[photonthug]

> Since the beginning of capitalism involved owning slaves, I find that very hard to believe.

If you look into this a little bit more, I think you’ll find that the institution of slavery doesn’t strictly require any particular system of economics, government, or religion.

Anyway, you are misunderstanding what I meant by early / late capitalism.. it’s not just about specific calendar epochs like 1950-present. What I’m referring to is that any new market will have early/middle/late stages that are pretty distinct from each other. A new market might be created by new policy (say a change in import/export restrictions) or by new technology (like the internet or AI) or by new frontiers (like the East Indies before, and outer space soon). Late stage here just means the real ideation and competition is basically finished and now it’s time for consolidation, M+A, integrating vertically, optimizing exploitation/extraction, enshittification, etc.