Marxist precursors Ever since the famous theoretical controversy between orthodox Marxists and revisionists in the 1890s, socialists have been discussing the decline, breakdown and collapse of bourgeois society. There were many attempts at theoretical and mathematical proofs of the decline and collapse of capitalism. There were also attempts to create a perspective on the nature of the epoch and the future of society, to guide political action. The Russian revolutionary
Vladimir Lenin famously declared in 1920 that there are no "absolutely hopeless situations" for capitalism; unless an anti-capitalist political revolution overthrows the rule of the
bourgeoisie, the capitalist system can always recover sooner or later. Lenin considered that the fate of capitalism was essentially a political issue: it depended on the outcome of class struggles. The leaders of the
Communist International (founded in 1919) believed that with the
First World War, a new world epoch of wars and revolutions had begun — the epoch of capitalist decline. The communists were not wrong, because there was hardly a year in the 20th century without wars somewhere on the planet, and there were two
world wars which drastically changed world society (see
Lists of wars in the 20th century and
List of revolutions and rebellions). The
Comintern programme defined
imperialism as the highest and final stage of capitalism. According to Lenin, The term "late capitalism" was generally not used by
Marxist-Leninists. They used the concept of
state monopoly capitalism (originally formulated by
Lenin) to denote the highest developmental stage of capitalism. Many non-Marxist historians and sociologists, however, have preferred more neutral terms, such as the "
late modern era" and in the third volume of
Der Moderne Kapitalismus (completed in 1926, published in 1927). The term also occurs in a 1928 publication of Sombart's text for a lecture on transformations in capitalism. Only the first volume of Sombart's three-volume
Modern capitalism — a very influential work in its time — has been translated into English so far. A comprehensive English introduction to
Modern capitalism was published in 1933. Sombart divided the history of capitalism into four main stages of development: •
Pre-capitalist economy (
vorkapitalistische Wirtschaft) from the early
Middle Ages up to 1500 AD, the subject of the first volume of
Modern capitalism (in two parts, published in 1902/1903, with four more editions in 1913–1941). •
Early capitalism (
Frühkapitalismus) from the 1500s to 1760, dealt with in the second volume (in two parts, published in 1906/1907, with another edition in 1913 and 1928). •
Advanced capitalism (
Hochkapitalismus) from 1760 to the beginning of
World War I in 1914, the subject of the third volume (in two parts, published in 1927, with another edition in 1932 and 1941). •
Late capitalism (
Spätkapitalismus) since then, referred to sporadically in the third volume and discussed in a few lectures and articles. In the introduction to the third volume of
Modern capitalism, Sombart remarks that he considered it one of his (modest) achievements, that his concepts of "early capitalism, high capitalism, late capitalism" had become "common knowledge" in scientific circles, and were accepted in ordinary language. In the last parts of the third volume of
Modern Capitalism, Sombart discussed recent new developments in different sectors of the capitalist economy (which Marx apparently had not foreseen), and he speculated about economic life in the future. But he remained cautious, and was reluctant to venture bold predictions (in later editions of the volumes of
Modern capitalism, he introduced revisions and alterations). Broadly speaking, he viewed late capitalism as an epoch of relative economic stagnation, characterized by bureaucratic regulation, some nationalized industries, and indicative macroeconomic planning. For Sombart, the visible signs of the end of high capitalism in the last years before 1914 included the end of the "purely naturalistic mode of existence of capitalism with normative ideas"; the dethronement of the pursuit of profit as the sole determining factor of economic behavior; the decline of economic dynamism and risktaking in economic development; the shift from free competition to industrial
cartels; and the statutory corporatization of enterprises. In his own approach, Sombart emphasized, it is always the "capitalist spirit" that shapes the historical epoch, including the economic era. A new epoch begins, when the capitalist spirit has undergone a transformation. In its heyday, Sombart explained, capitalism brought the merchant spirit to its "greatest bloom". The constant search for the best sales opportunities, the quick adaptation to daily changes in the markets, the titillating competition for customers — all these were essential traits of
Hochkapitalismus. The system of economic organization in advanced capitalism was a "fluid" one. By contrast, late capitalism is a "bureaucratized capitalism", in which the spirit of commerce has vanished. The demise of the commercial spirit is not the cause of the bureaucratization of capitalism, but rather its expression; it could only eventuate when conditions had become so stable, that buying and selling occurred without much real marketing effort. At that stage, a "rigid system" already existed, and this was "typical" of late capitalism. In
Modern Capitalism, Sombart did not present anything like a full-fledged, systematic synthesis of the emerging new capitalist order. That work still remained to be done. Concluding his 1928 Zürich lecture on the transformations of capitalism, Sombart stated: Other than a few articles and lectures, however, Sombart did not publish any comprehensive treatise on late capitalism. His thinking about the topic was disrupted in 1933 by the new Nazi government, when he was 70 years old (he died in 1941, when he was 78). Like many other leading German intellectuals, he wanted to survive as a scholar, and he hoped that
Hitler's leadership would revive Germany from almost two decades of war, economic woes, social decay and human misery. There exists no evidence that he ever became a card-carrying member of the Nazi party, but he did begin to espouse a new sociological theory of "German socialism" (in opposition to e.g. Jewish socialism and Marxism). In his new typology of different socialisms,
Nazism was the concrete expression of German socialism. Whatever his real motives were, Sombart rhetorically aligned himself with the Nazi movement, while saving the integrity and consistency of his own scholarly perspective and retaining his intellectual independence, as a respected emeritus. Because of his apparent Nazi sympathies in his last years and his sociological portrayals of
Jews and
Judaism in some of his writings, Sombart was often stereotyped as a "Nazi intellectual" and as
antisemitic. It meant that after World War II, his writings and ideas largely vanished from university curriculae. Only in the 1980s and 1990s did significant scholarly interest in Sombart's intellectual legacy begin to revive, with new appraisals of particular themes in his large oeuvre.
Interwar years and World War II In the
post–World War I reconstruction era, many of the wartime regulations in Europe continued, and the state played the leading role in repairing, rebuilding and reorganizing society. According to historian
Edward H. Carr, "In Europe after 1919, the planned economy... became the practice, if not the theory, of almost every state." This had a strong influence on how the post-war order was interpreted by social scientists. Addressing the Kiel congress of the German Social-Democratic Party in 1927,
Rudolf Hilferding claimed that: The term "late capitalism" began to be used by socialists in continental Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, in the context of the
Great Depression and
World War 2. At that time, it was not an especially radical turn of phrase, because many people of different political persuasions really believed that the existing social order was doomed, or was at least ripe for renewal and transformation. The European economy became highly regulated, and that reached a peak during the years of
war economy in 1939–45. During
World War II, even leading American economists believed that the economic problems might eventually become insurmountable. In their book
Capitalism since World War II, Philip Armstrong,
Andrew Glyn and John Harrison commented that: In his book
Capitalism, socialism and democracy (1943), Schumpeter also stated:
Post–World War II era In Russia, the
Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the (deepening) "general crisis of capitalism" in the imperialist epoch, and the theory of
state monopoly capitalism, defined the official government perspective for the postwar era. The historian
Paolo Spriano describes how this caused the dismissal of one of Russia's top economists, after he dared to suggest that there would not be a deep capitalist crisis after the end of World War II: In the West, there had been similar expectations (across the whole political spectrum) that a severe systemic crisis would very likely occur after the war. When that did not happen, it was a surprise and a relief. However, what exactly could explain this turn of events is open to debate. Different theories about the success of the postwar reconstruction effort have been proposed. One of the big
geopolitical changes during and after
World War 2 was the
decolonization of many former colonies, often spearheaded by
national liberation movements. To many observers, this trend signalled the end of the "classical" era of capitalist imperialism, and the start of a new global epoch, or at least a qualitative change in the global balance of power and the global states system. The socialist bloc of countries led by the
Soviet Union and the
People's Republic of China seemed to be gaining ground, suggesting that on a world scale, capitalism really was in decline. The capitalism emerging from post-war reconstruction appeared to many analysts as a
new type of capitalism, even although some of its traditional characteristics remained the same. This raised the question, "if capitalism had changed, how much did it change, and what was different or new about it? What are the political implications?". Particularly after the death of
Joseph Stalin and the "
thaw" of the official communist movement, this issue became a hot topic of debate at many leftwing conferences and in many books. The controversy continued in numerous journals, including
Monthly Review and
New Left Review. According to professors Michael Charles Howard and John Edward King, The concept of "late capitalism" was used in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in Europe by Western Marxists, socialists and other leftwing thinkers. Some examples can be mentioned to illustrate their concerns: • In 1965, Fritz Vilmar published
Rüstung und Abrüstung im Spätkapitalismus ["Armament and Disarmament in Late Capitalism"]. • Leo Michielsen and
Andre Gorz popularized the term "
neo-capitalism" in France and Belgium, with new analyses of postwar capitalism. • In 1968,
Rudi Dutschke, a leading spokesman of the German student revolt, published a pamphlet entitled "The contradictions of late capitalism, the anti-authoritarian students and their relationship to the third world." •
Theodor Adorno preferred "late capitalism" over "industrial society," which was the theme of the 16th Congress of German Sociologists in 1968. • In 1971,
Leo Kofler published a book called
Technologische Rationalität im Spätkapitalismus ("Technological Rationality in Late Capitalism"). •
Claus Offe published his essay "Spätkapitalismus – Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung" ("Late Capitalism—an Attempt at a Conceptual Definition") in 1972. • In 1972,
Alfred Sohn-Rethel published
Die ökonomische Doppelnatur des Spätkapitalismus. • In 1973,
Jürgen Habermas published his
Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus (Legitimacy problems in late capitalism). • In 1975,
Ernest Mandel published his 1972 PhD thesis
Late Capitalism in English at
New Left Books. • In 1979, Volker Ronge published
Bankpolitik im Spätkapitalismus: politische Selbstverwaltung des Kapitals?, a study of banking in late capitalism. • In 1980,
Herbert Marcuse also accepted the term in his reflections about the future of capitalism and socialism. • In 1981, Winfried Wolf and Michel Capron extended Mandel's analysis of the long recession in
Spätkapitalismus in den achtziger Jahren. •
Jacques Derrida preferred
neo-capitalism to
post- or
late-capitalism. From the mid-1970s to the 1980s, the use of the concept of late capitalism spread to English-speaking countries.
Ernest Mandel's perspective When Ernest Mandel adopted the term "late capitalism", he had in mind the perspectives of
Lenin,
Trotsky and the
Communist International about the 20th century. The theoretical framework was, that the world-historical epoch of capitalist decline began with World War 1 (or even earlier, with the
uprising in St Petersburg in 1905). Mandel regarded "late capitalism" as a new historical stage
within the epoch of capitalist imperialism; contrary to expectations in the interwar years, the labour movement suffered heavy defeats, and world capitalism had gained a new 'lease of life'. Mandel did not abandon Lenin's analysis of imperialism, but modified it, in the light of the experience of the post-World War 2 reconstruction era, decolonization and the global political impact of
Stalinism and
Marxism-Leninism. So the term "late" in "late capitalism" referred to the unexpected and belated revival and "third age" of capitalism after
World War II, seemingly contradicting the orthodox Leninist theory of capitalist decline. Mandel aimed specifically to explain the long economic boom during 1947–73, which showed the fastest economic growth ever seen in human history. His analyses stimulated new interest in the theory of
long waves in economic development. The chapters for his book
Late capitalism were put together quite rapidly, using earlier draft texts and reading notes as well as lecture notes written when Mandel was visiting lecturer in Berlin in 1970/71. Obtaining a Phd degree was crucial for Mandel (in his late 40s) to secure a permanent academic position. In 1970, the professors Jan Craeybeckx (1923-2011) and
Marcel Liebman (1929-1986) helped Mandel get a lectureship at the Free University of Brussels. Mandel obtained a professorship there in 1986, after publishing more than a dozen books and many articles, and he stayed there until retirement and as emeritus. According to
Ernest Mandel, late capitalism involves the
commodification and
industrialisation of more and more parts of the economy and society, where human services are turned into commercial products. Mandel believed that "[f]ar from representing a 'post-industrial society', late capitalism [...] constitutes
generalized universal industrialization for the first time in history". At the same time, the role of the state in the economy and society kept growing. During and after World War II, the size of enterprises, ownership concentration and the scale of mass production increased, the activities of multinational corporations expanded, and there were more and more attempts at coordinated economic planning (or "economic programming") for huge capital investments. Until the late 1960s, Mandel preferred to use the term "neo-capitalism", which was most often used by leftwing intellectuals in Belgium and France at that time. This idea drew attention to the fact that new characteristics of capitalism had emerged in its postwar recovery. At the time, however, ultraleftist Marxists objected to the term "neo-capitalism", because, according to them, it might suggest that capitalism was no longer capitalism, and this would lead to reformist deviations rather than to the total overthrow of capitalism. The proof of this seemed to be that Mandel argued—at the zenith of the capitalist postwar boom—for "anti-capitalist structural reforms". Mandel distinguished three main historical stages in the development of the
capitalist mode of production: •
Freely competitive capitalist production, roughly from 1700 to 1870, through the growth of industrial capital in national (domestic) markets, especially in Western Europe and North America. • The phase of
monopoly capitalism, roughly from 1870 to 1940 was characterized by the
imperialist competition for international markets, export of capital and the exploitation of
colonial territories. The world was carved up into spheres of influence, in which each great power had its own empire containing colonies, semi-colonies and dependent territories. • The epoch of
late capitalism emerging out of the
Second World War, which has as its dominant features the
multinational corporation,
globalization,
consumerism,
decolonization and increasingly internationalized financial markets. Characteristic of this epoch are corporate self-financing, a great expansion of foreign direct investment, and the formation of global systems regulating credit, currencies, commodities and capital assets. The French edition of Mandel's
Late Capitalism was titled
The third age of capitalism. In part, Mandel's analysis was a critique of
Henryk Grossmann's breakdown theory. According to Grossmann, capitalism would collapse after a series of business cycles, because of insufficient surplus value production. Mandel also criticized the methodological approach of
Rudolf Hilferding,
Rosa Luxemburg,
Nikolai Bukharin,
Otto Bauer,
Michal Kalecki, and
Charles Bettelheim. One of Mandel's aims was to revive interest in, and re-evaluate, the classical discussions in Marxian economics (savagely repressed in the Stalinist modernization era) in a new historical setting. He argued that important qualitative changes occurred in the functioning of the capitalist system during and after
World War II. Intermediate between the periodization of business cycles across two centuries and the (postulated) ultimate collapse of capitalism, Mandel argued, there were epochs of faster and slower economic growth. In the history of the capitalist mode of production since the 1820s, "long waves" of economic growth could be observed in
time series data on economic activity. These waves typically lasted about 20 to 25 years, from peak to trough or from trough to the next peak. During the ascending phase, cyclical upturns were typically stronger and downturns were weaker, while during the receding phase, the downturns were typically deeper and the upturns were weaker. However, Mandel did not accept the hypothesis of
Nikolai Kondratiev that there existed endogenously predetermined "long cycles" in the history of capitalism. Every capitalist boom ends with a fall of the average rate of profit, but there existed no enduring economic mechanism which "automatically" created an economic recovery after a severe economic depression; much depended on state policy decisions, and on the outcome of political battles between warring social classes and class fractions (the rise and fall of mass unemployment was not simply an automatic "mechanism" of the capitalist "engine", but influenced by political factors, labour disputes and specific business conditions). Rejecting the mechanistic
economic determinism of the ultra-leftist fundamentalist Marxists, Mandel preferred to characterize the long waves in capitalist development not in terms of mechanical cycles, but as "specific historical epochs" which had to be explained in their totality, with a
multi-causal framework. The
political significance of the economic long waves was that they shape the life-experiences of different generations, the lessons drawn from those experiences, and the patterns of workers' struggles — nationally and globally. Political thinking from the previous era, phase or conjuncture had to be readjusted to the current and future situations. When demand for labour was high, workers were generally in a strong position, but in times of mass unemployment, workers were generally in a weaker position. Ernest Mandel sometimes referred to a "class struggle cycle" alongside the ups and downs of economic activity. In a series of publications, Mandel analyzed the dynamics and results of the unexpected postwar boom, the long world recession of 1974 to 1982, the
debt crisis of developing countries, the 1987 stock crash and the long-term systemic crisis of late capitalism, as basis for his projections about the long-term prospects of world capitalism in the future. In the tradition of the
orthodox Marxists, Mandel tried to characterize the nature of the modern epoch as a whole, with reference to the main long-run laws of motion of capitalism specified by Marx. These laws of motion were: • The capitalist compulsion to
accumulate and invest for profit, under the pressure of business competition. • The tendency towards constant
technological revolutions, which increase
productivity. • The constant attempt to increase absolute and relative
surplus value. • The tendency toward increasing
concentration and centralization of capital. • The tendency for the
organic composition of capital to increase. • The tendency of the average profit rate on capital invested in industries to
decrease, in the long term. • The inevitability of
class struggle (or class conflicts) under capitalism. • The tendency of the
working class to grow in size and
social polarization to increase. • The tendency towards
growing objective socialization of labour. • The inevitability of
recurrent economic crises in capitalist society. Mandel thought that six basic variables were most important for the long-term global growth pattern of the capitalist mode of production and its average profitability: (i) the evolution of the general and sectoral
organic compositions of capital; (ii) the proportions of circulating and fixed capital in
constant capital; (iii) the evolution of the rate of
surplus value; (iv) the development of the rate of
accumulation, and more specifically the reinvestment of surplus value in production; (v) the development of the turnover of capital (speed, volume and type); and (vi) the interactions between the producer goods sector ("Department I") and the consumer goods sector ("Department II"). These six variables could to an extent fluctuate semi-independently of each other.
Fredric Jameson's interpretation In his book
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Fredric Jameson was partly inspired by Mandel's theory of late capitalism. Jameson's theory of
postmodernity portrays a new mode of cultural production (developments in literature, film, fine art, video, social theory, etc.) which differs markedly from the preceding era of
Modernism. In the
modernist cultural era (circa 1900-1960s), the dominant ideology was that society could be re-engineered on the basis of objective scientific and technical knowledge, and on the basis of a broad consensus about the meaning of progress. In the second half of the 20th century, however,
modernism was gradually eclipsed by
postmodernist culture. Postmodernist attitudes are skeptical about social engineering and lack consensus about the meaning of human progress. In the course of rapid technological and social change, all the old certainties and traditional forms of association began to break down. This also began to destabilize every part of life, making almost everything (from relationships, foods and job positions to accommodation, fashion, household appliances and political leaderships) malleable, changeable, transient and impermanent. Jameson argues that "every position on postmodernism today — whether apologia or stigmatization — is also...
necessarily an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today". A section of Jameson's analysis has been reproduced on the
Marxists Internet Archive. Jameson regards the late capitalist stage as a new and previously unparalleled development with a global reach—whether defined as a multinational or informational capitalism. At the same time, late capitalism diverges from Marx's prognosis for the final stage of capitalism.
Corey Robin's argument In a paywalled blog article published in June 2025 by
New Left Review on its website, the New York political scientist
Corey Robin directly commented on the issues dealt with in this Wikipedia article on late capitalism and by Francesco Boldizzoni. He argues that late capitalism is "an ambiguous term", because it could imply "the demise of something" but also "its refinement and advance". However, he claims that "late capitalism is not an idea that lends itself to revolution or a vision of progress. It may express a wish to be rid of capitalism. But mostly it works as a theory of turning points that never turn – or worse." In Robin's view, almost all of the theorists of late capitalism got it wrong (except perhaps that some hedged their bets sufficiently to save their own argument). Robin concludes: Analogous to
Marcel van der Linden,
Corey Robin feels that workers still have things to learn, to be able to assume their role in changing the course of history. In the
Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels commented in this sense that "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles... an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." However, Robin has nothing to say about the parasitism of late capitalism, and the role of the academic class in exploiting, discriminating and parasitizing the workers. Robin's approach to
social power contrasts with Marx's interpretation of historical processes and with Mandel's
parametric determinism (or "the dialectic of objective and subjective factors"). According to Marx, people do make their own history with their actions, but not in a void, not simply under self-selected social and material circumstances, but under given conditions inherited from the past. Marx reached the insight that "the educators have to be educated themselves", i.e. they have to become learners in order to understand properly what they are talking about. ==Other analyses of the epoch==