"Capitalism isn't bad, it's just late-stage capitalism that sucks"

Even if it was true, it's funny because of course the late stage of something comes after and from the early stage of it.

This is also just a labor imperialist perspective. They yearn for the time a few decades ago with stronger unions and slightly less domestic exploitation in the imperial core, they don't care about the exploitation of the global south.

That sliver of a few decades between, on the one hand, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and brutal industrial labor including children; and on the other hand, the current “late-stage capitalism” involving debt traps and monopoly —

Those few decades were enough to convince liberals of the “true” benevolent nature of this system. Just don’t look outside of your own immediate circumstances, nor read history; that might ruin the illusion. Don’t even ask your parents what their own life was like during this fabled golden age.

The capitalism that works is always conveniently outside living memory (or in childhood nostalgia - yeah that time you didn't know what rent is was the best period of human history, no shit)

Late stage capitalism has those things too, just outsourced from the imperial core and periphery to the developing world.

Capitalism like: I used to be bad, still am, but I used to as well!

My favorite is "we haven't had REAL capitalism for x years, it's all crony corporatism now". I actually got one of those comments this very week. LOL. Tell me you know absolutely NOTHING about anything in one sentence, plz.

I hate the term "late-stage capitalism" especially in common usage. It just dilutes the critique at this point

To call capitalism good but late-stage capitalism bad is like saying a kitten is good but a cat not. It makes no sense.

If you hear people talking like this irl, I would usually say 'you'd better fucking hope this is late-stage

Also, besides all that, what's the point in saying "well, it's 'just' late stage capitalism"? We don't really have the option of reverting to an earlier stage, do we? If you want capitalism, this is the capitalism you get, so trying to save the sterling reputation of what you imagine older versions to be like when you concede that this is their legacy seems silly.

Obviously this is not what I'd view as the most profound point one could make about the topic, but I think it might be easier for getting someone to think critically about their thought-terminating excuses.

Has any country successfully turned the clock back to an earlier economic condition or, like everything else, is the only option to not dwell on the past and push forward to something new?

Even taking that at face value it doesn't make sense. Capitalism necessarily leads to late stage capitalism. Therefore, even if you could RETVRN you'd just be kicking the can down the road. Which I guess is fine if you don't give a fuck about your grandkids.

very popular line in alt/youtube media, jeffrey sachs, yannis varoufakis, and so much more, ‘we need to return to the older good capitalism, just a few bad people in charge right now we have to replace and then we’ll get those nice high speed trains and everyone will be happy

Gee, it's weird how the good thing turns bad if you give it time, but if you want to replace it, people get mad and demand you just try to make it how it was before it turned bad and change nothing else

People who support capitalism the most know the least about how it works.

"It's corpoporprpomonopolopoocrorprism"