[PEN-L:11338] Re: : finanz kapital

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

With respect to Lenin's discussion of the decline of the stock market, which Doug quotes, I would say that Lenin is referring to the stock market in the period of the 1800's, which, in line with his overall theme in _Imperialism_ was much more of a free market as compared with the development of monopoly in the new period. In other words, Lenin is not saying that the stock market disappears, but that it becomes , like everything else, a monopoly market, with the banks having the monopoly advantages. This is clear from the chapter "Finance Capital" in which he makes repeated references to "shares" and other aspects of the stock market, and how the banks and financial institutions use monopoly competition in the stock market to profiteer off of small investor suckers.

For example, he says, "in Germany it is not permitted by law to issue shares of less value than one thousand marks, and the mangnates of German finance look with an envious eye at England, where the issue of one-pound shares is permitted. Siemens, one of the biggest industrialists and "financial kings" in Germany, told the Reichstag on June 7, 1900, that "the one-pound share is the basis of British imperialism> This merchant has a much deeper and more "Marxian" understanding of imperialism than a certain disreputable writer.."
The point here is that the small investors are sort of fresh meat on the stock market for the big players. There are a number of other quotes in this chapter that make it clear that this is Lenin's meaning.

The point is that the 20th Century stock market is like a casino. The odds are with the house ( who are monopoly finance capitalists of different forms) The competition is monopoly competitiion, a main theme of Lenins analysis of all competition in the monopoly phase of capitalism.

As I mentioned before, Doug's own discussion of the fact in a recent period that he finds that corporations raise capital from loans-bonds and not from stock sales fits exactly Lenin's idea.  It is the finance capital institutions on the bond market, creditors, who are the real players in that specific comparison.  The stock market , with company buy backs etc. is evidently a sort of shell game/charade. Exactly so in agreement with Lenin's thesis. This finding is a present day confirmation of Lenin's analysis of the changes from more freely competitive capitalism in the 1800's to monopoly capitalism and financial capitalist hegemony.  Todays' stock and bond markets are dominated by monopoly and not free competition, and in  one regard evidently  the bond market seems more real than the stock market. The bond market is a creditor/debtor market, or finance capitalist relations.

Charles Brown