Feel like I've been hearing this more and more over the last year; I tried to read a piece on it but I could only really halfway get to understanding... Anyone have any good resources to learn more about these in-depth? Or examples from the last year of those contradictions in action would be helpful too.
The fundamental contradiction of capitalism is between the socialization of production and the privatization of ownership; that is, everyone must work to produce but only a few people (the bourgeoisie) receive the fruits of that labor (profit/surplus value). All other contradictions under capitalism stem from this fundamental one.
A good example of this is the contradiction between universal suffrage and private property. If the vast majority of propertyless citizens were given the right to vote (which was not the case in capitalism's early stages), they would democratically take control of the means of production. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, felon disenfranchisement, and (most importantly) the ideological functioning of mainstream media are all efforts to suppress this contradiction in the imperial core (in the global south the CIA will just coup your ass).
For theory I'd recommend starting with On Contradiction by Mao, it's fairly brief and lays out the basic theory of contradiction not just under capitalism but universally.