Somehow comments like these are left to stand, so here's a counterpoint.
Amazon has emerged as an oligarch that will be broken up like the Bell system, Standard Oil, rail monopolies, and others before it - provided it and other oligarchs haven't fully compromised the government who hosts it. If Amazon, and the other FAANGs operating predatory surveiilance bureaucracies continue to exist in their current form in 4-5 years, we will know for sure the US is irrepairably compromised and once again, a generation will need to reckon with whether their self determination and survival is worth accepting sacrifices for.
Late stage capitalism is indeed dystopian, but if we call it early stage socialism somehow we're conspiracy theorists. The failure mode of the principled civilization created by the founders of the US reverts to the eurasian continential cultures and systems its citizens escaped. Those were pretty brutal, so much so that their own colonists revolted against them and achieved independence, and that's why american values are important to teach.
Every human endeavour fails without maintenance and upkeep. Being on the side of the forces of failure isn't the right side of history, it's forfeiting your humanity to the currents of inevitability.
If we're going to let tedious, low-effort tropes about "capitalism" stand, consider this one rebutted.
>if we call [late stage capitalism] early stage socialism somehow we're conspiracy theorists
sounds good to me. over time the world's wealth accumulates with the already wealthy. this makes sense, it's much easier to make money if you already have money. under the current system, inequality inexorably, unsustainably grows
last time we were here it took a pandemic, a massive depression and two world wars for serious change to occur. and even then it only lasted 30 years or so, until the Thatchers and Reagans rolled it all back. and here we are now. late stage capitalism once again. what will be the final domino before change this time? nuclear war? some kind of AI disaster? hyperinflation? Covid clearly wasn't enough.
it seems like kind of the people that would typically be concerning themselves with this kind of societal correction have been successfully distracted by bullshit culture wars
Amazon has emerged as an oligarch that will be broken up like the Bell system, Standard Oil, rail monopolies, and others before it - provided it and other oligarchs haven't fully compromised the government who hosts it. If Amazon, and the other FAANGs operating predatory surveiilance bureaucracies continue to exist in their current form in 4-5 years, we will know for sure the US is irrepairably compromised and once again, a generation will need to reckon with whether their self determination and survival is worth accepting sacrifices for.
Late stage capitalism is indeed dystopian, but if we call it early stage socialism somehow we're conspiracy theorists. The failure mode of the principled civilization created by the founders of the US reverts to the eurasian continential cultures and systems its citizens escaped. Those were pretty brutal, so much so that their own colonists revolted against them and achieved independence, and that's why american values are important to teach.
Every human endeavour fails without maintenance and upkeep. Being on the side of the forces of failure isn't the right side of history, it's forfeiting your humanity to the currents of inevitability.
If we're going to let tedious, low-effort tropes about "capitalism" stand, consider this one rebutted.