@4CardMan

Building empires is not imperialism. As we talk about economics here word has definitive meaning.

1. The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
2. The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this "finance capital", of a financial oligarchy;
3. The export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
4. The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and 5. The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

My goal in economics blog posts is not educate you, my goal is to show interesting data, show you how limited your knowledge is, make you go and read, return, understand how limited you still is, read again, and so on. I am not here to respect your opinion, I am here to rise your opinion to knowledge.

What a linguist, I like this. :)

@Vitaliy_Kiselev - I'm not doing either. I've raised cogent counterarguments which you disregard entirely. Most of your comments consist of non-sequiturs, logical fallacies, and insults. I asked sincerely to better understand your point of view on the matter and hopefully learn something new, but I don't see anything I couldn't have read in Capital. I guess I'll stick to the camera posts.

Economic imperialism has been a feature of capitalism for hundreds of years. Real imperialism, the military kind, has been around for thousands.

The only real alternative to capitalism failed, because its theory, dialectical materialism, ignored several fundamental human needs. You are correct that capitalism is in its end game. Its fate is already determined, because of its inherent concentration of power in a decreasing number of players. This makes perfect economic sense - it is obviously more efficient to have only one administrative unit for many companies, for example, than for each company to have its own. As your comments make clear, no one has any idea what will follow it.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev - Apparently, I'm fairly thick because I honestly have no idea what you are proposing except pure collapse and the fantasy of something better rising from the ashes--which history does not support. If there is some better system than capitalism out there, by all means, please tell us about it!

Like any system, capitalism has some problems and corporatism has more. Yes there is waste and I am a believer in regulation to balance this. I personally believe in certain socialist structures such as education, infrastructure building, basic scientific research, and some health care, etc, within a capitalist framework. The system of capitalism has lifted more of the world out of abject poverty than any other system. People today at many social strata have access to luxuries beyond what kings would imagine a century ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/upshot/the-formula-for-a-richer-world-equality-liberty-justice.html?_r=0

Most of what we call poverty today seems far better than the routine poverty, famine, disease, and subjugation of 200 years ago. This system has also produced all of the new inventions that we discuss on this site as well as the very ability for people from across the globe to have these conversations at all. And if we as a species ultimately achieve the ability to create the energy we crave in a way that does not pollute or deplete resources, it will probably be some form of capitalism that gets us there.

It's your site, so I'm happy to drop the discussion if you don't want to come out and say what you're proposing, but I really don't understand the coy act. Either you think there's something better (or inevitable) or you don't. Why not just come out and say it? It's clear that you are an intelligent and well read person, and I am interested in your point of view. Frankly, the references you've cited have been interesting to me, and I thought you had something larger to say, but it seems like that isn't the case.

Capitalism has eaten up environment and precious resources, converting them into industrial waste. Something like 99% of consumed resources end up as waste !!

A replacement for capitalism? There's only two other alternatives and that is socialism or collapse-ism. I'm pretty much a doomer so I go with collapse, although I hope for the best

I've haven't heard you suggest something to take its place--whatever you may call it. Human beings will always use some form of ownership and economic interaction. Even a system where everyone agrees that no one owns anything and they freely give and take as they desire is a system of ownership and economic interaction. But there will naturally be some form used by people. So if not capitalism, then what do you propose?

Just saying that capitalism is doomed isn't worth much. It's not actionable. If it simply fails, then what is left? anarchy, barbarism, and warlords? That's what emerges in most failed and failing states today. You're so strong in your beliefs that capitalism is cancerous that I had hoped you could propose something that would do better.

Wow.

One way to look at current economic figures, failure of stimulus to produce inflation goals, and oil glut is as a result of a long period of de facto negative inflation and very low growth that had been masked by central bank monetary policies (QE, etc) and mis-reporting (e.g. years of growth over-estimation in China due to low transparency; US redefining key economic metrics) which is now failing to work to pump up the perceived economy--while the actual economy continues to flounder further in a way that gets harder to hide.

You make thing so complex and literally drawn in this complexity.

Let's become clear again. We have imperialism - last stage of capitalism. It is similar to cancer as it requires exponential growth due to construction issues like debt based financial institutions.

The core cause of current crisis is nature limits on multiple energy sources and intolerable debt issues. Both are not some "errors" made, both are expected result. Solutions used to fix debt level did not work (and they will never will).

I understand huge intention to somehow put natural limits under the bed, together with capitalism nature, and with its inevitable collapse. Do not worry, thorium reactors, solar panels and wind won't help.

Question is how soon society will stop trying to fix thing that is broken beyond repair. Will it be too late and it will collapse on them?

@donniewagner - Some believe that the current production glut is a product of low (and underreported) actual demand due to low global growth. One way to look at current economic figures, failure of stimulus to produce inflation goals, and oil glut is as a result of a long period of de facto negative inflation and very low growth that had been masked by central bank monetary policies (QE, etc) and mis-reporting (e.g. years of growth over-estimation in China due to low transparency; US redefining key economic metrics) which is now failing to work to pump up the perceived economy--while the actual economy continues to flounder further in a way that gets harder to hide. Consumers spend less into this economic climate as do businesses which creates a cycle limiting growth (very much like the Japanese post-bubble economy, but now on a global scale). Therefore, the demand for energy resources (mostly oil) falls taking prices with it. A better functioning global economy would slash production to keep prices at reasonable levels and balance the system, however, several key oil producers are unable to agree on slashing prices due to mistrust and the fact that their economies rely primarily on this source of income. Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are unable to trust one another due to mutual animosity and past broken deals and have failed to reach a meaningful agreement to cut production in two major rounds of talks. The US fracking industry--whose existence, some say, was the original target of Saudi oversupply efforts around the time of their new monarch took power--perseveres (though their output is reduced), while other producers like Venezuela have few other viable resources to support their floundering economies. As a result many of these oil producers, for various reasons, pump out all the oil they possibly can to keep their economies afloat, but the oversupply breaks the normal balances of supply and demand and prices continue to fall--particularly because there are finite amounts of storage for the oversupply that has been accumulating and this too is now approaching its limits. Anyway, that's one theory about why we have cheap oil right now and it completely takes the issue of long term oil supplies out of the question. Hard to say it's entirely correct, but it makes some strong arguments and if it is true, it probably spells an unpleasant global economic future for some time to come. (Again, look at Japan's languishing post-bubble economy.)

@4CardsMan - Thanks for sharing this. I try to follow developments in fusion closely as I believe that the most important race in the history of modern man is the one to try to develop productive fusion before we run out of fossil fuels. It seems to be a major inflection point in human history and the diverging paths between success and failure will be remarkable and may determine human history for the rest of time. (Since there will be no second chance if we fail.) Success would have an enormous impact on global warming, poverty, and other problems--probably more than any other single development. This is probably the last great bottleneck in the development of intelligent species. I'm fortunate to have retired nuclear scientists and engineers in my family and they help me (try to) understand these things.

I haven't watched your entire video, but I look forward to doing so. I am both circumspect about a major breakthrough and hopeful. They say that a major breakthrough in fusion has been just 10 years away for the past 50 years. I think there are reasons for that. But yes, material science and computing power are probably two big pieces of the equation.

Several world governments are working on some fusion moonshot projects. Personally, I think there can be no better investment, but the opportunity has to be solid. I think popular support is low because most people have lost their belief in this as something we can achieve and they don't see the dire need.

@4CardsMan

It like religion of science, always believing in progress. I prefer to be in reality and check real things. I am sure we will see some research facilities, but in 10 years as we will have major energy issues none of this will be available as any serious solution.

when you say crisis of demand that exceed crisis of production, simplified, is demand is exceeding production correct?

You got things reverse. Crisis of demand means falling or stalling demand, same for production. Demand crisis, as I said, exceed production crisis, hence low prices.