Late-Stage Capitalism?

The current matrix of capital accumulation is shifting, but what is coming? New terms abound – plutocratic plunder, political capitalism, techno-feudalism, techno-futurism, etc. Some see a new ‘habitation economy’ of post-industrialism in which the provisioning of non-standardized services replaces commodity production. Others foresee an unstable interregnum of increasingly authoritarian states fusing with far-right movements. The common imagery is of a capitalist class barricaded off in securitized enclaves from the disruptive storms of climate change and the anger of dislocated and hyper-stressed working classes.

It is important to untangle these contending themes and identify key social trends, contradictions, and longstanding as well as emerging social conflicts in this ‘late-stage capitalism’.  In what ways does the return of Donald Trump to the American presidency represent this  new phase of capitalism? How are these changes being registered in state economic apparatuses, in institutional powers, and in new economic and political practices? How is the uneven insertion of states into the US empire and world market being reproduced and challenged in terms of geopolitical and military primacy and through  trade wars redrawing economic zones? And where is the left scratching out new political spaces amidst the economic ruins? These are the many questions the essays  in this volume take on.