COMPETITION, CREDIT AND CRISES: A CRITIQUE OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF MONOPOLY CAPITAL THEORY (FINANCE, CONCENTRATION, GERMANY, MONEY).

摘要

The root of the concept of monopoly capital is Hilferding's pioneering work Finance Capital, published in 1910. In this book, Hilferding aimed to develop Marx's analysis of the processes of concentration and centralization of capital.;An examination of the theory of finance captial is particularly relevant in light of its outstanding role in current explanations of how the capitalist mode of production operates in the twentieth century. In this sense, this dissertation is a critical study of an important chapter in the history of economic thought.;Hilferding interprets the existence of differential profit rates as an expression of the process of general monopolization in the economy. Given Marx's conception, however, the phenomenon of differential rates of profit among capitals in one industry, as well as the differential rates of profit in different industries, are necessary phenomena of competition.;Hilferding also reverses Marx's conception of the relation between bank capital and industrial capital. According to Marx, an invariant characteristic of the capitalist mode of production is the subordination of interest-bearing capital to industrial capital. The development of bank capital, corporations and financial groups are, therefore, mere expressions of that subordination.;The concepts of competition, credit and crises comprise the central elements around which Hilferding formulated his ideas about the operation of capitalism. Such concepts, however, received sketchy treatment from him. It is useful to study and shape the contours of the procedures used by Hilferding, given that around these concepts and the general sense of his work itself there are sharp contrasts with Marx's conceptions.;It is argued in this dissertation that Hilferding's theory of crises is an insufficient explanation for the general crises of capitalism. Finally, Hilferding's theory of finance capital, as a whole, is found to contain an incongruity between the logical results of the analysis of the processes of capital concentration and centralization vis-a-vis the theory of crisis and the analysis of finance capital's economic policies.;Based on this evaluation, this dissertation demonstrates the necessity for a critical revision of contemporary theories of monopoly capital and questions the political efficacy of social democratic economic approaches.