Late-Stage Capitalist Orthodoxy

The established, institutionalized set of beliefs that define mainstream understanding of contemporary capitalism—the often-unexamined assumptions about how the current economic system works and what's possible within it. Late-stage capitalist orthodoxy includes commitments that go beyond classical capitalism: that financialization is natural, that gig work is the future, that austerity is necessary, that debt is inevitable, that privatization is always efficient, that global supply chains are optimal, that technological disruption is progress, and that there is no alternative to the current configuration of capital. It naturalizes features of contemporary capitalism that are actually historically specific—making precarious work, financial dominance, and corporate power seem like simply "how things are." Late-stage capitalist orthodoxy functions to foreclose imagination of alternatives, treating the current moment as the end of history and any deviation as naive or dangerous.

Example: "He accepted gig work, stagnant wages, and crumbling public services as just 'the way things are'—not because he'd thought about alternatives, but because late-stage capitalist orthodoxy had made precarity seem like common sense. The orthodoxy's power is making contingency feel like necessity."

by Dumu The Void March 17, 2026