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Whether late stage capitalism is something one could wish for is a good question, since there seems to be no non-traumatic way out of it. In my young adult years (let’s say late 1980s, early 1990s), I was a little (but only a little) inclined toward what would today be called “accelerationism.” I hadn’t yet heard the gospel of MMT, so I believed that some generation, sooner or later, would suffer the consequences of profligate state spending and public debt. In spite of my ignorance of MMT, I somehow sensed that an aggressive campaign to shrink public spending would almost certainly trigger a recession, but that not addressing the “problem” would somehow be worse. My thinking was, I’m young, at least somewhat “strong,” why not rip the bandage off all at once, get it over with, and if we’re exceptionally lucky, maybe come out of it with the political left not totally obliterated.

I take a decidedly dim view of cyclical models of history. My thinking on that is somewhat informed by David Brin’s excellent blog. David is fiercely critical of the Strauss and Howe “Fourth Turning” worldview, for example. The “soft men make for hard times” etc. meme that get flung around so much by the reactionary elements of the larger public, has what to me look like deeply fascist implications.

Granted, the “cycles” mentioned by The Arthurian concern a much longer arc of history, perhaps a whole millennium if he’s saying (as seems the case) that the end of capitalism will be the beginning of another Dark Ages. My sense of historical ebb and flow is admittedly more on the scale of one (or maybe two) human lifetimes, so the so-called post-war era (except of course for the extreme racism and sexism of that time) was sort of a golden age, and 1980-present (the post-Reagan era, as I call it) has been sort of a dark age, one that I may have referred to in jest a few times as late capitalism, but I’m not entirely convinced that late stage capitalism is something that will happen or maybe even can happen. As indicated, I believe (sincerely believe) that capitalism is a hardy weed, although unlike most people who proclaim that, I don’t see that as a good thing. As I see it, the post-Reagan era has been an era characterized by aggressive restructuring of the labor market (at least in the so-called first world) to replace gainful employment with contingent employment. When my age cohort (the largely invisible “generation X”) reached working age, Management’s agenda was drawing The Firm’s labor inputs as much as possible from either temp agency workers or part-time employees. By now, social expectations have eroded all the way to piecework pay scams (gig “economy”, “sharing” “economy,” whatever one would wish to call it.)

Since I believe capitalism to be a hardy weed, I’m not really a socialist in the strictest sense (well, my heart is, but my head isn’t, but that’s too long a discussion for here). I approve of social democracy, as I see it as a mirror image of Gorbachevism. If it can be achieved, it would be a sort of “capitalism with a friendly face,” and if nothing else a shred of dignity that the American public is so hungry for.

The cyclical history buffs referred to in the article see the upward arc of capitalism as an earlier, competitive form, followed by a decadent, monopolistic form. Is there a possibility of forestalling late capitalism and the subsequent Dark Age by getting aggressive on antitrust legislation or adjudication? As we speak, Kroger’s is going to acquire Albertson’s. In theory, it isn’t a done deal, but just as when it was T-Mobile and Sprint, we all know mergers are only ever a question not of if, but of when. Should we believe that if, by some miracle, the American System rediscovered antitrust, that capitalism could have a new lease on life? Or is late capitalism, the end of capitalism, and the start of the next Dark Age, like all proposed mergers under late capitalism, a matter of not if, but when?

While I’m opposed in principle to grand cycle narratives of history, I’m tempted to believe at least in a sort of “pendulum swing” model. 1932 to 1980 was 48 years. I want to believe that by 2028, perhaps Red America will get bitch slapped hard by majority public opinion, and America Herself will proceed to dismantle the House That Reagan Built, the deregulation, the union busting, the regressive taxation, the whole stinking mess, and rebuild the New Deal, hopefully minus the redlining and other compromises that had to be made with fundamentally evil people in the name of political feasibility.

I’m never quite sure who to believe when it comes to international matters, as that’s where the disinformation runs thickest, but I am sensing a pattern. The American right has been trending isolationist (NOT the same as dovish) in a way somewhat reminiscent of pre-WWII era. Both 🇷🇺 and 🇺🇦 seem to me to be socially conservative cultures and nationalistic countries, and I imagine someone like me would be unlikely to survive to adulthood in either, so I have a somewhat “a pox on both their houses” attitude, and it also seems hypocritical for a foreign policy critic of my vehemence to go hawkish now that I’m well past enlistment eligible age, but the spectre of history repeating itself is haunting.

Had you asked me 20 years ago I’d have said that economic power is a lesser evil than political power, and that bottom unity is a more appropriate strategy than left unity. America’s irrational and irresponsible reaction to “9/11” (Patriot Act, unitary executive doctrine, “total information awareness,” etc.) somewhat solidified that position. Since then, the level of concentration of informational power in the Silicon Valley part of the private sector has shocked me and scared me shitless, enough to flip-flop on that issue. I fear business far more than I do government. Not that political compass measures anything meaningful, but left unity all the way!

Mozilla is like the Democratic Party. This is of course a simile, not a speculation about Mozilla’s internal politics. I assume they’re very much a nonpolitical, let alone nonpartisan, organization. Perhaps for the brief period of time when Brendan Eich was their CEO, they were like the Republican Party. But the gist of it is this: Mozilla is for the open web, and for privacy, but it seems like every move they make is the exact opposite of what it would be if they actually believed in those things. So, Mozilla is like the Democratic Party. It’s the alternative you settle for, because the other choice(s?) is distilled ontological evil.

Cory Doctorow:

A country whose residents’ dignified retirement depends on house prices going up is a country whose government is committing to making shelter more expensive.

The Arthurian:

As for myself, I think it is sad that we still have to dwell on the evils of slavery. I think we need to focus today on the evils inherent in the idea that property is sacred. For if we do not cut short the concentration of wealth that arises because we honor the “property is sacred” principle, it will soon be too late to prevent the return of slavery on a massive scale.

Don Gisselbeck:

It will be darkly amusing if we end up with fascism because Americans are to stupid to figure out gas pricing.

Paradoctor:

The Pen is mightier than the Sword only if it is in alliance with the Coin.

Inflation is my least favorite subject mainly because counterinflationary policy is basically severe austerity. To the extent that it’s a tradeoff, I’d much rather live in a high inflation low unemployment economy (apparently the status quo) than the opposite. Obviously the supposedly liberal media want the exact opposite. They’re absolutely salivating at the prospect of an election cycle with inflation as the front burner issue. They report on inflation with relish.

There seems to be an assumption by many that electric vehicles will be subsidized, perhaps down to the upper middle class (in the American sense of that term), or maybe even the middle-middle class. Something tells me the hoopty class will never get a seat at the EV table. Our socio-economic tier is running on fumes as evidenced by the plethora of car-repair-financing scams advertised on over-the-air television. As the shills for that industry delight in pointing out, every car has a four-figure repair bill in its future, and DIY isn’t a thing any more. The repairability and other vendor-lock-in stories I’ve heard about electric vehicles suggest five-figure repair bills may be the new norm (albeit with better statistical reliability until the aggressively proprietary battery dies). My prediction would be that we the people of humble means will get gently ushered out of the larger society (into a largely homebound life), perhaps with a UBI as sort of a pacifier, before American society gets serious about mass transit.

Code I advocate is, businesses have a right to attempt to safeguard trade secrets, but hackers have a right to attempt to reverse engineer technologies. Reputable engineering careers, like reputable science careers, would be “publish or perish,” with more emphasis this time on perishment of research than that of researchers. “Legit research (AND development!) is published research” would be a good social norm. Otherwise society becomes a cargo cult.

Like anything pertaining to organized religion, it’s about social control. Within strict Catholic practice, the only way out of having kids is swearing to poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Emphasis on that last one, since cheap living has evolved into a life strategy, and family planning is a more exact science than ever before. If you have kids, your personal poverty line (now a family poverty line) goes up, and your latitude in taking jobs and shoving them goes down. As I’ve said before, the supply curve for labor has the steepest slope “at the water line,” or the line between solvency and non-solvency.

I’m not generally supportive of term limits for legislative office. Nobody’s forcing us to re-elect incumbents. Why limit our choices? Seniority in itself may in some cases be a contributor to some politicians’ lack of commitment to the public interest, but surely money is a much, much larger contributor. I worry that calls for term limits tend to work with, rather than against, the conservative idea that the public sector (which includes politicians) is the main problem. It is not.