Welcome to Late-Stage Capitalism: Would You Like Anxiety With That?
Capitalism isn’t glitching. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep you tired, distracted, and grateful for crumbs. Let’s talk about what could actually work next (no, not communism.)
We Are Not Consumers. We Are Consumed.
Capitalism today is like one of those relationships you know is toxic, but you stay in it anyway because you’ve already shared a Netflix password, a Spotify Duo account, and your soul.
We wake up tired, reach for our phones (because what is a body without push notifications?), and immediately get punched in the face with 13 ads for shit we didn’t ask for, don't need, and can’t afford—but might buy anyway, because “treat yourself.” It’s your birthday month. Or maybe it’s not. Who cares? The algorithm thinks you deserve a $58 candle that smells like “hope” and bankruptcy.
Welcome to freedom. Swipe, scroll, subscribe, sweat. You’re a “free individual” in a “free market” where everything is sold back to you—including your own attention span. You pay for ad-free Spotify, ad-free YouTube, ad-free meditation apps, while you are the ad. You are the product, sweetie. And your dopamine is being strip-mined like a rainforest in the 90s.
They sold us capitalism as a meritocracy where if you just work hard, grind harder, manifest, hustle, optimize your calendar, and drink mushroom coffee instead of being depressed, you’ll eventually ascend into the promised land: passive income, early retirement, Bali coworking utopia.
But here’s the truth: most of us are one missed paycheck away from selling foot pics or donating plasma for gas money. We’re not thriving—we’re surviving in a gamified dystopia run by people who genuinely think that owning 11 yachts is a personality.
This isn’t “the best system we’ve got.” This is late-stage capitalism in full drag. And honey, she’s not looking good.
Let’s talk about the joke of modern freedom. You’re free to choose between 57 cereal brands all owned by the same three companies. You’re free to go into debt for a degree that won’t get you hired, just so you can work 60-hour weeks for someone named Chad who says things like “circle back” and thinks kombucha is a personality trait. You’re free to live in a tiny, overpriced apartment next to a Whole Foods you can’t afford to shop in—congrats, queen, you made it.
Let’s talk about how every human emotion is monetized now:
Sad? Buy a self-care box curated by an influencer who cries on Instagram.
Anxious? Subscribe to a mindfulness app with a $99 annual plan.
Lonely? Download an AI boyfriend who will gaslight you just like the real ones.
Capitalism doesn’t just want your money—it wants your time, your creativity, your silence, your Sunday mornings, your inner peace, your fucking dreams. And it wraps the theft in the language of choice.
We’ve become walking brands—optimizing our LinkedIn bios, building “personal platforms,” networking like psychopaths at 8am breakfasts, all while wondering why we feel like ghosts with anxiety disorders.
And let’s not even start on the influencer economy. Capitalism’s new priesthood. People who sell you a lifestyle they don’t live, promoting products they don’t use, to followers they don’t like, on a platform that doesn't pay them unless they dance like idiots or cry about their trauma.
If Karl Marx saw TikTok, he’d spontaneously combust and come back as a plant-based protein bar.
So yes, capitalism worked—until it didn’t. Until it started eating its own children. Until it turned every dream into a product, every moment into content, every interaction into a transaction. Now we’re sitting in the ruins, still pretending this is fine. Like the dog in the fire meme, except the fire is sponsored.
The worst part? We’re gaslit into thinking this is normal. That this is just adulthood. That being burnt out, broke, and emotionally numb is the price of progress. Like we’re not allowed to ask, “Is there another way?” Because asking that is dangerous. It’s “radical.” It means you’re lazy, ungrateful, a communist, or God forbid—not willing to monetize your hobbies.
Well guess what? I’m not here to offer a 12-step program to become a passive-income girlboss. I’m here to light the match and ask the question we’re not supposed to ask:
If this is the system that’s supposed to give us freedom, then why does it feel like prison with good WiFi?
Buckle up. Let’s talk about the rot at the core—and whether it’s fixable, or if we should just burn the whole damn thing down and start over with a barter system and some goats.
Part I – Capitalism Gone Wrong (Like, Really Fucking Wrong)
Let’s not sugarcoat it. This isn’t the capitalism of your grandparents’ post-war dreams, where Dad wore a hat, Mom ironed meatloaf, and a single paycheck bought you a house, a car, and a full set of kitchen Tupperware you’d pass down to your kids. No. This is the capitalism of $300 “quiet luxury” hoodies, burnout culture as aesthetic, and therapy speak used to sell shampoo.
Everything—and I mean everything—is a goddamn product now.
Love? There’s an app for that.
Grief? Buy a journal and a candle set labeled “healing kit.”
Anxiety? Try microdosing psilocybin gummies, $79.99/month.
Resistance? Throw on a Che Guevara shirt made in a sweatshop and hashtag it #revolution on TikTok.