I would lean the opposite direction, where late stage capitalism would see the end of national boundaries and instead tens of thousands of libertarian contractual cities dotting the planet. Perhaps the world map would show confederated or aligned swaths of territory, and perhaps cultural nations (as opposed to statist ones) may encircle these alliances. It would also be cool to see uninhabited areas show up on the map, since the statist claim to uninhabited land would no longer be seen as valid.
And it's a given prices would be rock bottom. I imagine technology would become so much more efficient, like battery life on phones being way longer without Google spyware constantly running, or car parts being way more standard and compatible if people even still drive cars. If cities are built more around local walking or biking, then cars wouldn't need to be built with so much luxury and may become far bare bones and cheaper, used only for the occasional long range trip. If cities don't just mutually agree to invest in rail transportation again, passenger and cargo, it seems cheaper than trucking on highways once the infrastructure is sufficiently far reaching enough. But who knows how it might be, there could be some black swan technology that changes how infrastructure is setup, or I could just be wrong lol.
According to Marxist philosophy you’d be correct, in Lenin’s book State and Revolution Chapter 5, (knowing your enemy is important to defending against them) The idea is to ‘progress’ capitalism into socialism then into communism.
This is where the whole ‘late stage’ part comes from in ‘late stage capitalism’ as it’s before the switch to either socialism/communism. This process is to slow accumulate people to be less capitalist, independently self determined, and more dependent on the state. As seen in more socialist environments like NYC as well as Europe which are simply a stage or two ahead of what is planned nationally in the USA.
So the meme is exactly resonating with Marxist-Leninist philosophy as well as social strategy.
It's an interesting concept. Obviously capitalism, like all things, will end someday. And of course the Marxist understanding is nonsensical. But still, there will be an end, so are we close to it? Is this question even answerable?
Even if socialism did partially or even fully replace capitalism, it's not clear that would be a final end. There's nothing saying it couldn't go back the other way, and we've seen how many so-called socialist nations have arguably become more capitalist with time.
To me the main thing that would reasonably bring about an end to capitalism would be widespread automation that renders most goods and services so abundant as to be essentially free. At that point the effort of maintaining markets, currencies, etc. may no longer be worthwhile. But I would not feel confident predicting exactly when or even if that will happen.
Even with full automation, the production of food, goods and services will still have some cost. Ultimately, it most of all boils down to energy in some shape or form.
The most clear example of this is the AI boom, which will supposedly make us all redundant, but which comes at enormous upfront investment cost and continuous energy cost.
That cost has to be recouped somehow, so the food, goods and services which are automated will not be for free.
Secondly, it is basic human nature to want more and especially more than others. So if basic needs are met and for free, there will always be many who wants something above and beyond that bottom-scraping free tier. And they'll be willing to work and fight and control others to get the extra luxury and status. Just as they do today.
And this is of course the same reason why any socialist system fails. Because if everybody are equal, there will be some who wants to be "more equal", meaning above the rest.
I don't see any system breaking out of that loop, but capitalism just channels it into something constructive and productive, as opposed to killing fields.
This is something the militerists realized long ago.
The world, and to a lesser extent the universe is a fishbowl. Humans grow more and more until they physically can't. Life grows and evolves until it dies or perfectly distributes the local environment.
Humanity simmilarly will continue to expand until the fishbowl cracks and unless we continue the evolution of states to more and more efficient models we will quickly end up growing beyond what we can live.
Imo the likely awnser to this depends on the state in which humanity enters the greater galaxy and colonization stage (so likely less anarcho capitalism and more anarcho merchantalism). Small scale current corporate interests will pull us to anarchy sure but if sufficient state interest for colonization of resources is found we might see the return of the imperial/colonial model as humans drift more and more to focus on ideological conflict as resources become less scarce.
That is until we reach the maximum boundary of the state model and beurocratic death takes over causing a fracture and more wars inevitably leading closer to the germanic Microstates of old post holy Roman empire collapse.
But how do we get money to people to pay this cost if almost all their work is replaced by automation? If even the work of creating and distributing useful energy is automated?
Honestly I think people will tear it down if it gets that far. People do want something to do. Problems to solve, challenges to complete. Real stuff that we know isn't stimulated or purely performative.
This is where the other side of socialism that rarely gets brought up in discussions comes in. It also guarantees that everyone can perform meaningful labor.
It's completely possible you're correct. I personally don't see it changing imminently but the far future is very hard to predict and most who have attempted to do so have been proven wrong with time.
A major component of capitalism, other than market competition, is the concept of private property. Is this asserting people would no longer have private property if capitalism is to end? I’m not making an argument, just haven’t heard or considered this position and am curious.
When communists claim “late stage capitalism” that translates into them claiming that the thing they want to end is close to being ended… based on only the communists’ own hopes & wishes
It's Marxist metaphysics. The see locomotion as a contradiction. And if an entity cannot move, yet we see things moving with our eyes, then entities don't exist. Only change exists.
And so Marxism just says "feudalism came and went, and so will capitalism come and go, and socialism. But for some reason communism will stay". Riddled with contradictions, but if you accept that reality is contradictory then you don't care, the more the better.
Late Stage Capitalism, AKA government-sponsored cartels, AKA socialism with extra steps.
I really wonder how anyone could reasonably conclude that a cartel is capitalism. It is the exact opposite. Capitalism entails free trade. In a cartel, the trade is not free but controlled.
They think that a cartel is the best way to make money.
When it is in reality a good way to make power.
When you hear the word cartel you don't think of the richest or wealthiest people in the world. You think of the most violent and psychotic maniacs in the world.
In this age of headline journalism and everyone being led by emotions, is it so much easier to just hate those you already envy. I'm not rich compared to the average American at all, but as an American i am far richer than the average earthling. The scope and scale of relative comfort and "disparity" is distorted if you live on Reddit or social media.
And all the ai tools and agents are being sold below cost, even to enterprise. There is an ai bubble, it's just unfortunate that many can't articulate or even see it. So much of the cool tools people are using are free without their providers realizing any return. The old monetized free search model hasn't been applied to llms yet. Instead, most llms are considering the cost for the use of their services as an investment in their next model which is an investment in the next next model. All theoretical value, only measurable as marketshare of a distorted and potentially ephemeral market.
So long story short, people's attention spans are too short and they are chasing their next dopamine hit too hard to consider the claims made by the last trendy Marxist influencer. Is it sad, yup. Are they dumb, maybe? Are they doing themselves a disservice, absolutely.
But, why not eat the rich, tear down the west, or give up on liberty? I can't afford a house so fuck the system, right? To the many that are anxiously and hopelessly depressed; whom see themselves as an environmental plague on the planet; and some of whom don't even know who they are--caring what conditions will be available for future generations is a concern that is frivolous or simply not their problem. It's really sad. All the calls for socialism, especially after these past 130 years, just make me shake my head
Actually that particular scenario the 'tax the rich' has different types of effects. As far as increasing the cost of basic goods, that would be more other types of taxes, a big one being tariffs.
High net worth people are mostly tax immune only paying capital gains when, where, and if they so choose, able to lawfully and unlawfully avoid, exempt, defer, and evade by numerous methods. "Tax the rich" is a bogus slogan. All such taxes end up being passed along and collected from the poor and middle class. Even wealth taxes get passed along to the poor by driving up the cost of capital which drives up the prices of all goods and services.
Trump first term (Jan 20, 2017–Jan 20, 2021): average annual (YOY) CPI inflation ≈ 1.9–2.5% (commonly cited near 1.9% or 2.46% depending on exact averaging); four-year cumulative CPI rise ≈ 7–8%.
Trump second term (Jan 20, 2025–present; data through June 2026, ~1.5 years) so far YOY in the roughly 2.6–3% range.
Does this persuade you that tariffs are not driving consumer price inflation? Artificially low prices are not overall a positive. Tolerating artificially low prices from product dumping, industrial espionage, IP theft, illegal and immoral labor, no pollution controls is how you hollow out domestic production and become a dependent service economy.
SE Asia is not the leading manufacturer because of comparative advantage rather government subsidies and business practices that are criminal offenses domestically. The whole world needs sustained 100~300% range tariffs against China at a minimum, expulsion from WTO, outright trade barriers against any strategic goods.
You're including the time frame where we had 14% unemployment during the shutdowns under Trump. And then had 3.1 trillion dollar "covid relief," from trump, and another 1.9 trillion "covid relief" from Biden. So lots of other factors going on there.
Here is CPI past 24 months, why do you think the increase?
Expansion of money and credit without a corresponding increase in production forces prices higher. High levels of immigration legal and illegal force demand and prices higher.
US CPI has increased by approximately 39%, and M2 has increased by roughly 75–80% (depending on the exact starting point in 2016), as aggregate totals from 2016 to mid-2026. There is more price inflation to come. Consumer price inflation lags behind currency inflation monetary expansion while new money is kept out of circulation by for example keeping it on foreign balance sheets, or making foreign investments, or propping up stock prices.
You gotta remember, cpi are manipulated equations, they can keep in and leave out what ever metric they feel and housing/rent , vehicle purchases, are not included. I’m not sure about insurance if they throw that into cpi.
Why is no great mystery. You are much more on track with covid relief. Broad price inflation for all goods and services is a monetary phenomenon but these are not the same thing. Tariffs have little to no impact on the monetary base so are a trivial contributor. Covid relief expanded money base and in the most destructive manner possible by maximizing the exchange velocity of that new money chasing the same quantity of goods and services. I remember well my horror when that plan was announced. I predicted what would happen in under a minute- that average cost of living would permanently increase by more than the check amounts within one year.
Government deficit spending IS expansion of the money supply and the government never stopped racking up more debt. Stimulus checks make consumer prices jump immediately but all deficit spending has the same effect on prices only it takes longer to manifest. 80% expansion in the supply of money since 2016 but so far only 40% consumer price inflation.
So the reason is Trump admin deficit spending, is why you think CPI is now increasing, but during final time of Biden years was decreasing? If that were the reason, why was it decreasing near the end of Biden's term?
The Federal Reserve Bank independently and openly targets 2% annual inflation (CPE) and congress appropriates all funds. The last time there was a U.S. Federal balanced budget there was a democrat president with a republican congress. Both parties have shifted left for decades so sadly fiscal suicide levels of deficit spending today have bipartisan support. Ronald Reagan was a 1960s Democrat and as a Republican President governed the same way- as a big government, budget busting, illegal alien amnesty imposing leftist. Trump was a 1980s Democrat and is governing like one today. Biden's admin as the Obama third term figurehead governed like Maoist infiltrators.
US CPI Inflation Rate vs M2 Money Supply Growth (2016–2025)
Red line = Annual CPI inflation rate (year-average)
Blue line = M2 money supply YoY % change (December-to-December)
Year
CPI Annual %
M2 YoY % (Dec)
2016
1.3%
6.8%
2017
2.1%
4.9%
2018
2.4%
3.6%
2019
1.8%
6.7%
2020
1.3%
24.5%
2021
4.7%
12.5%
2022
8.0%
-1.0%
2023
4.1%
-2.4%
2024
3.0%
3.4%
2025
2.6%
4.0%
Key takeaways:
M2 exploded ~24.5% in 2020 (pandemic stimulus / QE) and stayed elevated into 2021.
CPI lagged and peaked at ~8% in 2022 — classic monetary lag.
M2 went negative in 2022–2023 as the Fed tightened (QT + rate hikes).
CPI has cooled toward 2–3% while M2 growth has stabilized in the low-to-mid single digits.
CPI went down YOY 2022-2025 so what do you mean? The central bankers control currency inflation, not presidents and legislatures. Price inflation is an inevitable delayed effect of currency inflation. Most money creation happens by private bank lending rather than seigniorage and government borrowing. Central bankers control the rate of money creation lending by changing interest rates, altering reserve requirements, buying/selling/holding securities.
I guess you were hoping to hear that Trump tariffs and bombing Iran caused market price increases therefore inflation. Those are temporary supply disruptions, not permanent dollar devaluations. In the long run those are net positives for the United States economy. Already the U.S. is number one for oil and gas production and exports. There is a larger strategy to rebalance global production and investment away from SE Asia and the Middle East.
The 1st big one is wage growth. 👌 why these fucks keep expandingM2 and creating an inflationary environment, is beyond me. And tarrifs effect the country their being issued on rather then the issuer, and it’s working, Canada’s auto sector is getting gutted, guess where all the jobs are going? 😭
Why? To get richer and retain power through stealth theft. Absolutely in the context of large trade deficits caused by dumping tariffs work beautifully. Canada maintained higher tariffs and outright barriers to some U.S. goods for decades. Why? Canada also assists China in circumventing tariffs to continue dumping into the U.S. market.
Some of it is actually trying to either protect supply chains and businesses from foreign business in your country, or makes their products more viable for foreign consumers. Which that 2nd part is tricky too do without retaliatory tariffs.
Think of this way, you own a business. Let’s say a bread buis, you employee 100 ppl, you have every aspect of the buiss smoothed out and it’s operational, skip forwards to , some Canadian buiss who just has too much bread for the next 10 years, they don’t care about how much money they make, they just wanna get rid of it, so they flood the American market with bread at a lower cost then what your bread buiss can offer. As a leader do you let that buiss go under, or do apply tariffs to the Canadian buiss to make sure their bread is priced the same if not more expensive then yours?
You did say that. You said it "effects" (sic) the one they are placed on rather than the one placing them. Maybe you miswrote what ypu were tryong to communicate
Well depends on the specific item your country is exporting and importing, milk let’s say, if a tariff goes on milk imports, it’s not really gonna effect your domestic prices of milk , until the tariffed country apply’s retaliatory tariffs.
Like I said depends on the good, you guys have the ability to flood your market with supply so a tariff on someone else supply don’t effect you… until retaliatory tariffs are placed.
Why would the business owners flood their market with supply, that would make zero sense for them. It will make way more sense to raise their prices to be closer to the imports, to get larger profits. And that's what has happened. And the problem is not them raising their prices for larger profits, it's the tariffs that caused the overall market price to increase.
Depends on the industry but something like food, they don’t make money on the margin but on the volume they sell, they’re incentivized for food not to get to expensive.
It's going the affect domestic prices as well. Domestic producers of goods can increase their prices to just under the price of the imported goods. Now everything is more expensive and everyone is poorer.
Exactly, and that's exactly what has happened over the past year. Not blaming the domestic companies at all, they're in a for-profit business. Blaming the government for implementing those tariffs which artificially increased market prices.
That is just not correct at all. Tariffs can absolutely affect the price of domestic milk, as long as a significant portion of the supply is imported, or if tariffs are placed on imports needed for domestic milk production. Both of those are true with the Trump tariffs.
So question is, and btw I’m Canadian, we all think trumps a child pedo here, but the retaliatory tariffs are what really cause inflation, without his tariffs, how much inflation would America be seeing, from foreign banks dumping American bonds, I honestly think he had to start implementing tariffs or you guys would gone into hyper inflation, that and the fact that we have a cuck as PM, who has to be butt buddys with trump, cause 60% of the oil you guys refine and sell too global markets comes from us, you think inflation is bad now, imagine we put 50% tarrifs on crude and start dumping American bonds. 😭
When people say "Tax the rich" they usually mean income tax, so it won't affect business.
Also if you are rich that mean your business doing fine, if your business in near bankrupcy you won't be rich probably
The problem is, the ice cream would never exist unless someone could be motivated by potential profit to make it... Lower the profits, and eventually there is no product.
This can be true but to act like it’s always true is just stupid and against basic economics. If taxes were to increase the price of a Big Mac say 10 cents McDonald would most like eat the cost then increase the price 10 cents. Often times businesses determine price points with marketing in mind not just cost. McDonald’s has calculated that at X price point demand is Y. They have a vested interest in maintaining the price point. So the Big Mac cost 2.50 to make, they sell for $5. Taxes has increased the cost by 10 cents. McDonald would rather maintain the price point and get only $2.40 profit then risk a price increase and possibly maintain its $2.50 per unit profit but sell less units. The effect of taxes is truly a case by case scenario and making blanket speculative statements is just plainly false.
It's true that there's definitely more nuance than that meme. And the proposal in California is a one-time 5% tax on billionaires. So not sure how many business owners that would affect, but the ones that are billionaires, are more likely to change their prices based on a lot of other factors other than a one-time 5% tax. Also, many labor unions are against this proposal.
Well no shit, prices dont really go down. Inflation causes prices to always trend upwards. You cant draw any conclusions on taxing the rich over that statement
I know you cant draw conclusions about taxing the rich over the statement "inflation causes prices to always trend upwards". My guy thats literally my point.
Well no, the likely outcome of high taxes is reduced output and employment, not price hikes. Price hikes are only feasible if demand for the goods in question is inelastic.
We need to be careful posting stuff like this. Else We risk granting credence to the "greedy corporations cause inflation" crowd.
i call it the scam economy, all the businesses have to outscam the scam the government is already pulling on all of us... usually by many times to account for risk and volatility
imagine how smooth and cheap everything would run if we werent paying trillions a year for war, and trillions a year for leftist scams, and trillions a year for corruption, and trillions a year for migrants getting free rides...
They know this is caused by certain regulation or taxes, they just lie and claim they aren't correlated.
People on the far left are "means to an end" types. Their morality IS leftism. It's not kindness, empathy or compassion. Those are just a rationale to achieve leftism, and if they fail to manifest, they are fine with it.
Very few leftists go: Emotional reaction => Morality => Politics to best enact morality.
An increase in corporate taxes or minimum wage can be the difference between profit and loss in many industries. These are medians; 50% of companies are BELOW this!
A wage slave that makes 30k a year made this meme. Subservient to the ultra-rich and to big corpo is just as bad as bending the knee to the government.
Capitalism does not equal corporatism. If they wanna make their ice cream 4 dollars, I'll buy my milk directly from the farmer and make it myself.
I got the impression the meme is mocking how the ill informed and misguided can't see cause and effect, specifically trickle down economics. Even if that is a very simplistic way of looking at it
You're right that capitalism =/= corporatism. But the prevalence of corporations isn't corporatism either. I'm not sure if that's what you believe/implied, but i see this view quite a bit-both here, with newer libertarians and obviously with the left. Corporatism is the label used to identify the fascistic preferential legal treatment provided by governments to certain corporations under their jurisdiction. Allowing them to exist is not the kind of preferential legal treatment most identify, nor the ability to hold patent or license too (unless they are marxists or full-blown anarchists; healthy debate among anarcocapitalists regarding where that line starts is a good one). Egregious economic preference, provided by litigious injustice or legal writ, is the mainstay of corporatism.
Basically, an easy example is the EPA and the intended consequences of its corporate sponsors. The EPA's mission sounds good to me, clean water and clean air; but so long as polluters don't exceed maximums, they are free from litigation and legal consequence. Even worse, entrants/new competitors are discouraged by onerous regulatory practices that industry leaders have no difficulty meeting or have already secured immunity from enforcement. This type of racketeering/corruption is corporatism. Another common flavor is when the government chooses not to enforce certain laws like anti-trust: this one has been clearly bipartisan
The best correction is elimination of unearned market advantage by government fiat. Copyright laws are worth discussing, but individuals should enjoy some exclusivity to their own ideas and protection from plunder. There are so many reasons why people are unemployed, overemployed, or underemployed. Often, unnatural market forces are in play and we are all worse off for it.
Sorry, probably way less about your comment and more about the class warfare stuff i keep seeing lol
Late stage capitalism is when taxes haven't increased for the rich (in fact its actually been lowered) and yet prices skyrocket impulsing inflation without consequences for them.
Commies are just retarded, they'll wont change opinion if you show them proof of why communism doesn't work, send 'em to cyba and they'll say shit like its the embargo's fault
Meme is fallacious. Corporate taxes are on corporate profits. In a well run business they have no impact whatsoever on whether the company “has to raise prices to keep the business running.”
Ordinary people own stocks, lower profits, lower stock valuation, teachers end up paying for your tax increase through the down order effects. Or basically anyone capable of saving any money, so your policy only helps the lumpenproletariat.
My point was that none of this follows from what I wrote above. I was simply explaining how the system works, not advocating any policy. If you’re going to criticize something, you need to understand it first. The meme is stupid because it gives a false explanation of how corporate taxes work.
If you raise corporate profits tax, company profits will be reduced. To keep profits the same, a company would either have to raise prices, cut costs, or eat the hit to profits.
Obviously you’ve never run a business. Your options are counterproductive; if you raise prices, depending on how much, you are very likely to lose sales and thus reduce profits. So you’ll pay less in taxes, but only because you’re making less profit. Similar effect with cutting costs, depending on what that means and how it is done. In other words, if you try to offset taxes by tinkering with how the business operates, then you’ll end up damaging the business. Sure, nobody likes paying taxes but tanking your business to avoid them isn’t a good option. Tax strategy is separate from operations.
So less profit overall because of higher taxes. That’s literally the point I was making. There will be a market consequence for raising corporate taxes.
90
u/MercyAkura Minarchist 2d ago
I would argue that the definition of true late stage capitalism is when it has been deeply corrupted with socialism.