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Late-Stage Capitalism? Accumulation in the Ruins

Late-Stage Capitalism? Accumulation in the Ruins

The Socialist Register 2026

This 62nd volume of The Socialist Register unravels the crises of late-stage capitalism—plutocratic plunder, techno-feudalism, Trump’s return, fractured empires—while charting struggles, contradictions, and emerging left alternatives.

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About the book

The current matrix of capital accumulation is shifting—but what comes next? New terms abound: plutocratic plunder, political capitalism, techno-feudalism, techno-futurism. Some envision a new “habitation economy” where non-standardized services replace commodity production. Others warn of an unstable interregnum, with authoritarian states fusing with far-right movements. The common image is of a capitalist class barricaded in securitized enclaves, shielded from climate chaos and the anger of dislocated, hyper-stressed workers.

This volume untangles these competing themes, identifying key trends, contradictions, and conflicts at the heart of “late-stage capitalism.” What does Donald Trump’s return to the presidency signal about this new phase? How are these shifts reshaping state power, institutional practices, and global markets?

Amid trade wars and geopolitical rivalries, how is the US empire being reinforced—or resisted? Most importantly, where is the left finding new political spaces amidst the economic ruins? These are the urgent questions the essays in this volume confront.

Economics International Politics Political Economy

Authors

Greg Albo

Greg Albo teaches political economy at the Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto. He is currently co-editor of the Socialist Register. He is also on the editorial boards of Studies in Political Economy, Relay, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Canadian Dimension, The Bullet and Historical Materialism (England). Co-editor of A Different Kind of State: Popular Power and Democratic Administration and author of numerous articles in journals such as Studies in Political Economy, Socialist Register, Canadian Dimension, and Monthly Review.

Stephen Maher

Stephen Maher is a social critic, PhD candidate at York and Socialist Register assistant editor.

Preface (Greg Albo)
Profitable Immiseration: Finance Capital at the End of the World (Stephen Maher, Scott Aquanno)
Trump’s Chaotic Imperialism: Economic Warfare, Geopolitical Truculence and Domestic Authoritarianism (Costas Lapavitsas, Raven Hart)
Too Late Capitalism: Ernest Mandel in the Trump Era (Cédric Durand)
Donald Trump’s Global Gamble – and Why He Lost (Paul Heideman)
From Dollar Dominance to De-Dollarization (Paramjit Singh)
What’s Wrong with Texas? The Ideology of American Christofascism (Clyde W. Barrow)
Authoritarian Myths and Capitalist Realities: Understanding the Arab State in the Middle East (Adam Hanieh)
Dependency and Dispossession in Palestine: From Colonialism to the War on Gaza (Ibrahim Shikaki)
Between Rupture and Pragmatism: Challenges to a Progressive Alternative in Mexico (Hepzibah Muñoz-Martínez, Alejandro Álvarez Béjar)
Authoritarianism Redux: Political Crisis and the Legacy of the ‘Developmental State’ in Korea (Dae-Oup Chang)
Leading by Example: Building the UK’s New Left Party in Wales – An Interview with Mark Serwotka and Beth Winter (Michael Calderbank, Hilary Wainwright)
The Crisis of Neoliberalism, the Rise of Neoliberal Fascism and the Challenges for the Left (Alfredo Saad-Filho)
Capitalism in the 2020s and Beyond (Michael Roberts)