Communication

[Brad Mayer]

At 01:25 AM 8/15/01 -0400, you wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > When did capitalism enter its late phase? How do we know? How will we
> > know when it's over?
>
>That's my litcritter background showing again. Late capitalism is the
>English translation for Spaetkapitalismus, which Ernest Mandel famously
>defined as post-WW II consumer capitalism; it was meant to highlight the
>fact that it came after "high capitalism" (19th century) and "monopoly
>capitalism" (late 19th century to WW II).

And Mandel in particular should have known better than to put forward this 
(mis-) periodization,  but announcing the "new new thing" is a good way to 
promote a book, as we've seen of late ("Empire").

The thesis expressed in the title is a reaction to some of the more 
"catastophist" positions of Mandel's early political career in the 
immediate postwar ('45 - '48).  Since the "collapse" hadn't happened by the 
early '70's, a "new epoch", distinct from the interwar period, had to be 
announced.   This was preferable to a critical examination of what was 
wrong with postwar catastrophism in the first place.

"Monopoly capitalism" is, of course, a whole 'nother questionable ball of 
wax, either as periodization or as social analysis.

-Brad Mayer
>Nowadays, of course, it's pretty clear the Beast is multinational
>capitalism.
>
>- -- Dennis