re: What is this term "late stage capitalism" that the socialists like to use?

Crony capitalism is when market forces cannot remedy "bad" behavior by firms because there is no or little competition. The most common cause of this is government regulations or licensing regimes which create barriers to entry into the market. How cronyism works is that the largest firms in the market can afford to spend overhead on regulatory compliance and lobbying, essentially paying politicians to punish their competitors or erect barriers to keep them from forming. The remaining competitors either merge or collude rather than truly compete. If government is not erected barriers, then these monopolistic behaviors cannot persist as new challengers will constantly enter the market to challenge them.

Now, you can argue that some level of government regulation of the economy is necessary, and therefor a certain level of cronyism is an inherent feature of government, but you cannot argue that cronyism is not also a KEY feature of socialism and communism. It is not a bug of capitalism, it is a bug of all government systems. They may call it different names, but it exists everywhere there is a government that decides who can provide products and services in an economy. The government is the ultimate crony!