"late stage capitalism". That's a new one on me. Are you implying you know what the end of capitalism looks like? Maybe an example?
This system only really works by perpetual expansion which is observably in its end-game. Not just new markets or resources but the base-resource of people and we've already plopped over the top of the population roller-coaster which can be supported by this process. Look at Japan, Germany and especially places like Kerela. Further it is obviously incompatible with any notion of sustainable energy and it is energy - not political ideologies - which ultimately accounts for the modern improvements for the majority of people but also tremendous unrest over the future as it's clearly time to rethink simply digging stuff up to burn it. I think it's a transitional phase not the end of solutions.
Greed and selfishness are human nature.
This is a fascinating point of discussion. Of course all observable people have grown up under systems of great inequality and division. The deeper question is 'are' people greedy and selfish by nature or 'were' they this way until better systems came along. I mean looking back from the future on the present time rather than answering that question now. It's sometimes hard to be optimistic about Homo Sapiens overcoming their inherent flaws, maybe they won't, but counter intuitively you only seem to see the best when things are at their worst.
And you would replace capitalism with?
Oooh ooh, I'll take this one. I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
Many creative, intelligent and forward-thinking people have proposed solutions but massive institutional inertia needs massive nudges to change (and probably a cataclysmic event at this phase). Let's face it: those who are in 'power' would lose the most if more logical systems were introduced, at least that is how it is perceived by metrics that have been used to-date. There's no reward for holistic considerations, as Batfink observed: to the opposite. We're just seeing the results of processes applied over long periods without necessarily any design or forethought. As you say: all institutions pervert and corrupt over time.
From a certain perspective what is most wrong with the present United Kingdom and the now Russian Federation is that they were neither completely invaded nor conquered in the period of the second World War. Nearly all of Europe was, and where they had the freedom to do so, they sat down post-war and did a lot of work to devise newer, clean-sheet-of-paper and forward-thinking solutions. Britain, for example did not. They thought what they had been doing all along was obviously correct and so they simply kept on with superficial but not fundamental change. Look at the motorcycle industry in the 50s and 60s. Boy were they incapable of dynamic change. So much momentum of doing it the way it had always been done...
Isaac Asimov said in an interview around 1978 or so that 'mankind' (as it was described then) had reached the point where its problems can only be solved by uniting and working together in place of pursuing factional-interests. That was getting on for half a century ago or - if you like - one fifth of the duration of the Industrial Revolution!
There were once something like 16 hominids knocking around this planet, some of them overlapping. We're the last ones left and from a certain perspective the reasons for our success over the others are also the seeds of our own terminal doom. This is why unlocking A1, A2 and A3 at the Furbal lake in the present MPA is so essential.
