ABSTRACT
In the first instance the term monopoly capitalism is no more than a correct description of existing society. Capitalism is pervaded by monopolies and in large part determined by them. The state, whose function is to protect the social structure, is thus the state of monopoly capital. This is by no means a new phenomenon in capitalist society: it has always been a feature of capitalism, if not as pronounced in the past. According to Marx, who has given us the best analysis of capitalism, capitalist competition presumes monopoly, i.e., capitalist monopoly, over the means of production. The antagonistic class relations that result from this require control of the state, which at the same time represents the national interests of capital at the level of international competition.A capitalism of pure competition exists only in the imagination and in the models of bourgeois economics. But even bourgeois economists speak of natural monopolies and monopolistic prices. Although, granted, monopolies are not subject to the laws of the market, they are still held to be unable to shake these laws to any notable extent. Only in recent times, with whole branches of industry monopolized, has bourgeois economics been forced to deal with imperfect or monopolistic competition in its theories and to go into the changes monopoly has wrought in the market.What for bourgeois economics marked a theoretical turn had in Marx’s analysis of capital always been seen as an inherent tendency in capitalist accumulation. Capitalist competition leads to capital concentration and centralization. Monopoly was bom of competition, and out of it grew monopolistic competition. Marxist theory has also always ascribed a more important role to the 80
state than the bourgeois world was willing to acknowledge, not only as an instrument of repression but also as the organized power and mainstay of capitalist expansion.Thus there can be nothing objectionable in the use of the term state-monopoly capitalism, although it implies no more than the simple term capitalism. Various stages can be distinguished in the process of monopolization and state economic intervention, however. Thus the development of capitalism can be represented as its progressive evolution into monopoly capitalism, and we may accordingly ask what this means in present terms, and further, what it implies for the future. It is in this context then, that emphasizing the special state-monopoly character of present-day capitalism becomes meaningful.Capitalist accumulation tends not only toward a progressively deeper class division between labor and capital but also toward increasing concentration and centralization of the power to dispose over capital as it expands. “One capital kills many others,” and what concentration is unable to achieve through competition, deliberate centralization can do through the formation of trusts, cartels, and monopolies. Capitalism thus finds itself in a state of constant change, although the underlying exploitative relations remain unaltered.For Marx the decline of capitalism was already contained in its rise. The same social relations that allowed it to expand would also bring about its fall. Capital accumulation was a process ridden by crises; under the conditions of advanced capitalism, in which the working class is the preeminent class, every major crisis contained the possibility of social revolution. However, if we put aside revolution as a potential solution to capitalist contradictions, the trend of capitalism, despite all the setbacks during crisis periods, is toward increasing monopolization of the national economy and sharpening international monopolistic competition.This trend is often seen as objectively preparing the way for socialism. With the transition from competition to monopoly and to the large capital units created by accumulation, concentration, and centralization, individualistic capitalist private ownership of the means of production has been transformed into the collective ownership of corporations and large concerns, in which manage-
ment and ownership no longer reside in the same persons. For Marx capital is here directly endowed with the form o f social capital (a capital o f directly associated individuals), as distinguished from private capital, and its enterprises assume the form o f social enterprises as distinguished from individual enterprises. It is the abolition o f capital as private property within the boundaries o f capitalist production itself. 1 Whereas for Marx this situation was a sign of capitalistic decay, Friedrich Engels detected in it also a positive element, namely, a kind of capitulation of capitalistic anarchy to the planned production of the socialist future. In his view, we witness here “the reaction of the mighty, growing, productive forces against their character as capital, the increasing compulsion to recognize their social nature, which more and more forces the capitalist class itself, insofar as this is at all possible within the relations of capital, to treat them as social forces of production.” Engels saw, of course, that “neither the transformation into joint-stock companies (or trusts), nor that into state-property, eliminates the capitalistic character of the productive forces. In the case of joint-stock companies (and trusts), this is obvious. And the modem state, again, is only the organization which bourgeois society provides for itself in order to support the general external conditions of the capitalist method of production against encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modem state, regardless of its form, is essentially a capitalistic machine, the ideal collective capitalist. The more productive forces it takes over into its possession, so much the more does it become the actual collective capitalist, and so many more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers, proletarians. The capitalist relation is not eliminated. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but it conceals within it the formal means for the solution of the problem.”2 While for Engels state property and monopolization do not eliminate capitalism’s susceptibility to crises and depressions, for
Hilferding, on the other hand, their progressive development indicates the possibility of ending the capitalist crises and reducing socialism to a mere political problem. Although the pressures on all noncapitalist classes increase with increasing monopolization, nonetheless, it will finally lead to a consciously regulated social production, leaving the remaining social antagonisms to the sphere of distribution. What remained to be done would be the planned regulation o f the economy, not by the magnates o f capital and in their specific interest, but with regard to the needs o f the whole society and through society. The socialized functions o f financial capital - the combination o f industrial and banking capital - makes the overthrow o f capital so much easier.As soon as financial capital is in control o f the most important branches o f production, it suffices that society, by means o f the proletarian state, appropriates financial capital and thereby gains control over the dominant branches o f production.3 For Hilferding finance capital had already completed the necessary expropriation of private capital, and nationalization would merely put the finishing touches on the socialization of productive forces initiated by capital itself. Later this idea was taken up by Lenin. In his writings on imperialism he described state capitalism at the turn of the century as “parasitic, stagnating, and dying” and marked by the “substitution of capitalist monopolies for capitalist free competition. But monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a more highly developed order.” Without going into Lenin’s theory of imperialism, we may say that for him imperialism coincided with finance capital, and the latter was organizationally the precursor of socialism. The centralized administrative control over social capital exercised by monopoly finance had only to be taken over by the proletarian state and put to the service of society at large.Thus we see that this concept — which goes back to Engels and was shared in common by Hilferding and Lenin despite their other differences — that monopoly capitalism paved the way for socialist society, is rooted in the false assumption that the forms of social organization accompanying capital concentration were
identical with the socialization of production. Because the individual enterprise was presumed to be organized rationally and according to plan, as opposed to the irrational, unplanned functioning of the economy as a whole, Lenin imagined accordingly a socialist economy as one huge factory steered by the state. In actuality the individual firm is just as irrational as the economy as a whole, unless of course one regards the capitalist profit motive as an economically rational principle of production. Individual firms are just as dependent on the law of capital expansion as is the society as a whole and must function within the framework of general or monopolistic competition, which determines the form of their organization.In their pursuit of profit monopolies organize themselves and no more. If they were all brought under the central control of the state, the state could do no more than reproduce this new capital relation between itself and the producers, unless of course the producers abolish the state. There is hardly any need to belabor the point further: the long existence of the “socialist states” is practical proof enough that the term socialism is no more than a cover for today’s state capitalism. Complete monopoly over the means of production does not do away with the capital-labor relations; it merely frees capital from market competition without abolishing competition itself. Quite apart from the fact that competition continues to exist at the international level, even within state capitalism it merely changes its outward appearance by moving from the economic sphere into politics.Yet so far state capitalism has been the preserve of capitalist underdeveloped countries or has been imposed imperialistically on developed countries, as in Eastern Europe; and the countries that fit Lenin’s description of monopoly capitalism have remained at this stage, although the role of the state in them has grown. The conditions of a monopolistically controlled world market precluded any possibility of capitalist development by way of competition for the underdeveloped countries. In a situation more or less similar to the prerevolutionary status in Russia, that is, with a weak bourgeoisie, a proletarian minority, and a predominantly agrarian population, these nations could only counter the head start
of the monopolistic nations by establishing even more rigid monopolistic control over economic life. Monopoly capitalism evokes state capitalism not within monopolistic economies but in the struggle against them.Indeed, Russia’s example has shown that a state-controlled economy is able to speed up industrialization, at least in large nations, even if only at the expense of the working population and to the benefit of state capitalism’s newly spawned ruling class.Prompted by the major role played by the state in the war economies of World War I, Lenin was led to regard monopoly capitalism, with its imperialist imperative, as state monopoly capitalism, in which the state serves the monopolies. The next step in the direction of socialism in capitalist countries would then accordingly be to sever the state’s ties to monopoly interests and reorganize it to serve the interests of the population as a whole. First, however, it was necessary to smash the state of the monopolists to make way for a new state, which could then get down seriously to the task of abolishing capitalist exploitation. State-monopoly capitalism was to give way to the socialist state, without losing thereby its centralized administrative control over the economy at large. Leninists still adhere to this program, although it amounts to nothing more than the attempt to drive out the devil with Beelzebub.With state capitalism identified with socialism, regarded as a transition to a stateless communism set sometime in the far-distant future, the struggle for socialism becomes a struggle against present-day state-monopoly capitalism. This struggle can only be a revolutionary struggle, since state-monopoly capitalism will hardly hand in its resignation voluntarily. Although state capitalism still continues worker exploitation, it nevertheless does destroy the class domination of the bourgeoisie. But the communist parties in the Western nations, which now appear to have taken up the banner against state-monopoly capitalism, had ceased as long ago as 1920 to be a revolutionary movement. They are no longer prepared to put through their own program by revolutionary means, and they are waging a mock battle against state-monopoly capitalism in order to gain for themselves places of influence within the existing systems.
