162
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.
This is still late-stage capitalism. Capitalism has persisted in opposition to effectively all Human well-being for centuries, since at-least the 1700s. So, it was still very much Late-Stage Capitalism in the 1940s. That we have yet to put this vile system out of all our misery yet doesn't modify which stage it's been stuck in for X period of time.
Further it's been Imperialism in the Colonial or Neo-Colonial style for how long now? Four centuries? Five?