[PEN-L:7735] Re: Re: Leninism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So are you saying that Lenin meant that they became identical ? As I understand it, we are discussing Lenin's claim that one of the defining characteristics of the imperialist phase of capitalism ,  in contrast with the immediate previous phase, is the dominance of finance capital, including the merger of financial and industrial capital. By the latter, he did not mean that the distinction between the two functions is utterly obliterated. rather in contrast with the earlier phase , financial institutions become dominant and there are coalescences in the following sense:

On this Nitkin says: "the coalescence fo bank and industrial capitals takes various forms. It is manifested , in particular, in personal unions, i.e. in the same people heading banking, industrial, comercial and other monopolies. The heads of banks are members of the boards of industrial enterprises, and representatives of industrial monopolies, in turn, are included on the management of banks. The structure of finance varies. Such financial institutions as insurance companies, investment trusts, pension funds,savings banks and the like, have come to play a major role in mobilising the population's funds for financing industrial monopolies. For this reason, modern finance capital constitutes a coalescence of industrial monopolies not only with banking ones, but also with the financial instiutions listed above...

The growth of monopolies and of finance capital results in the biggest bankers and industrialists forming a small group of people who hold the dominant position in the economy and politics...

One concrete  form of financial oligarchy is the monopoly-finance group. In the USA, for example, the decisive role in the country's economy is played by 18 high finance gourps, which control assets to a sum of 678. 4 billion dollars, including 319.5 billlion in banking and 358.9 billion in industry, commerce, and the service sphere. The biggest of these financial groups are the Morgans, Rockefellers, California and Chicago groups..."

This is from 1983, but I imagine Morgans and Rockefellers still play a role in whatever new configuration there is.

The original statement on this thread by someone that there hasn't been a continuing merger of the financial and industrial capitalists in the history since Lenin and in the precise sense that Lenin meant this in his analysis of the basic trends of imperialism seems, what ?, tendentious, last ditch anti-Leninism, I don't know. That we are in an era of finance capital, i.e. a merger of finance and industrial capital with the financial function dominant ( thus FINANCE capital; sort of contrasted with the period before of the INDUSTRIAL revolution) is quite clear. and very  much confirmed by your important empirical work. Financial institutions in Lenin's analysis is more than banks , as explained by Nitikin above. The current growth of the power and influence of Wallstreet is a profound confirmation of Lenin's predictions of the direction of capitalism.

Charles Brown


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> 06/04/99 03:14PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:

>Charles: Seems to me there has been a merger of financial and industrial
>capital. Wallstreet seems exactly that. Doug Henwood points out that there
>is a recent trend of corporations raising money through borrowing not so
>much stocks. That is they borrow from financial institutions. That
>relationship is a merger of industry and finance.

No the relation isn't one of identity. We're still dealing with separate
institutions, finance & industry, though they're connected in complex ways.

If they were one, why would you even speak of firms borrowing from banks?

Doug