Any form of monopolies does not alter the essence of capitalist property

L.Çuçi, G. Pashko

Albania today 1981

All the forms of concentration of production and capital lead to the reproduction of capitalist relations of production and, on this basis, reproduce on an ever-sharper degree all the antagonistic contradictions which erode the capitalist system from within.

THE HISTORY OF THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF IMPERIALISM AS THE HIGHEST AND FINAL PHASE OF CAPITALISM IS THE HISTORY OF THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MONOPOLİES. REPLACEMENT OF FREE COMPETITION WITH THE MONOPOLY, EMERGENCE, DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF NATIONAL MONOPOLIES BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF ONE COUNTRY SETTING UP OF INTERNATIONAL MONOPOLIES OF STATE AND INTER-STATE MONOPOLY CAPITALISM, ARE FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF IMPERIALISM.

TAKING THE NEW FORMS OF MANIFESTATION OF PRESENT-DAY CAPITALISM AS A STARTING POINT, THE MODERN REVISIONISTS OF ALL HUES CLAIM THAT CAPITALISM, AT ITS FINAL PHASE -IMPERIALISM, HAS ALLEGEDLY UNDERGONE CHANGES WHICH REFUTE LENIN'S DEFINITION OF IMPERIALISM.

Contrary to these claims of the revisionists, the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha, in a scientific analysis of the stage of world development today, especially in the works ... Imperialism and the Revolution .. , “Reflections on China”, “Eurocommunism Is Anti-communism .. , and in other works, support the important Marxist-Leninist conclusion that present-day imperialism develops in just the same lines and features as defined by Lenin, and that the imperialism of our day has undergone no change in essence, that it has caused all the contradictions and all the ulcers of capitalist society to grow worse, and that the development of present-day capitalism has reached the historical stage in which the revolution is not only an aspiration and a perspective, but an urgent problem laid down for solution.

CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND CAPITAL HAS LED TO THE CREATION OF GIANT MONOPOLIES

Lenin proved with scientific argument that imperialism is the product of the exacerbation of all the contradictions of capitalism and, in the first place of its fundamental contradiction -that between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation. Transition of capitalism to its monopoly stage -imperialism, is the objective result of the laws of capitalism and, in the first place of the law of the high-rate increase of accumulation of capital and profits.

As a result of the competitive struggle for a high norm and measure of profit, the capitalists are forced to make constant use of the most advanced technology in the process of production. On this basis, the process of accumulation and concentration of capital is sped up. The economic crises which have become more frequent and graver, the militarization of the economy, imperialist wars, the proliferation of shareholders' companies, etc. directly influence this process.

The concentration of production and capital in conditions of anarchy and fierce competitive struggle, the antagonistic contradictions which generate them and, in the first place, the contradiction between the social character in production and the private, capitalist character or appropriation, are the objective cause  of the emergence of monopolies. The characteristic feature of imperialism in the historical process of Its development is that concentration of production and its monopolization has assumed ever greater proportions. This process was stepped up, especially after the Second World War, as a result of the massive regeneration or capital in several branches or the economy of the war-ravaged capitalist countries. Regeneration of capital on the basis of the technical-scientific revolution, the disintegration of the colonial system of imperialism and the emergence of socialism beyond the limits of one country, all this further restricted the sphere of operation of monopolies. This restriction was unavoidably followed by a new degree of acute inter-imperialist contradictions for a re-division of markets, sources of raw materials and spheres of influence. In an effort to find a temporary way out or this situation imperialism raised the degree of monopolization and expanded stale monopoly capitalism, set up various inter-state monopoly unions, like the European Common Market and Comecon and multinational companies. Comrade Enver Hoxha Writes:

“A characteristic of present-day capitalism is the ever in-creasing concentration of production and capital, which have led to the merging or absorption of the small enterprises by the powerful ones. A consequence of this is the mass concentration or the work force in big trusts and concerns. These enterprises have also concentrated in their hands huge productive capacities, resources of energy and raw materials of Incalculable pro-portions. At present the big capitalist enterprises are also utilizing nuclear energy and the newest technology which belong to these enterprises exclusively.” l

In the conditions of concentration or production and capital in a few hands, monopolization appeared as a new phenomenon which some dozens of years ago did not constitute a general and typical form of its manifestation. Thus, for example, the creation of the modern monopolies of colossal proportions brought about the emergence of “conglomerate” enterprises which absorb enterprises of the various branches of industry, transport, trade, agriculture, services and the banks, turning out everything, from children’s toys to inter-continental missiles. These “conglomerates” control and apply, when their interests dictate it, the most advanced science and technology, control most of production and labour power. For example, five hundred or the largest corporations of the United States account for more than 2/3 of the production and sale and 3/11 of the profit of the American industry, and employ 20 per cent of the American worker. A very limited number of monopoly magnates control the main branches of the American industry. Two or three giant American firms control the production of armored vehicles, steel, rubber and forming machines. Only one firm controls all the production of computers (IBM), one the production of chemical detergents (Procter), one the production of tobacco (Reynolds), etc. Likewise, in Japan 10 major monopolies account for 65 per cent of total national production, 50 per cent of the export and employ 40 per cent of the total number of workers. Three giant firms control the metallurgical industry of this country, four others the electronic industry, and one firm the oil industry, etc. In Britain, 50 Giant monopolies make the law in all the branches of the economy.

In the revisionist countries like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, China, etc., various .. conglomerates” have emerged in the form of large industrial commercial industrial-agrarian complexes, comprising enterprises of the different branches of the economy. Like in the other capitalist countries, here, too, the directors or these huge complexes make the law everywhere and impose their will on all problems of the economic and social development.

This extension of the activity of big monopolies reflects the tendency of capital towards elimination of the inter-dependence of monopolies and the setting up of definitive links and unions among them in the vain hope of shortening, however little, the impact or the ever exacerbating contradictions, but with the result of making the ulcers of present-day capitalism steadily worse. The reality shows that the large concentration of production, which has resulted in socialization of production, has not changed, nor could it ever change the oppressing and exploiting nature of the structure and super-structure of capitalism. The monopolies preserve the essence of the capitalist private ownership and alter only the form of its manifestation. Capitalist private property assumes the form of property of a group of capitalists, which not only does not liquidate the exploitative character of the capitalist relations of production, but on the contrast:' raises it to a higher degree. Thus, for example, in 1979 the 500 biggest firms or the United States made a profit of 1,500 million dollars, or about twice as much as in 1975, and this at a time when the number of the unemployed in 1979 rose to 12 million, the price index went up 15 per cent, inflation rose 18 per cent, etc.

The different forms of monopolies, such as the cartels, trusts, and concerns, are utilized by the monopoly bourgeoisie according to the changing circumstances, at times one of these forms assumes priority over the others, now state monopoly capitalism comes to the fore and now it is the turn of the multi-national companies to play first fiddle, but this never changes their exploiting and plundering character. The omni-potence of the monopolies, their all-round domination in all the fields of the economic, social, and political activity, both in the national and the international plane, goes on increasing.

THE MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES-TYPICAL PHENOMENON  OF THE PRESENT-DAY

PROCESS OF CAPITALIST  MONOPOLIZATION

The multinational companies are a new form of the international monopolies which emerged as a result of the great proportions assumed by the concentration of production and capital in the international plane. From the technical and organizational standpoint, the form of the multinational monopolies does not differ from that of any other monopoly. They may be trusts, concerns, consortiums, or cartels, but their peculiarity is that, while their center is in one country, their activity is extended to several countries through the setting up of filial which produce commodities formerly exported to these countries as finished products.

Concentration and centralization or production within the country, and on this basis, the tendency to expansion abroad is accompanied with the exacerbation of inter-imperialist scramble for markets, sources of raw materials, spheres of influence, maximum profits.

On the other hand, the deepening of economic, financial, and political crises, as well as the sharpening of the class struggle within and without the country, all this explains the causes of the emergence and spread of multinational companies.

Lenin also noticed their emergence as forms of economic expansion or imperialism, although in his time they were in an embryonic stage of development. The expansion of the multinational companies began after the Second World War, especially in the 60's and 70s, until they became a typical mass phenomenon. Their spread in this period is conditioned by the tendency to the internationalization of productive capital, the process of accumulation of capital on an international scale, which reaches all the corners of the globe. The emergence of multinational companies also corresponds to the present stage or the development of the class struggle in an international plane, the clash between socialism and capitalism, the proletariat and the-bourgeoisie on a world scale. In the multinational companies this aspect of the fundamental contradiction of our epoch becomes more apparent than anywhere else. This clearly shows how the bourgeoisie of some countries exploits not only the proletariat of the metropolises, but also the proletariat of the whole world through the monopolies.

In order to form an idea of the measure of plunder and exploitation carried out by the international companies, suffice it to say that, for example, the multinational company “General Motors Corporation” exploits the proletariat of several countries of the world, from which it ensures an amount of industrial production the total value of which exceeds that of the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland taken together, or that about 500 American multinational companies make an annual net profit of about 10 billion dollars outside the United States. The companies “Socony Mobil”, “Standard Oil of New Jersey” and others extract almost half of their profit from the plunder and exploitation of other countries. The live major multinational companies Exon, General Motors, IBM, Unilever, and General Electrics doubled their role in the period 1973-1975.

The nature and character of the activities of the multinational companies becomes more evident from the fact that they are uni-national in regard to their capital which is mainly American and multinational in regard to their extension, the proportions and scale or their activity. The “multi-national” is meant only to camouflage their national character. While the international monopolies which operated in Lenin's time were the result of accords reached among the monopolies, the present-day multinational companies are extensions of one monopoly beyond national borders. Comrade Enver Hoxha points out in his work Imperialism and the Revolution” that “In their outward appearance, these companies seek to give the impression that they are under the joint ownership of capitalists of many countries. In fact, in regard to their capital and control the multinational companies belong mainly to one country, although they carry out their activities in many countries.”2 The “uni-national,.. character or the multinational companies is best illustrated in the following figures: 70 per cent of the multinational companies operating in the world today have their centres in the United States, 285 “mother firms” control 2/3 of the annual American exports and have 5,200 alias all over the world. In these and other forms, the American bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat of the various countries of the world, by appropriating most of the surplus value.

The Soviet social-imperialists have created their big concerns, similar to the Western multinationals, for the plunder and exploitation, in the first place of the Comecon member countries and the other countries and peoples of the world. Their specific form is connected with the conditions of the restoration and development of a particular kind of state capitalism. Under cover of the activities of joint enterprises, that Soviet revisionists carry out their neo-colonialist -expansion not only towards the Comecon member countries, but also towards the other countries, especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. High selling and low buying prices, as well as the according of credits and “aid” in enslaving terms, are the favorite methods of plunder by the Soviet social-imperialists. Only in the first 6 months of 1978 the Soviet Union had a surplus of about one billion rubles in the balance of foreign trade with the Comecon member countries and about 900 million rubles with the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The capitalist trusts “Intermetal”,” Inter-machin”, “Interchimik “ , “Agromadhin” and others enable the Soviet Union to control the vital industries of the economy of many countries of the world. Now there are 84 Soviet multinational companies which call themselves” joint shareholders' companies”, operating in 26 countries of the world.

The activity of the multinational companies is fraught with grave consequences for the people. Struggling for domination and privileges, the multinational companies bribe statesmen, try to control the state apparatus in other countries and, when their interests are at stake, do not even hesitate to overthrow the governments of the countries in which they operate. Every day brings new examples of the brutal interference of the multinational companies in the internal affairs of other countries, of their involvement in political scandals and corruption. Thus, for example, the struggle between an American oil trust and the Mexican Government, which ended with the latter's submission to the conditions dictated by the American trust, is a case in point. The military putsch, which toppled the government of the Popular Front in Chile in 1973, was the doing of the American monopolies. Everybody knows that the Lockheed monopolists bribed many government figures and parliamentarians in Italy, Britain, Japan, and other countries. These facts reveal the essence of the “aid” they claim to give and the “progress,. they pretend to promote all over the world.

The multinational companies, set up by world capital ,in an attempt to soften evil consequences of imperialism by making the peoples pay for them, have further worsened the state of the decay of the capitalist system, have extended the sphere and increased the intensity of its contradictions, have sharpened the clash between the peoples and imperialism.

The many lackeys of imperialism present the multinational companies as new elements created by the bourgeoisie to “assist” the development of the peoples to promote their “progress ... But in the 34 years since the Second World War the peoples have gained awareness of the true meaning of the credits and so-called aid from imperialism. Hunger, poverty, disease, discrimination, ruthless plunder of national assets -this is 'the “advantage” the peoples gain from the multinational companies and neo-colonialism, in general. The undeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, which account for 70 per cent of the population of the world, give only 9 per cent of the world industrial production. More than 1.5 billion people in these countries live under a subsistence level. In Latin America 12 million poor peasants are unable to earn even their bread, and 12 million school-age children roam about begging or doing heavy work. And this at a time when the multinational companies made e profit of 11.5 billion dollars in 1977, as against 700 million dollars in 1950, from their investment in Latin America. 'The multinational companies make a profit of 4-5 dollars from every dollar invested.

As the spawn of contradictions and ulcers of imperialism they are, the multinational companies cannot change its exploiting nature. Through them big capital sponger on the blood and sweat of the peoples, saddling them with the heavy burden of the crisis which has the entire capitalist-revisionist world in its grip.

STATE AND INTER-STATE MONOPOLY CAPITALISM REPRESENTS THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF THE CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND CAPITAL

Lenin defined the essence of state monopoly capitalism as combination of the colossal power of capital with the colossal power of the state into one mechanism in which the state is always subordinated to the interests of the monopolies.

From this definition fully emerges the economic and political essence of state monopoly capitalism, its motives, and the purpose of its creation. State monopoly capitalism is the objective result or the strengthening of the monopolies on the basis of an increased concentration of production which enables the monopoly bourgeoisie to utilize the bourgeois state more and more in its interest. In this context, the monopolies unite economically with the state, receive from it orders for various products, especially military ones, ensure, through state corruption, a guaranteed market for a colossal part of their products, take state credits and subsidies, profit from the productive activity of state enterprises and use the state to defend themselves against foreign competition and for capturing foreign markets. The higher the degree of concentration of the monopolies, the greater their power, the more this power is combined with the power of the state, fully subjecting the latter to itself.

Monopoly capitalism, like state monopoly capitalism, does not in the least come out of the limits of the capitalist mode of production, does not represent a qualitative change of capitalism as regards the mode of production, but only represents a higher stage, the final stage of concentration of production and capital.

All the fierce contradictions of capitalism, which grow and deepen along with the growth of concentration of production and capital, are inherent to state monopoly capitalism.

Inter-state monopoly capitalism does not alter in the least the nature of present-day imperialism and social-imperialism. The monopoly mergers are the result of a high concentration and centralization of production and capital on an international scale, of the ever increasing tendency of the productive force, to out step the relatively narrow limits of the capitalist national economy. Through them and unilateral and multilateral agreements among states, the financial oligarchy tries to find common ways and means to pull itself out of the crisis, be it only for the time being, to make maximum profits even in the conditions of the further exacerbation of the crisis.

From the political standpoint the oligarchy set up the inter-state monopoly mergers as a joint apparatus of violence and terror against the revolutionary and national liberation movements and the socialist forces the world over. The imperialist bourgeoisie needs them in order to get the sharp social, economic, and political antagonisms which erode the capitalist system. In general, and every bourgeois or revisionist country, in particular. But imperialist “integration.. cannot avoid these contradictions. Indeed, it just served to further deepen the antagonisms in the whole system of the world capitalist, bourgeois, or revisionist economy. The major inter-state monopoly mergers of today the European Common Market and Comecon, are tools of the aggressive, oppressive, and exploitative policy of the superpowers and forms of neo-colonialist subjection of the peoples. The European Common Market is a union of the capitalist monopolies and trusts for the savage exploitation of the proletariat and the working masses in Europe and in other parts of the world, is a neo-colonialist great power which not only competes with the superpowers in the exploitation of the proletariat in the developing countries, but also tries to maintain and restore the old privileges of the former colonial powers there.

State and inter-state monopoly capitalism serves the imperialist bourgeoisie to extend its tentacles to all the continents of the world and to extract fabulous profits through the savage exploitation an-cl oppression of the peoples. Thus, even in the conditions of the existence of state and inter-state monopoly capitalism, the general law of capitalist accumulation continues to operate with its full impact. On the one hand, the poverty, suffering and misery of hundreds of millions of people is becoming steadily worse, while the profits and luxury of a handful of people keep constantly -rising, on the other. Thus, for example, the net profits of the American -monopolies 'in 1978 in-creased fourfold against 1970. In the Federal German Republic, while two hundred of the wealthiest families possess about 50 per cent of the local productive capital, 6,5 million families are unable to make both ends meet. The same situation exists in Britain, France, Italy, Japan, etc. According to bourgeois statistics, there are more than 350 million partially or totally unemployed in the capitalist and revisionist world.

All this shows that the increased degree or concentration of production and capital and, on this basis, the creation of various monopolies, from the cartels and syndicate of the time of Lenin to the giant industrial complexes -the multinational companies and the state and inter-state monopoly capitalist companies of today, not only does not change in the least the exploitative nature of modern capitalism, but on the contrary, deepens it further. The temporary solutions capitalism searches in order to soften, however little, the deep antagonistic contradictions which erode it from within and by-pass the crisis, are fraught with even more shattering and destructive consequences for capitalism. One thing is quite clear -all the forms of concentration of production and capital lead to the reproduction of capitalist relations of production and, on this basis, reproduce on an ever sharper degree all the antagonistic contradictions which erode the capitalist system from within. “Elements of socialist relations” can never be born in the bosom of capitalism, which cannot annihilate itself. Practice has vindicated the truth of Marxism-Leninism, that the world can be changed only through the revolution.

Capitalism develops through crises which envelop all the spheres of the economic and social activity and which are becoming ever fiercer and more destructive. The solutions the bourgeoisie tries to find through the various forms of monopolies, as well as through the militarization of the economy and the technical-scientific revolution can do nothing other than fur the exacerbate the imperialist contradictions which erode it to death. In these conditions, to claim that imperialism of today is not the imperialism of the time of Lenin, that it has undergone qualitative changes and assumed new economic features which represent “elements of socialism, means to become an advocator and supporter of capitalism, as the revisionists of all hues -Yugoslav, Soviet, Eurocommunist, Chinese and others, have become today.

1 Enver Hoxha. “Imperialism and the Revolution”, pp. 70-71, Alb. ed.

2 Enver Hoxha, “Imperialism an-d the Revolution ... , p. 77, Alb. ed .

Albania Today-1981-02