Abstract
[Interview excerpt] Following two world wars, a global great depression and socialist revolution in Russia, what I argue is the final stage of capitalism, the capitalist stage of consumerism, comes into being. Its paradigmatic form of consumer durable production (the automobile being representative of this), with semi-automatic electronic mass production technologies handled by oligopolistic transnational corporations, is the most ecologically unsustainable stage of capitalism. The most obvious reason for this is the petroleum energy matrix driving capitalism in that stage. Another reason is the high throughput, low unit cost profitization model combining mass production with mass consumption. The latter is supported by mass advertising, enabled with communications technology advances where captains of consciousness foster an endless, ever expanding array of desires and tastes to ensure the mass consumption fete never ends despite mountains of toxic waste being generated. The petroleum, “petrofood” chemicalization and industrialization of agriculture devastates natural soils and other elements of the geosphere. Transnational corporations in production and agribusiness internationalize this model and spread its devastating impacts across the globe.