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Paystub from a US coal miner in 1942. Ends up owing his employer $1.84 ($35.76 in 2023) at the end of the pay period.
(lemmygrad.ml)
What do we call this? Early stage capitalism? What the Western world is on track to return to? Forshadow capitalism?
This is when miners were paid in company currency and lived in company houses and shopped at a company store.
That has always bothered me about the term "late-stage capitalism." It makes it sound like the problems of today are unique to our stage in development and not intrinsic to capitalism itself.
To a lot of people, it seems like the issue is modernity and the solution is to return to a more prosperous past. Like when we had segregation, or limited suffrage, indentured servitude or (more) slavery...
I never thought of it that way, that's a good point