ABSTRACT
The development of finance capital changes fundamentally the economic, and hence the political, structure of society. The individual capitalists of early capitalism confronted each other as opponents in a competitive struggle. The petty bourgeoisie and the workers were the first to rebel against the rule of industrial capital. Commercial capital was far more favourably inclined to an increase in the power of the state than was industrial capital, because wholesale trade, especially overseas trade and notably the colonial trade, sought the protection of the state, and yielded readily to a dependence upon privileges. When capitalist development first got under way it encountered opposition from the agricultural population. Industry destroys peasant domestic production and transforms the essentially self-sufficient peasant economy into an agricultural business geared to the sale of its product on the market. The development of the joint-stock system has a similar effect. Future developments will no doubt gradually change this passive attitude.
