Late Stage Exploitation

Efficiency. Productivity. Financial freedom. These are just some of the buzz-words related to the paradigm of late stage capitalism. And if you think that what we have now is not capitalism, if you think it's "corporatism," "crony capitalism" or "socialism for the rich," you've misunderstood what late stage capitalism is.

You see, capitalism has become so much more than just an economic system. It's much more than that; capitalism is an ideology. No, it's the ideology around which we've all organized our lifes. Like the fish, we're not consciously aware that it's the water we swim in. Capitalism has become an all-pervasive mindset that has inflicted the masses. A mindset in which every human interaction has become a transaction, everything is seen as a business and everything is quantified, measured and compared to everything else as to see where it fits in the ranking order of productive usefulness. We also rank ourselves and each other and our children, using our free time to gain new knowledge in order to climb up, and encouraging our children to choose an education that gives them the opportunity to not start at the absolute bottom of this capitalist social ladder. "You can paint in your free time, but learn a trade first!"

The ultimate proof of the complete pervasiveness of this mindset, is in the many self-help gurus, YouTube videos and books that promote hustle culture. Hustle culture, the "rise and grind" way of life, is the natural sibling of late stage capitalism, the perfect representation of the mindset needed for capitalism to thrive. Capitalism is not "free markets," a mistake too many people still make. Capitalism is instead defined by the private ownership of the means of production. Any capitalist workplace is therefore a mini-dictatorship, where workers have no voice and get paid a fraction of the worth they produce. This is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs of course for all involved, except the owners and the CEOs. Still there's very little opposition against this exploitative state of affairs. We know it's not right that some individuals can become multi billionaires while paying their workers sub-subsistence wages, but there's no public outcry against this injustice.

This is where the hustle mindset enters the picture. Many of the self-help gurus promote the idea of constant self-improvement, 80 hour work-weeks and skipping leisure time. They teach you how to think like a winner, how to cultivate a "CEO mindset." They will throw at you terms like "financial freedom" and urge you to "become your own boss." They want you to become a miniature capitalist. You seeing yourself as the CEO of your own business, and building your "personal brand." Don't complain about your boss, don't blame capitalism, don't whine about the workplace being run as a dictatorship. Instead become the boss, "become" the dictator. And that's how the religion of capitalism works anyway: we endure the unjust ranking order in the hope of becoming the top-dog in the order. It's how the gig-economy works; as an Uber driver you're your own boss, but you also have no benefits, no pension, no paid free time, and you make money for the capitalists who made the app you use. Everyone for themselves, everyone their own boss; it's the ultimate fragmentation of the capitalist ideology, a miniature version of the entire system in each individual. It is the ultimate form of social control, an exploitative system that promotes self-exploitation and calls it "self-help."

I'd very much like you all to watch the below linked video about this subject. It does a far better job than I can at explaining how we've become capitalism's perfect subjects and how we essentially have all become slaves to capital. I've often written about the destructive nature of the hustle mindset and new age self-help, but I've never seen a better summary and explanation of the phenomenon as in this video. So, please watch it; there's a lot of useful and eye-opening insights about the capitalist economy that's destroying society and the world.

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