Late capitalism

What Hacker News says

1. mtalantikiteJul 2017
   Late Capitalism by Ernest Mandel: https://www.versobooks.com/books/612-late-capitalism

   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.

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2. defgenericApr 2017
   The theory of surplus value isn't really about fairness. It simply says that there must be some value above the "socially necessary labor time" required to produce commodities in order for the category of profit to exist. It's a critique in the sense that it takes the surface-level appearance of concepts like value and profit for granted as they are, then sort of reverse-engineers them to illuminate their conditions of possibility and the relationships between them. So surplus value isn't the same as profit, and in later stages of the analysis it's argued that for example "aggregate" surplus value can be transferred between industries based on those relative rates of profit without any "real" transfers taking place. It has been a little while since I really had a firm hold on the theory but if you're interested in how it's applied to describe conditions of overproduction and overproduction crises, Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism has a good analysis of the 1980s.
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3. no_wizardJan 2024
   This isn't really correct.

   While yes, so called "anti-work"[0] movement (or if you're from the early 2000s, the occupy wall street movement would be of similar philosphical values, for example) uses this term rather often, it derives from the work of the Ernest Mandel[1][2] based on his work in which he used the term to describe the latter stages of capitalism post WWII as he saw it, and how it inevitably would end up in deep inequality and power concentration, to paraphrase the thesis.

   As far as "its always been that way" goes, I can't speak for all of the past, but there are clear models in the present that show it doesn't have to be that way. Norway & Sweden come to mind, for example.

   [0]: Orewellian term at its best. The movement isn't actually anti work, much like luddites weren't anti technology. This label is attached by and large to people who are centered around ideas related to equitable wealth distribution in society & more worker rights, namely. They don't actually profess to be against work, as far as the movement goes. Individuals may vary. Never the less, its clear doublespeak.

   [1]: Notably, a socialist. Wrote the book Late Capitalism (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/931838)

   [2]: The term was then popularized by Fredic Jameson, another socialist, though his critique was centered around the culture of post modernism and capitalism intersections: https://jacobin.com/2023/04/ernest-mandel-marixism-late-capi...

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4. cmrdporcupineOct 2021
   Ernest Mandel's "Late Capitalism" was published in 1975 (the year after I was born), to describe his present period.
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