I know it's not dialectical to say that capitalism "peaked" in a specific time or place BUT...
For me, it was the sinking of the Titanic. Everybody thought that baby was unsinkable. She was going to sail right through those ice fields without a problem. God himself couldn't sink that motherfucker. They were going to plow through all the way to New York, set a speed record, and make even more money for the White Star Line. Then the world decided to remind the bourgeoisie that sometimes, it pushes back HARD. Lots of poor people died, but a few rich pieces of shit went down with 'em.
Apparently after the Titanic sank, everything was different. WW1 broke out only a few years later. Capitalism began devouring itself from the inside, even though it's kind of always been doing that since it began. Maybe there is kind of a major quantitative shift, though, especially in the imperial core. Up until then, rich people usually benefited materially from capitalism. But the Titanic and the trenches in WW1 start to really give them a taste of what they had been doing to everyone else for such a long time. 1917 follows WW1. Then comes The Great Depression. Then WW2. Then the Cold War. In the year 1970, if you look at a world map of communist versus capitalist countries, it looks maybe like not the best situation for the capitalists. But neoliberalism has been saving their asses for the last fifty years. Godwilling this period of history is now coming to an end.
The sinking is also maybe an interesting study of ideology. When the ship struck the iceberg, only a few people knew that the situation was serious almost from the beginning: the first officers and captain up on the bridge, and the "stokers" or whatever working the furnaces at the bottom of the ship or wherever they were, since water was literally shooting in through the breached bulkheads and forcing them to leave or drown. People in the middle had no idea what the fuck was going on. Sometimes icy seawater would be literally swirling around their legs, and they would be like: "not a problem!" The ship's designer also knew that they were fucked within minutes of striking the iceberg. It took about two and a half hours for the ship to sink.
I'm reading A Night To Remember, a classic book full of survivors' tales from the Titanic, so that's why I'm thinking about this.
You are not allowed to say that capitalism hasn't peaked yet or that it's idealist for me to ask this question in the first place.
I'm also biased towards books I've read, which makes me think that the peak was 1991-2000. The Soviets were gone, the Chinese were liberalizing their economy, Cubans and North Koreans were suffering and every other socialist state was being put through restructuring by the IMF. The victory was so complete that in the west every person and institution in power became totally convinced that bourgeois democracy was the final form of human society, and the dot com boom would further cement the idea that technology would solve all of our problems.
The decline for capital in the west starts with 9/11, after which Americans either abandoned or failed to defend their supposed liberal principles. Meanwhile in the east Hu Jintao started the process of reigning in the Chinese National Bourgeoisie, proving that China never intended to reform itself into a liberal society after all. A few of the socialist states have been lost (ie Cambodia) and most of the non-ruling communist parties are now discredited socdems, but Cuba and the DPRK still stand.
We're ten minutes from going under water.
The 1st class passengers are paying crewmembers to strip the copper wiring out of the walls on their way to their lifeboats.
They are also taking completely empty lifeboats with them, because letting a poor into the extra lifeboats would depreciate their resale value.
The 2nd class passengers are knee-deep in water, but refuse to the believe the ship is sinking because the band is still playing, and White Star Line would never leave a paying customer behind.
And the 3rd class passengers are neck-deep in water if they're not already dead.
But hey, at least the new Captain likes ice cream and isn't a dang cheeto, am I right?
Obviously capitalism was never good for everyone but it was probably good for the most amount of people in the 1950s and 60s. I don't mean actual moral good. Just that a lot of people got more of a chunk of the spoils than before. Imperial expansion for the US which lead to massive increase in production. A jump in technological comforts. Class mobility was a thing and was accessible. Everyone was mostly on the same page in terms of patriotism/nationalism. Of course there are exceptions. All this cooked the Earth and caused insane amounts of human suffering. But man, imagine that time. Probably being a boomer and avoiding WWII was great too. You got to have your parents' house which went from being worth like $15k to $200k or more depending on where you lived. You were probably grandfathered into that good ol Keynesian economy. You got to play radical in the anti-war movement and consider yourself a holy person because you stood for something right. Then you went on to be a liberal ghoul, completely unrepentant and unaware. You still got to go to college for absolutely nothing. You could set up a nest egg before the real belt tightening hit.
To be a white person born in Pasadena CA around the late 40s, or maybe somewhere in NYC. What a gift. Couldn't have much more in your favor other than to be born to a baldly wealthy family.
Probably the late 90's was the peak of it in terms of its ideological hegemony.
I think Titanic and the 1990's are good candidates. If I were to propose another high point for capitalism it would be the 1960's to early 1970's at least in the imperial core.
Back then the future looked really bright. Rockets were shooting into space and while people were seriously expecting to see cities on the moon in their own lifetime, many working class people got richer at an unprecedented pace. Suddenly families could move from your old run-down apartment to their own houses. Working class families could afford TV sets, cars and holidays abroad.
Meanwhile the social democratic welfare state was expanding. You could get public assistance for unemployment, for disabilities, for housing. University education became a possibility for ordinary people. It was the point in history where capitalism made the best job of providing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.
And then it came tumbling down. The good times couldn't go on anymore and the optimism of the 1960's were replaced by the stagnation of the 1970's and the rise of the neoliberal monster that has plagued is ever since.
I’d say 2018 / The Trump administration. We had near-full employment and it was a bacchanalia of extraction and record returns on stocks. Everyone knew it was unsustainable.
I do not have faith that America’s future will provide a better life for most people than they could have attained in 2019.
When the colonies were experiencing hardcore genocides. When the expanse of capitalism in other countries didn't create enough markets. Would be my answer, cause I would differentiate the steps of capitalist development depending on historical context.
Capitalism never did anything great and therefore can it peak? Everything great in the USA (going to the moon, and that's it) was done by the Government.
