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I’ve been bugged by the transformation of the term “late-stage capitalism” which first described a system in its final throes, its contradictions irresolvable, into today’s meaning, nearly the opposite, that describes a capitalism ever more pernicious in its ability to find resources to exploit.

I get that words have meanings that change with use (consider “neo-liberalism’s” evolution). Still, we also need precision in our language to help us understand the world better. So let’s retire “late-stage capitalism” and let it again describe the moment before capitalism collapses. Let’s devise

a new term, one that captures our capitalism’s ability to find and exploit niches, to new depths. Our capitalism saturates reality with itself, and exploits the pores it slides into with greater intensity than the capitalisms that came before: it is “sature-intensive capitalism.” Let’s define it:

“Sature-intensive capitalism is characterized by simultaneous expansion into newly commodifiable domains and increasingly granular monetization—or infill—within domains already incorporated into market exchange.” It only needs a couple of examples to be taken seriously. We already have a hyphen.