Late capitalism
term used by critics of capitalism to describe the current version of the political and economic formation
Late capitalism (or late-stage capitalism) is a concept in Marxist political economy,
political science and sociology. It is used by social critics to describe the current or contemporary phase of capitalist civilization. The idea was first used by the German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart (1863-1941) to name the new social order which emerged in the aftermath of World War I. However, beyond some brief comments and outlines, Sombart never provided a systematic or comprehensive theory of late capitalism.
From the 1930s to the 1970s, the idea of "late capitalism" was used by European socialists as a label for a new form of state-regulated capitalism, with a meaning similar (but not identical) to the Marxist-Leninist theory of state monopoly capitalism. Gradually, terms like "neo-capitalism" and "late capitalism" were accepted by many Western Marxists and members of the Frankfurt School to describe the post-World War II social order. The Belgian economist and philosopher Ernest Mandel provided a comprehensive Marxist analysis in his 1972 book Late Capitalism and other writings, without however referring explicitly to Sombart's ideas. In Mandel's vision, late capitalism is the epoch of the bourgeois world society that unexpectedly arose out of World War 2, as a new phase in the global history of capitalist imperialism.
In the 21st century era of the global Internet, mobile telephones and artificial intelligence in social media, the idea of "late capitalism" is again used in left-wing political discussions about the decadence, degeneration, absurdities and ironies of contemporary business culture, often with the suggestion that capitalism is now getting near the end of its existence (or is already being transformed into a post-capitalism of some sort).
Initial use of the term
The term late capitalism (German: Spätkapitalismus), sometimes also translated as late-stage capitalism, was first used in a 1925 publication by the German social scientist Werner Sombart (1863–1941) to describe the new capitalist order emerging out of World War I. Sombart claimed that it was the beginning of a new stage in the history of capitalism. His vision of the emergence, rise and decline of capitalism was influenced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's interpretation of human history in terms of a sequence of different economic modes of production, each with a historically limited lifespan.
The public source identifies “Late capitalism” as term used by critics of capitalism to describe the current version of the political and economic formation. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Late, capitalism and term.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1423189. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1941, 1972 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Late capitalism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.