What Does Really Late Stage Capitalism Look Like?
Late stage capitalism is a term we hear often these days. We’re apparently in it, and it’s different than the capitalism of a hundred years ago. Originally, capitalism didn’t have brands, built-in obsolescence, social media influencers, and fast fashion. Our capitalism is not the capitalism of Adam Smith. So if capitalism has changed so much in a hundred years, will it keep on changing? What will it look like a hundred years from now? In other words, what will really late stage capitalism look like?
To answer this question, it helps to review how it started, and how it has changed so far. Capitalism in the 1800’s was a much more utilitarian affair. Advertising existed to inform people of the nature of the product. You need soap? Well here’s some soap that will last a hundred washes, won’t hurt your hands, and is available right here for a great price. Corporations existed but rarely interacted with individuals. A person bought their groceries at a locally owned store, got their medications from a local doctor, and handled all their finances within their family. Media meant just talking to your neighbor, or perhaps reading the local newspaper. In 1899 Thorstein Veblen proposed that some goods were purchased not to be useful, but to make us look better than our neighbors. This notion of conspicuous consumption was pretty revolutionary at the time but is now widely believed to be correct, and these goods are now known as Veblen goods. This gives us a hint of the changes to come.
Fast forward to today and capitalism is almost unrecognizable. Advertising is a highly sophisticated endeavor and is focused not on informing consumers, but on creating a brand. You need soap? Well here’s forty seven brands of soap, with a host of (unproven) health benefits, each aimed at a particular social demographic, including one that claims it’s better because it’s not soap. Fashion has expanded to include not just clothing, but automobiles, electronics, home furnishings and even food. People renovate their homes not because the rooms no longer provide comfort, but because they look tired, or out of date. Built-in obsolescence has become the norm. Manufacturers no longer advertise products as being rugged and long-lasting, because they know consumers will replace them before they have worn out. Manufactured goods need only last a few years. Veblen goods occupy a larger portion of our purchases today. A major supermarket in New York is currently selling something called limited edition blueberries. It’s not clear what they are, since they just look like regular blueberries, but they are clearly aimed at consumers seeking status even with the fruits they buy.
Consumers interact many times a day with corporations. Often this interaction is with machines instead of other humans. These machines, better known as laptops, phones, self checkout machines, etc. are the preferred “front-ends” of corporations, which are eager to engage us for as many hours a day as possible. Toddlers spend hours a day interacting with screens, as they are groomed to be perfect consumers. Finance is run by corporations, which offer a dizzying array of products that would have been incomprehensible to anyone from the early days of capitalism. You can’t just buy something — you must “earn” points when you buy it, so you can buy something else with your points. In other words, the actual act of purchasing has been commodified. Corporations have had some stunning successes in this new form of capitalism, such as convincing people that water is actually a product, and must be purchased. If you play five sports, you’ll need five pairs of sneakers — you can’t possibly play tennis in basketball shoes. And you’ll also need a closet big enough to hold them all.
Let’s assume that all these trends continue for the next hundred years. What does life look like now? By this time, corporations have woven themselves into our everyday lives, and will be with us from the moment we wake up in the morning and from the day we are born. Corporations choose who we can have as friends, and who we should have sex with. Elon Musk’s dream of putting computer chips in our heads is now a reality. It helps paralyzed people walk, and allows us all to do lightning fast mental arithmetic. The first chips are very expensive, but you don’t have to pay anything. You just sign the end user agreement and it’s free. This agreement allows the company to access much of your mental activity, but that’s in the small print that you didn’t read. Now the corporation is in your brain. It will be in your body too of course — tiny machines coursing through your veins, measuring your glucose levels, and sending volumes of data to whichever company you sign up with. The machines are in your body, but you don’t own them. Advertising will take a giant leap forward once it can access all that data your brain chip is generating. There is no longer a distinction between advertising and the reality you see. The brain chip superimposes images on what your eyes see, like Google glass on steroids. Product placement has been taken to its ultimate end.
Corporations have also succeeded in making almost everything a product — commodification to an extreme. Just as they convinced you to buy water so many years ago, they have now convinced you that you need to buy air. Only the poor breathe that horrible free air. The rest have clean, sterile air pumped into their homes for a reasonable monthly fee. Conversations between family members are now considered transactions, and each member can earn points for smooth, helpful interactions. These points can then be used to buy additional goods. A private company takes a small commission of course.
Built-in obsolescence has reached its obvious conclusion. Disposable clothing is now the norm. Why wash clothes when it’s easier to have a box of new clothes delivered every week? The styles will be changing constantly of course, and you’ll need to spend a great deal to ensure you are in fashion. Automobiles are also now fashion accessories. Most people have several. Driving your work car to a weekend get-together is a faux pas, and the car you take when you go out for dinner can’t possibly be the same one you use when you’re running errands around town. A large portion of the goods you buy are Veblen goods, intended to convey or affirm your status in society. After all, machines now produce almost everything, so you could live without working at all. But that’s not how capitalism works. Any economist will tell you that the three factors of production are land, labor and capital. Without labor, the equations don’t make a lot of sense.
The future described above is perhaps too pessimistic. Many things are, and will be, fantastic. Advances in medicine will have made many diseases obsolete. Cars and other kinds of machinery will be extremely safe, and we will have endless amounts of basic goods. But other developments sound dystopian. It’s important to realize that these developments are simply capitalism at work. There is no overlord in this future. There is no army watching you and forcing you to obey the rules. This future is simply the result of corporations competing to fulfill (and manipulate) your desires, with ever more sophisticated technology. Most of us will still be working full-time in this future, even though there will be enough wealth so we wouldn’t have to work at all if society were arranged differently. Robots will manufacture almost everything, and also distribute it, and even clean up all the mess. But capitalism doesn’t seem to allow for shorter working hours. There was a drop in working hours in the 1900’s, but then working hours increased. It now takes two working parents to raise a family, something that was easily done with one many years ago.
The final question of course is does it have to be this way. Can we change capitalism so we get more of the good stuff, and less of the dystopian stuff? This is complicated. Capitalism works within a framework of laws. Property law is needed so people have an incentive to develop and profit from their own property. Patent law exists as an extension of this. Contract law is also needed, for obvious reasons. Other more contentious laws also exist in most capitalist societies, such as laws prohibiting advertising to children, and requiring ingredients to be listed on food products. But it’s not clear how we would enact laws to curtail the changes outlined above. How do we stop endless commodification? How do we stop corporations from burrowing their way deep into our private lives? The exact changes needed are left as an exercise for the reader. But let’s hurry! The future isn’t going to wait.
