On Marxist Epochs and “Late-Stage Capitalism”

1.1. Introduction

On the principle of Historical Dialecticism (which is a heuristic approach, as this text should add), one cannot reasonable determine what a future Socialist Epoch should appear to be like, and therefore direct progressions towards Socialism in our current Epoch are farcical and misplaced – they remain under the prerogative of the Capitalist Epoch because they are (and only can be) reactionary. Importantly, there exists no explicit collapse of the feudal epoch other than its eventual usurpation by the bourgeoise, and therefore the capitalist epoch.

In the current retrospective whereby Marx’s idealised falling rate of profit (Easterling) has been shown to be false, it is expected that the scientific laws of the capitalist are not absolute among capitalist production. It is important here to consider the prerogative that Marx attaches to historical ideals in the first section of the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx, 1852). In his first section, he identifies a simulacrum in the natures applied between portentous historical events in order to mark repetitions of character, and it is this that we can infer that is restrictive upon the future Epoch because it guides only from the past, yet this article instead proposes that the development is the determinate factor for transitions between Epochs.

Importantly, the forced induction of a transitional Dictatorship of the Proletariat has been more likely to induce a society characterized by its socio-economic deprivation and that owing to its (attempt at) disjunction with Capitalism, has only been manifest as the weak link in the context of a Capitalist Epoch whereby it does not itself conform to the Capitalism that is absolute (Howard & King, 2001).

1.2. Late-Stage Capitalism

If Marx’s interpretation of a Late-Stage Capitalism should be marked by the rise of the proletariat against the capitalist on account of the contradiction of their cell-unit prerogative, yet in this article, published by the University of Sydney (Gibney, 2022), we observe instead that a more psychological imperative has been adopted by the capitalist towards a heightened fetishisation of commodity – and thence that the “Late-Stage” is derived from the consumer-class being angered by capitalist prerogatives rather than the eventual contradiction upon their status.

It is understood by any consideration of the future Socialist Epoch that the introduction of means divergent to those which predicate the Capitalist Epoch that we hold now will be introduced, but it is suggested that these should be absent in a future Epoch. This is shown by the example of the fetishisation of the commodity and the implication that suggests its future usurpation as a means (whereby the actions of the consumer class are imbued with the crystallised reformation of the bases upon which they are situated).

2.1. Socialism as Heuristic

Even yet, despite the proclivities of the previous subsection to be disengaged from the propensities of Marxist foresight, the identity of the Epoch is retained because it describes discrete and universal changes of thought among societies on account of the means allocated to them. They are discrete, because although the idea of the progression of human societies inspires a continuity, the nature of that continuity is to produce its effect on a variable scale if the individual developments themselves are to be considered. Without any Marxist predilection, the Epochs can be registered as a significant interpretation of the character of the world in which we live because it recognises limits on account of the consciousness that one can experience.

In assuming that the progression is continuous, it must be noted that – included with the variability of individual developments so described and that different epochs are uniform in themselves – a transitory mediary between epochs is established therein. This is where the Heuristic Socialism can be asserted, for the outcome that follows our own epoch involves a necessary change in the consciousness character of the epoch.

In Critique of the Gotha Programme (Engels & Marx, 1875), we see that Marx is knowledgeable of tangible and reasonable necessities “… treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution” and his determination of the labour from the worker is suggested to be possessive of its own crystallised properties that relate to value. Likewise, he previously shunned the notion “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” and therefore suggests that the idealisations are not achievable by decrying an unobtainable realisation.

Finally, to substantiate this idea, the absolutism of the Capitalist Epoch now has been borne as the most productive and most dominant measure from means that themselves were not conducted on a conscious basis, but rather one defined on the “most immediate instruments” (Trigger, 2008). In this respect, other, consciously developed modes that attempt to alter the current Epoch are falsified by their disjunction with the current Epoch.

2.2. An Indeterminacy of Outcomes

The main issue with assuming an indeterminacy of Socialist outcomes is that it initiates the potential for other outcomes that are not aligned with Socialist purposes. Certainly, this is possible, but quite unlikely. Marx’s interpretation of his own Epochs is such that the Laws governing the Capitalist affect to a final contradiction and the eventual rise of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Importantly, we can assert that the “left-wing” opposition to the Capitalist Epoch is a member of such, and that it is inconsequential on the formation of the transition to the Socialist Epoch.

Accelerationism as a concept is a perversion of the socialised product of labour and therein is ruinous to the future socialism.

However, it can still be perceived that the eventual socialism is not itself a product of the failures of the Capitalist Epoch, but rather one that has been constructed on the pretence that the Socialist Epoch will be manifested on account of a simultaneous correct socialised product of labour and development – which has been given its vague term because the scale of development is such that we can assumedly be unaware about what is necessary for the transitory period to be incurred. Therefore, under this apprehension, there would be no qualitative basis for the eventual Socialist Epoch.

In The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, we can observe a qualitative transitional state between Epochs which is predicated on a divergence from the mannerisms of the more archetypal (proclivities of the people) political economy and instead into the necessities that are developed by the Epoch at its stage. The ape’s “most immediate instruments” are its sensuous faculties, and hence these provide an eventual basis for a transition – its developments, as are our developments provide the most formal basis for a divergence in Epochs on account of the context that they provide.

3.1. Conclusion and Significance

This article’s aim is to introduce the concept of Heuristic Socialism, which therefore relies on an assumed indeterminacy between and in Epochs. It is qualified that in order for this idea to pronounce an outcome whereby the Socialist Epoch becomes present, it must be done so in accordance with a preparatory development and socialised output – one which, because the following Epoch is beyond any interpretation, cannot specifically be known.

It also introduces the concept whereby the Capitalist Epoch – where its means are met within the developmental frame – cannot be usurped and subordinate entities will themselves fail on account of their powerlessness with respect to the dominant Epoch (which borne within itself the mode that is followed). It is significant on account of the divergent perspective that it offers against Marxist and contemporary theories about Communism.