguments which are ridiculed here on HN "Just because most socialist states collapse into hotbeds of corruption doesn't mean it will happen here!"
This is from Marx, who wrote The Communist Manifesto, among other things. I won't try to summarize, other than to say Marx treats this ("late capitalism") as a developed state of capitalism, sort of a mathematical limit/end state, where certain things are taken to be inevitable.
While I understand that the use of the term 'mathematical limit' is meant to imply a stable equilibrium, in this context it does make it sound as if there are rigorous mathematical proofs that these unmentioned things are indeed inevitable. I'm not sure if that's what you meant to convey.
I think a better choice of word might have been "asymptote". Thanks for pointing this out.
At the risk of being a bit pedantic, limits don't imply stability, though, only that something is heading in a certain direction, and may or may not be reached.
I'm dying to hear you expound on exactly what Marx actually says and why what he says shouldn't be taken seriously. Cites and quotes while you're at it, please. (No third parties, please--he clearly doesn't need the help.)
A basic primer is linked below for you. I'm sure you'll have wonderful, super duper insightful, and super smart commentary on it. Looking forward to it!
Have you read that piece? Because I have read it before, and Domhoff writes with regards to Marxists rather than Marx. If you're going to slag Marx for what Leninists and their derivatives have decided to read into it--well, that's a pretty curious thing to do. Not uncommon, because frankly most people haven't actually read Marx and are unqualified to opine, but I know for a fact that Domhoff has, which makes this...well, like I said--curious.
The one criticism of that article I do have as far as what people he perceives as "Marxists" think (and I'm not one, though I do think that the general shape of what Marx describes, as opposed to either Marx's end-state conclusions or Marxists-the-fear-object group might believe) is that social democracy, which I will helpfully point out is not "Marxism", has also fairly obviously demonstrated its bones over the last decade-plus, after the article's writing, as that late-capitalistic model has created additional, shitty stresses on populations. Free market uber alles has catastrophically failed in every nontrivial employment, and while heavily-planned or fully-planned economies have obvious problems, social democracies the world over have this tendency to mostly work. I won't call them a global maximum, because that's impossible, but they have a decent claim to a local one.
Anyway, let's be real: this isn't a "basic primer" and it doesn't contain the argument you thought it did after you googled "Marxism critique". You don't have to like the way things are going, but if you're gonna pretend to an opinion, maybe give it an honest go before you offer it?
We've asked you many times not to post uncivilly like this, so we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post within the guidelines in the future.
I both respectfully and vigorously disagree. It's time we break down this sham that you require a job to have self worth.
If you automate yourself of a job, are you worthless now? Of course not! But we're still stuck with these silly societal moores that work and a job equate to value. No longer!
No, Scandinavian countries are capitalist and in fact more economically free than the US. They have little or no nationalization of industry. The Scandinavian socialism meme needs to die.
Much as it irks me to say so, I'm afraid this ship has sailed, at least in American English. For more than half a century, conservatives have been trying to conflate welfare state, and generally any form of wealth redistribution, with socialism. They have succeeded spectacularly, though perhaps not in ways they anticipated, as seen by how broadly popular such redefined "socialism" is among millennials - and how much easier that, in turn, makes it to sell the real thing.
This whole late stage capitalism transition is going to be painful.