I think we need to look beyond 'late stage capitalism.

The seed of the problem is two-fold.

1. Profit. All profit are systems of unequal exchange making one side poor and the other side rich. The longer the system goes on, the bigger the gap grows.

2. Profit is motivated by socializing people to believe that they are only acceptable and praiseworthy if they earn a lot of money. So this drives profit more.