@noelle it is late stage capitalism because the people who make things (the proletariat) can no longer afford a living, which is an unsustainable set of affairs for capitalism, which depends on the proletariat for its labour

in the past, capitalism has responded to this situation as follows:

- by inventing credit. this is really only a delaying strategy when the people who take out loans can't ever pay them back.

- by moving production to places with lower cost of living. they have run out of such places.

- by automating things. we are here, but even machinery needs to be maintained (and reducing the size of the workforce also reduces the dependency of people on capitalism (and increases their dependency on socialism) so this may not be viable).

- by finding a means of extracting value from people OTHER than asking them to pay prices they can't afford; for example, through ads or metrics. we are also here, but this can only go so far.