Why "Late Capitalism" is not an historical term

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Anyone using this term assumes we are in the end stage of "capitalism," however they define that word. But history gives us no knowledge of the future, and thus, no knowledge of how far along we are in some process. History is precisely the discipline, as Oakeshott would put it, that views the world sub specie praeteritorum, through the lens of its "pastness." In history, the present world is seen as laden with artifacts that tell us what came before it. Those artifacts, understood as evidence of a past that has vanished, cannot possibly tell us what is to come.

Thus, "late capitalism" is always an ideological construct, not an historical one.

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