Capitalism—The Latest Stage*

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Abstract
A hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago capitalism was a fairly small system contained within a few nation states. Few ruling classes saw survival in terms of the accumulation of capital. Capitalism has never formed a closed system in practice. Wars and slumps have destroyed immense quantities of output, incorporating huge accumulations of value, and prevented the production of more. Capital experts have diverted and frozen other accumulations for long stretches of time. Imperialism in other words was a laterally expanding system. In principle, it could postpone unhealthy capital congestion only as long as the world was not more or less colonised, and no longer. The mechanism is essentially simple. Capital is taxed to sustain expenditure on arms and so deprived of resources that would otherwise go towards further investment. For capitalism in its latest phase is again creating the conditions for a convergence of working-class protest and revolutionary politics that could change the world.

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