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Late capitalism is a concept first used in print (in German) by German economist Werner Sombart at the start of the 20th century.[1] In the late 2010s, the term began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to corporate capitalism.
Later capitalism refers to the historical epoch since 1940, including the post–World War II economic expansion. The expression already existed for a long time in continental Europe, before it gained popularity in the English-speaking world through the English translation of Ernest Mandel's book Late Capitalism, published in 1975.
The German original edition of Mandel's work was subtitled "an attempt at an explanation", meaning that Mandel tried to provide an orthodox Marxist explanation of the postwar epoch in terms of Marx's theory of the capitalist mode of production. Mandel suggested that important qualitative changes occurred within the capitalist system during and after World War II and that there are limits to capitalist development.