The economics of a dying empire

[K-Dog]

The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx wrote, will be marked by developments that are intimately familiar. Unable to expand and generate profits at previous levels, the capitalist system will begin to consume the very structures that sustain it. In the name of austerity and government efficiency, it will prey upon the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty, while diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens.

As it has increasingly done, capitalism will relocate jobs—including both manufacturing and professional positions—to countries with cheap pools of labor. Industries will mechanize their workplaces, triggering an economic assault not only on the working class but also on the middle class—the bulwark of a capitalist society. This assault will at first be masked by the imposition of massive personal debt as incomes decline or remain stagnant.

Politics in the late stages of capitalism will become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real ideological content and objectively subservient to the dictates of corporations and oligarchs. But as Marx warned, there is a limit to an economy built on the scaffolding of debt expansion. There comes a moment, he cautioned, when no new markets are available and no new pools of people can take on more debt.

Capitalism will then turn on the so-called free market itself, along with the values and traditions it claims to defend. In its final stages, it will pillage the systems and structures that once made capitalism possible. As it causes widespread suffering, it will resort to harsher forms of oppression in a frantic last stand to maintain profits. It will loot and cannibalize state institutions, contradicting its own stated principles.

The final stages of capitalism, as Marx understood, are not capitalism at all. Corporations will devour government expenditures—taxpayer money—like pigs at a trough. Then, inevitably, the system crashes.  -- Chris Hedges


To summarize:  Capitalism reaches a point where job markets stagnate and demand for debt contracts, leading to austerity that harms the working class. Politicians and political parties become subservient to corporate interests.

In a frantic attempt to preserve profits, corporations loot state institutions.  Capitalism undermines the values and traditions it once purported to uphold.  Capitalism's final stage becomes cannibalistic. A willful undermining of institutions that once supported it become its death throes.

If deep and meaningful social changes are not made soon, poverty will consume all.

[TDoS]

If deep and meaningful social changes are not made soon, poverty will consume all.

Well,, undoubtedly some more than others. Folks like RE are good to go, being wards of the state, and high net worth individuals will undoubtedly last longer. Plus, with the concentration of geriatrics around here, we don't have much time left regardless. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow (or next year or yet ANOTHER quarter century of waiting for some doom or another) something will bad will happen to someone else younger than us!

[RE]

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow (or next year or yet ANOTHER quarter century of waiting for some doom or another) something will bad will happen to someone else younger than us!

Absence of empathy in posting is too Elon Musk to be acceptable posting etiquette.  Cooler.

RE

[TDoS]

Absence of empathy in posting is too Elon Musk to be acceptable posting etiquette.  Cooler.

RE

So now we have ETIQUETTE rules. How interesting! Tell me, is gloating about the coming doom, a common thought thread around here when people discuss breaking out the popcorn to watch the hoped for destruction of livelihoods and economies and shattered human lives, any different than the part and parcel of this claimed Elon Musk insensitivity as well? 

Or did mentioning a specific user in the part you DIDN'T quote play a part?

[RE]

Tell me, is gloating about the coming doom, a common thought thread around here when people discuss breaking out the popcorn to watch the hoped for destruction of livelihoods and economies and shattered human lives, any different than the part and parcel of this claimed Elon Musk insensitivity as well? 

Significantly different.  We break out the popcorn when Eternal Justice is served.  You know, Luigi for example.  Children as yet unborn are innocent, Hospital CEOs are GUILTY.

RE

[TDoS]

Tell me, is gloating about the coming doom, a common thought thread around here when people discuss breaking out the popcorn to watch the hoped for destruction of livelihoods and economies and shattered human lives, any different than the part and parcel of this claimed Elon Musk insensitivity as well? 

Significantly different.  We break out the popcorn when Eternal Justice is served.

Define "eternal justice". Because that caveat isn't used when previewing doom and collapse for everyone, not just the rich folks you or K-Dog might despise. So single moms who lose their jobs, can't afford fuel for the family cage to get to work, that is justice served is it? Even high net worth individuals like K-Dog who appears to feel cramped over the cost of his coffee and breakfast on his way to work, you figure we should be yucking it up as he gets his dose of eternal justice?

You know, Luigi for example.  Children as yet unborn are innocent, Hospital CEOs are GUILTY.
RE

And high networth individuals like K-Dog? What is he guilty of that we get to cheer on his financial inconveniences? You figure a more crashing economy making his basic sustenance more expensive is something we should cheerlead? Because small increases in his costs will bug him more than a hospital CEO. You think his $20G heat pump costing him $40G instead is something we want to cheer on?

[RE]

Whether it's the single mom or Kdog, we don't celebrate their loss of jobs or access to cheap Chinese heat pumps, we celebrate the end of a destructive system and exploitation of workers.   We're not celebrating the concept that other people will have to suffer after we are safely dead.

RE