Paystub from a US coal miner in 1942. Ends up owing his employer $1.84 ($35.76 in 2023) at the end of the pay period.
Paystub from a US coal miner in 1942. Ends up owing his employer $1.84 ($35.76 in 2023) at the end of the pay period.
What do we call this? Early stage capitalism? What the Western world is on track to return to? Forshadow capitalism?
This is when miners were paid in company currency and lived in company houses and shopped at a company store.
"I owe my soul to the company store" song comes to mind.
Grew up in an old union mining town that had some pretty violent strikes in the 1910s and 20s. Didn't realize it was still going on other places into the 1940s.
Set local minimum wage law to median rent prices. And watch landlords/NIMBYS and employers fight each other. That's the only way to dig out way out of this mess.
57"Haul ten tons, and what do you get? Another day older, and deeper in debt."
30"St Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store"
... That line still low-key blows my mind.
28
That has always bothered me about the term "late-stage capitalism." It makes it sound like the problems of today are unique to our stage in development and not intrinsic to capitalism itself.
To a lot of people, it seems like the issue is modernity and the solution is to return to a more prosperous past. Like when we had segregation, or limited suffrage, indentured servitude or (more) slavery...
26The term "late-stage capitalism" doesn't make it sound like it's not intrinsic to capitalism to me, it sounds like that's the inevitable result of capitalism. Thus it means it is intrinsic to capitalism.
6This reminds me of the "toxic masculinity" discourse. Some people say that the term means that masculinity itself is toxic. Other people say that masculinity is fine, it's toxic masculinity that's the problem, hence the qualifier.
I've seen people use the term late-stage capitalism to advocate for like, Bush era politics so I don't think we're getting the right message across.
11
I never thought of it that way, that's a good point
2
I mean, if that’s late stage capitalism what do we have 80 years later? Later stage capitalism? Are people paying the company store like this today?
16Directly visible and throwing you into debt? No.
But the surplus value you create and that you do not get goes somewhere, and that is not only funding your bosses business but also his yacht :^)
25Worse, central bank issued digital money. https://www.reuters.com/technology/limited-support-central-bank-digital-currencies-global-investment-industry-2023-07-26/
Not behaving? Can’t buy or sell anymore. Reached your carbon limit for this month? Can’t pay for that steak anymore, buy some soy beans instead.
-19
This is still late-stage capitalism. Capitalism has persisted in opposition to effectively all Human well-being for centuries, since at-least the 1700s. So, it was still very much Late-Stage Capitalism in the 1940s. That we have yet to put this vile system out of all our misery yet doesn't modify which stage it's been stuck in for X period of time.
Further it's been Imperialism in the Colonial or Neo-Colonial style for how long now? Four centuries? Five?
14If you've never seen Deadwood, it's a rather interesting portrayal of the efforts to keep Deadwood from becoming a company town (among other things).
10It's giving The Outer Worlds' Spacer's Choice 😬 if you know you know...
6It looks like they had a balance of $83 at the beginning of the week. They probably had to buy their equipment the previous period along with furniture and shit. I'm sure they paid very inflated prices for all of it. That is all bullshit of course but they are not going to be in debt the next week.
It's kind of fucked that they were charged a burial fund. If they died in the mines, the mine owner would tell their family to fuck off and pay.
-5Early capitalism was a couple thousand years ago, back when they burned down the library of Alexandria. This was just bullshit exploitation.
-23capitalism has only existed for a few centuries
33You're totally right, I should've articulated that the culture/practice of putting capital above all else, started a long time ago, replacing the practice of lauding goods and the production of goods.
3
Didn't capitalism start 300-400 years ago? If I remember correctly, capitalism was born of the imperial nations of Europe (primarily Great Britain, France, and Spain), as private capital, now unrestricted from the guilds as under feudalism, expanded for increased control of their respective markets.
The United States, started only slightly after the major imperial powers of its day. In addition, it's geography blessed it with weak neighbors to the north and south, and fish to the east and west, allowing it to develop almost entirely unhindered from the risk of war destroying it's means of production. Furthermore, property rights were enshrined in its very constitution from start due to its status as one of the world's first a bourgeois democracies (widely believed to be the ideal circumstances for the development of capitalism). As such, the United States had one of the most mature capitalist economies in the world by this point. Even at this point it's form of capitalism is probably more mature than many capitalist nations in the third world are currently.
In all likelihood, the course of capitalism in the United States was reversed somewhat by a combination of anti-monopolistic legislation, an end to its pre-worldwar isolationist policies, and the introduction of new markets in the world economy due to need for many nations to rebuild after World War Two. As such, I think it reasonable to call this a consequence of a 1940s late stage capitalist economy.
Please note: The United States did not start out spanning the entire continent, but rather got their though roughly a century of brutal westward expansion and genocide. I apologize for my omission of this information.
23Firstly, yes capitalism has only been around for circa 400 years, because the emergence of capitalism and eventual adoption as the dominant mode of production was only made possible by colonialism and the influx of looted wealth and access to far off markets and slave labor that colonialism unlocked. Without colonialism and slavery, the primitive accumulation that was required for capitalism to take hold would not have been possible. Once you understand this you see that it is also the case that capitalism today could not sustain itself without imperialism and neo-colonialism.
Secondly, the US did not start out with oceans to both the east and west, it started out with only an ocean to the east. To get to the other one it had to wage a century of brutal genocidal wars against the native inhabitants of the majority of the continent, as well as against other European colonial powers and colonial states like Mexico. The US as it exists today was established through constant war, theft, broken treaties and the murder of untold millions. It was not so much luck as the fact that from its very inception it was a uniquely murderous society that had no limits whatsoever in what it was willing to do to fulfill its expansionist goals with almost messianic fervor.
The same mentality still drives its imperial policy today and it acts with the same total lack of respect for any agreements made with anyone else, whether ally or enemy. From the very beginning it has viewed the willingness of others to enter into treaties with it as a weakness to be exploited at the first opportunity. Unfortunately too many peoples have made the mistake of assuming that just because they were acting in good faith and being rational that the US would do the same. It has taken the world a long time to understand that the US as a society is just collectively psychopathic and agreement-incapable.
15
