This less famously led to the saying 'The problem with conservatism is you eventually run out of other peoples stuff to sell'
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Late Stage Capitalism
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You eventually run out of people. People to work in your factories and to consume the products those factories make. If you don't pay a wage people can live on and the people who are working can't consume things then you don't really have an economy except for the military/security apparatus that's required to keep people from revolting. The end result of unchecked wealth and power is an autocracy and those end up failing economically in comparison to democracies. I like the analogy of a black hole. At a certain point too much power is concentrated in the middle and the whole system collapses in on itself instead of shining brightly as a star.
AI will solve all of that for a fraction of the cost!
/S
There recently was an article in The Street about multinationals complaining about people not having enough money to spend on their products.
So basically, Capitalism is running out of peoples money right now.
Thatcher said that with 0 irony as she defunded public hospitals to get replaced by charity from rich child rapist Jimmy Sevile
Don't worry, Jim will fix it.
Damn bro we spent all the billionaires money on public works and social security and now we don't have any more billionaires and everyone is better off. What fools we've been.
Isn't Capitalism just Socialism for billionaires?
Go back into the history of capitalism, and every "scare" that capitalists use to maintain the system as is, happens under capitalism. The irony being that most capitalists see the end results of their greed and project it onto other systems.
Every accusation is an admission.
Thatcher, like any capitalist dickhead, is a liar and malignant.
Was. Thankfully.
If you're English you can literaly go piss on her grave.
Sadly it's guarded and cameras
People tried, they got arrested
I vote that we create the Thatcher Urinary Fund to pay for the defense of people who go urinate on her grave.
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If a bunch of teens can speed run through Scientology buildings and Naruto run through area 51...
What I'm trying to say is I think it's a lack of motivation
Like, actual human guards? Wow, right down there on the worst job ever list. As far as crimes go, tried to piss on Thatchers grave is something to frame for posterity. Gonna guess someone got away with it, hence the guards (maybe bribeable?) but thanks for the reality check.
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Was, thankfully.
Well, we can just print more money! That's the solution for both capitalism and socialism, works every time.
Don't worry, the predatory bankers that are appointed to the Fed are surely looking out for our best interests, they would never, ever abuse their positions for the benefit of JP Morgan or anything like that, don't be silly
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Thatcher was being disingenuous because socialism involves "our money," in which everyone works together for mutual benefit. Capitalism can't function without other people's labor being exploited and under-compensated. I want my taxes to help pay for a portion of things I couldn't afford by myself and for it to benefit others because then I'm not being price gouged by others who are only demanding more because more is being demanded of them by the greediest among us.
It's so funny, because only one of those two systems is designed to invest back into itself. The other is a zero sum siphon that perfectly embodies what she described.
Exactly. When I thought of it (not in the shower lol), I was like waiiiiit.....
Neoliberalism has destroyed demand. At long last it's finally done. Now they are complaining about China's overcapacity.
China is bringing the developing countries into the 21st Century with it, something that the West refused to do while they had the chance. So it's not overcapacity, it's just that the West isn't the exclusive consumer.
a thatcher thread? obligatory only queen i recognise video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUlj48Rvp1c
The people that say this live in a country that's $40t in debt
That famously American Margaret Thatcher
Yes, distant cousin to the american patriot Marie Antoinette
It's happening everywhere, even if Americans seem to believe only America exists lol
$40t in debt
In debt to whom?
It's something of a joke to talk about credit expansion in a closed economic loop. Especially when the loop tightens and you end up with...
If I owe you a million dollars and you owe me a million dollars dollars, are we collectively $2M in debt?
We're entirely too zeroed in on the fictitious credit balances and totally divorced from real material conditions. How many labor hours are we spending? How much of our fossil fuel energy reserve have we committed? What is the growth/contraction rate of potable water and arable land?
I don't really give a shit about $40T in IOUs. I care about the actual managed decline of the capital stock. The actual number of skilled laborers in a given profession. The long-term burn-down of natural resources relative to our ability to conserve, recycle, and reproduce them.
You're right to highlight the decline of tangible assets like skilled labor, value chains and natural resources, but I think you're conflating the circular borrowing (and spending) between tech companies with the US Government's ability to pay back their debts. The tech companies are using circular relationships to inflate their nominal revenue, but the US government actually owes money in a linear fashion. (And as you pointed out, the government has destroyed much of its domestic production capacity for the long term, with energy perhaps being the most worrying resource to have been squandered).
The biggest problem is that the interest on the public debt adds about $1T per year, which means that 19% of all federal revenue (or 39% of individual income taxes) is needed just to pay off the interest.
It is true that the Government could just essentially print money to wipe out their debts to domestic lenders, and that's roughly 3/4 of the money that the government owes. But that would lead to massive inflation, and it leaves approximately $10T in foreign-held debt. Historically, the USA has been able to use the position of the USD as the global reserve currency to offload its inflation on the rest of the world (see how Europe stagnated after the 2008 subprime mortgage crash in the USA, or for that matter look at Japan).
But the USD is now losing its position as the reserve currency. Foreign governments are selling off US treasuries. Foreign pension funds are selling off US stocks. The US is becoming increasingly isolated even to former close allies, and it is no longer seen as a safe place to park money. So if the government tries Quantitative Easing or any similar measure that has worked in the past, that inflation won't be readily absorbed by the US's allies, and it's the US public that will have their investments and pensions wiped.
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Yes, and that has already happened. That is why the richest have switched to the source of all money: The government.
why do you need money?
if money disappeared, the workers would still be there, the factories would still be there, there'd still be trucks and ships and oil and houses and crops and whatever else sustains our existence.
you'd think if humans were as smart as they claim they are they'd come up with a solution that doesn't involve paper and credit and oppression.
i think your average person would be totally willing to put in 20 hours a week pumping shit out of septic tanks if they spent the other hours chilling and just doing whatever.
As someone who puts in 40 hours a week in an office job that barely pays enough for me to get by... as long as that septic job pays well enough, sure I'd give it the old college try
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it's a symptom of consolidation of power.
"eventually you run out of other people"
Incidentally, this is why they are pushing so hard for robots/AI to do what they need. Capitalism/money is nothing more than a complicated and thinly veiled facade for the power to make people do what they don't want to do. It is NOTHING more than that
Spiderman pointing at spiderman dot jpeg
I mean, capitalists seem like they would be happy to just have slaves and all the nice things for themselves.
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Narcissists project
Yes, its about time the billionaires money was spent on socialism until it runs out.
A K shaped economy is a broken economy.
The top of that K is all the money that should have been spent in the middle and the bottom, but was hoarded instead.
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