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Lewis Corey

The Decline of American Capitalism

PART SEVEN
Monopoly Capitalism and Imperialism

Introductory

UNDERLYING the resplendent mythology of the pre-1929 prosperity was the real and contradictory movement of economic forces. Instead of realizing prosperity everlasting, and precisely because of the economic upswing which created the illusion, it marked the final transformation of competitive capitalism into monopoly capitalism, and of monopoly capitalism into imperialism. This transformation was the feature of post-war developments in the United States, conditioning prosperity, the character and prolongation of the depression, and the decline of American capitalism. These are the major aspects of the transformation:

• The increasing concentration of industry and centralization of corporate control under the domination of monopolist combinations of capital.
• The increasing concentration of financial institutions under control of a financial oligarchy, which dominates economic life by the combined mastery of monopolist combinations, investment resources, and credit.
• The final realization of the rule of finance capital, i.e., the fusion of industrial and banking capital; tighter centralization of the financial control of industry.
• The export of capital on a constantly greater scale and the consolidation of imperialism as the definite expression of American capitalism; an intensified struggle for foreign markets to absorb surplus capital and goods, an aggressive foreign policy, larger armaments, reaction, and the threat of war.

Two important changes in class relations: final suppression of the farmers as a class capable of independent action on a capitalist basis; final transformation of the middle class from an enemy into a dependent of monopoly capitalism, and the consequent collapse of the struggle against the trusts.

The growth of monopoly and imperialism, inescapably determining the future of American (and world) capitalism, comprises the real significance and historical character of the pre-1929 economic changes – not the temporary prosperity and its vulgar mythology. While the apologists were crowing that hard times could only prevail among lesser peoples outside the law of American prosperity everlasting, the contradictory nature of prosperity’s development produced a depression worse than in any other country. While the apologists were crowing about national self-sufficiency, the export of capital and imperialism were binding the American economy with new chains of steel to the economy of the world market. Monopoly and imperialism contributed to the coming of depression and its prolongation, for they express all the underlying contradictions and antagonisms of capitalist production. Yet the efforts of the NRA, of state capitalism, to “assure” a new permanent prosperity tend to strengthen monopoly and imperialism, a fundamental contradiction which dooms the program to disaster.

Monopoly and imperialism are not new; they have been developing in the United States since the 1880’s. What is new is their maturity and supremacy, and their significance as elements in the decline of capitalism.

 
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Last updated on 4.9.2007