FROM PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS (original) (raw)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “α”

(“ALPHA”)

FROM PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS

Principles of Social Economics, by S. Altmann...
K. Bücher and many others.

Section V, Part II: “_Banking_” (Schulze-Gaevernitz and Jaffé), Tübingen, 1915.

I. Schulze-Gaevernitz, “The German Credit Bank” (1-190).
II. Edgar Jaffé, “Anglo-American and French Banking” (191-231).
(More like a textbook, by paragraphs, apparently mostly chatter and “systematics”.)

| | | | | | | | | - | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | There is also interesting mate-rial. The spirit of “_imperialism_” throughout. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

p. 53: in 1914 eight Berlin big banks owned

p. 140: Specialisation: “Money and Credit Operations”.

cf. p. 11: there were 14,000 banking houses in Germany in 1907, of which 4,000 were auxiliary establishments....

p. 145: ... “The big banks have become the most important means for the economic unification of the German Reich”....

| “Once the supreme management of theGerman banks has been entrusted to thehands of a dozen persons, their activity iseven today more significant for the publicgood than that of the majority of Ministersof State” (145-46).[1] | | | | | “a dozenpersons” | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | ---------------- |

| ha-ha!! | | | | “If, however, this is so, then the nationalwelfare requires the development of a newspiritual type of bank magnate whose abstract[ha-ha!] urge for profit is permeated bynational-political and therefore national-eco-nomic considerations.... | | ------- | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| | “If we imagine the development of thosetendencies we have noted carried to theirlogical conclusions we will have: the moneycapital of the nation united in the banks; thebanks themselves combined into cartels; theinvestment capital of the nation cast in theshape of securities. Then the forecast of thatgenius Saint-Simon will be fulfilled: ‘Thepresent anarchy of production, which corres-ponds to the fact that economic relations aredeveloping without uniform regulation, mustmake way for organisation in production.Production will no longer be directed by iso-lated manufacturers, independent of eachother and ignorant of man’s economic needs;that will be done by a certain public insti-tution. A central committee of management,being able to survey the large field of socialeconomy from a more elevated point of view,will regulate it for the benefit of the wholeof society, will put the means of productioninto suitable hands, and above all will takecare that there be constant harmony betweenproduction and consumption. Institutions al-ready exist which have assumed as part of theirfunctions a certain organisation of economiclabour, the banks.’ We are still a long wayfrom the fulfilment of Saint-Simon’s forecast,but we are on the way towards it: Marxism,different from what Marx imagined, butdifferent only in form!” (146)[2] | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | Saint-Simon | | | | | | | | | | whatMarxism!!! | | | |

| “Of course, investments like those made byBritain, e.g., in the Suez Canal, on the basisof her political power—the shares were boughtin 1876 for £4 million and today are worth£30 million—are still unattainable for Ger-many”...(159-60). | | goodexample!(envy) 4 and 30 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ------------------------------- | | | | |

p. 164 quotes J. Lewin, German Capital in Russia, St. Petersburg, 1914.

| | “The economic function of the banks is thealready much discussed managementof the national property [a refer-ence to Lansburgh’s article in the magazineDie Bank, 1908]. Today, the greater the devel-opment of credit operations, the greaterbecomes the share of the total capital goingto entrepreneurs chosen by the bank. Thebanks now provide the channels through whichflow not only annual savings but also previous-ly accumulated (and continually renewed)capital. One recalls, above all, the enormousgrowth of ‘borrowed money’. In our joint-stock banks in Germany these deposits amount-ed to about 1,280 million marks at the endof 1891; to about 6,305 million marks at theend of 1906; at the present time they areestimated at approximately 10,000 mil-lion marks. “At the end of 1913, deposits of the nine bigBerlin banks alone were about 5,100 million[3]marks. At the same time, however, thebanks act as channels for still larger move-ments of capital in dealings in stock. Inthis matter, even if there is good will, theymay make mistakes; they may direct thousandsof millions into the wrong channel and,under certain circumstances, lose. At thepresent time a few big banks can to a certainextent determine the course of our econo-mic development. Hence their economicresponsibility to the shareholders becomesa national economic responsibility in relationto the state as a whole. They do, in fact,direct capital into industrial and commercialchannels, primarily into the giant enterprisesof heavy industry, and also into real estate—formerly into the estates of the nobilitybut nowadays into the leasehold houses of thebig cities. Hence the rapid progress of theGerman iron industry, which is second only toAmerica, and of the German big cities, whichare overtaking even their American proto-types” (p. 12).... | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ---- | ----------------------------- | | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | N.B.10,000million5,000million | | | | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

| N.B. | | | | p. 27: “Borrowed money (of creditors anddepositors) at the end of 1908: 8,250 millionmarks in credit banks, 15,000 millionmarks in savings banks, 3,000 millionmarks in credit associations. Σ = 26,250 mil-lion marks. | | ---- | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | |

| N.B. | | | | “‘Private banking houses’ are increasing innumber (1892: 2480; 1902: 2,564; 1912: esti-mated at about 3,500) and decreasing inimportance” (p. 16). | | ---- | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Everywhere (passim), throughout, Schulze-Gaevernitz’s tone is that of triumphant German imperialism, of a triumphant swine!!!!

State Bank endorsement and clearing operations (thousand million marks)

| ...“In 1909, the Bank of France discounted7,500,000 bills below 100 francs, whereasthe German State Bank discounted only 700,000bills below 100 marks”. (p. 54). | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | |

“Democratisation” of banking! Compare the one-pound shares in Great Britain and the minimum of 1,000 marks in Germany (p. 111).[4] The average size of a bill of exchange in Germany = 2,066 marks (State Bank); in France it is 683 francs (Banque de France).

| “G. von Siemens declared in the Reichstagon June 7, 1900, that the one-pound sharewas the basis of British imperialism” (p. 110).[5] | | | N.B. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ---- |

| “The British industrial state is based lesson credit than the German, and more on itsown capital” (55). | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | |

“Even today, Great Britain, as the international intermediary for payments, is said to earn about 80 million marks annually as commission on acceptances. It is said that 6,000 million marks are paid annually through Great Britain for the overseas trade of Europe” (83).

p. 100: § entitled “The Banks’ Domination over the Stock Exchanges?”—This is said to be an exaggeration but “their [the banks’] influence is far-reaching”....

| | | | | | | “While formerly, in the seventies, the StockExchange, flushed with the exuberance ofyouth, opened the era of the industrialisationof Germany, taking advantage of the opportu-nities offered by shares, nowadays the banksand industry are able to ‘manage it alone’.The domination of our big banks over theStock Exchange, which is bound up withcontango business—but not only with this—is nothing else than the expression of thecompletely organised German industrial state.If the domain of automatically functioningeconomic laws is thus restricted, and ifthe domain of conscious regulation by thebanks is considerably enlarged, the _national_economic responsibility of the few directingindividuals is immensely increased” (101).[6] | | ------------------------------------------- | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | “com-pletelyorgan-ised”[15] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

| N.B. | | | (Quoted) A. Löwenstein, “History ofthe Württemberg Credit Bank System andIts Relation to Big Industry”... Archivfür Sozialwissenschaft. Supple-mentary issue No. 5. Tübingen, 1912. | | ---- | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |

Issues (p. 104):

| | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | --- | --------- | | | | | | | | | | | | Internal securities | | | | | | | | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Germany with colo- nies . . . . . . | 3.2 | 2.5 | 2.2 | 7.9:3=2.6 | | | Britain with colo- nies . . . . . . | 1.9 | 3.1 | 1.8 | 6.8:3=2.3 | | | France with colo- nies . . . . . . | 1.4 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 2.7:3=0.9 | |

| | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------- | ---- | ---- | --------------- | ------------- | --------------------- | | --------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | Foreignsecurities | | | My calculations | | | | | | | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | Σ:3 = | | ΣΣ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Germany with colonies . . | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.3 : 3 = 0.4 | | | 3,000 million marks | | Britain with colonies . . | 1.8 | 2.3 | 2.0 | 6.1 : 3 = 2.0 | 4,300 million marks | | | | France with colonies . . | 2.0 | 3.8 | 3.1 | 8.9 : 3 = 2.9 | 3,800 million marks | | |

Issues in Germany (at market value)

| | 000 million marks | | | | | | | ---------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------------- | --- | | | Social credit (state and mu-)muncipal loans | Land credit(mortgages) | Industrialand tradecredit | InternalsecuritiesTotal | ForeignsecuritiesTotal | | | [1886-1890] | 1.8 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 4.3 | 2.3 | | [1891-1895] | 1.8 | 2.2 | 0.8 | 4.8 | 1.5 | | [1896-1900] | 1.7 | 1.9 | 4.3 | 8.2 | 2.4 | | [1901-1905] | 3.3 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 8.3 | 2.1 | | [1906-1910] | 6.0 | 2.6 | 4.8 | 12.6 | 1.5 |

The author concludes:

“The statistics of issues very clearly reveal the state-socialist and industrial colouring of the German national economy” (104).

Germany’s “Prussian railway system”, the author says, is “the greatest economic undertaking in the world” (104)....

Joint-Stock Companies in Prussia in 1911

| | (million marks) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------- | ------------- | ------------- | ---------- | ------------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | ----- | --- | ----- | ------------- | ----- | ----- | | | Invested capital | | Annual profit | | | | | | | | | | | | | No. of compa- nies | Nominal value | Market value | % (market) | Million marks | % of nominal value | % of market value | | | | 15,700-8,800 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 177.9% | | | | 890 | 8,821 | 15,969 | 177.9 | 952 | 10.8% | 6.1% | 6,900 | mill. |

| | ....“Advocates of the small share emphasise thatit enables workers to participate in industry,interlocking the interests of the worker andthe employer in a way that is socially andeconomically desirable. It is profit-sharingin a modern form” (pp. 110-11)—(in connec-tion with one-pound shares). | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | N.B. | | | | | | |

| phrase-mon-geringandlies!! | ⎧⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎩ | | | In the § on “speculation in securities”(p. 111 et seq.), instead of _exposing_speculation by the banks ((cf. the magazine Die Bank, Eschwege and others)), the scoun-drel Schulze-Gaevernitz gets out of it byphrases: “If our banks were speculative compa-nies ... it would mean ... the collapse of theGerman national economy” (112)... ((“if”))...saves the “propriety” of our “business world”,and our bank officials are forbidden to spec-ulate in alien banks (of course, he says,this can be easily circumvented!! in largecities) ...but what about bank direc-tors? For they are “in the know” (“Wissen-den”)!! Here, he says, legislation is of no avail,what is needed is “strengthening of the com-mercial sense of honour and standing” (113).... | | -------------------------- | ---------------- | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | !! | | | | | | | | | | |

| | “At the end of 1909, the nine big Berlinbanks, together with their affiliated banks,controlled 11,300,000,000 marks, that is,about 83 per cent of total German bankcapital. The Deutsche Bank, which togetherwith its affiliated banks controls nearly 3,000,000,000 marks, represents, par-allel to the Prussian State Railway Admin-istration, the biggest and also the mostdecentralised accumulation of capital in theOld World” (137)....[7] | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | 9 banks83% ofthe total!! | | | | | | |

| Agreements between banks: the Darmstäd-ter Bank wanted to conclude an agreementwith the city of Berlin on “revenue-use” ofthe Tempelhof area, at a 10 per cent profit.Later, when the Deutsche Bank made thisdeal—the Darmstädter Bank was found to bein its consortium!! (p. 139).... “Bank consor-tiums of this kind tend to make price agree-ments”....“Nevertheless, the ‘general agreements’ con-cluded in the summer of 1913 go so far that,after their implementation, there can hardlybe any further talk of free competition inbanking”... (139)... | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ------------------- | | | | | towardsa bankcartel | | | | | (1913) |

| “The Discontogesellschaft, for example, em-ploys a permanent staff of 25 to check accountsand the formal aspect of operations” (143). | | | | 25 personscontrol.... | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | --------------------- |

| “Thirty years ago; businessmen, freely com-peting against one another, performed nine-tenths of the work connected with theirbusiness other than manual labour. At thepresent time, nine-tenths of this ‘brain work’is performed by employees. Banking is in theforefront of this evolution (151).[8] In the gigan-tic firms, the official is everything, even thedirector is a ‘servant’ of the institution | | | | N.B.N.BN.B. | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | ----------- |

| | ...“The Frankfurter Zeitung (May 2, 1914)greeted the fusion of the Discontogesellschaftwith the Schaaffhausenscher Bankverein withthe following words:“‘The concentration movement of the banksis narrowing the circle of establishmentsfrom which it is possible to obtain credits,and is consequently increasing the dependenceof big industry upon a small number of bank-ing groups. In view of the close connectionbetween industry and the financial world,the freedom of movement of industrial com-panies which need banking capital is res-tricted. For this reason, big industry iswatching the growing trustification of thebanks with mixed feelings. Indeed, we haverepeatedly seen the beginnings of certainagreements between the individual big bank-ing concerns, which aim at restricting com-petition’” (p. 155).[9]154-55: The question is: who is moredependent on whom, the banks on industryor vice versa?... | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Wiewiorowski, The Effect of the Concentration of German Banks on Crisis Phenomena (Freiburg Thesis), Berlin, 1911.

| N.B. | | | | Völker, Forms of Combination and Interest Sharing in German Big Industry, Leipzig, 1909 ((Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, Vol. 33, No. 4)). | | ---- | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Chapter X. “Foreign Investments.”

| N.B. | | | | “For our banks to be able to channel theinflow of capital into foreign investmentsrequires definite prerequisites of a privateeconomic nature on the part of their clients.The chief stimulus is the need for a higher rateof profit than that from investment at home,where capital wealth is increasing and therate of interest falling.... | | ---- | | | ---- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | N.B. | |

| “...The banks therefore aim primarily atstock issues, which usually yield higherprofits in foreign countries poor in capitaland rich in raw materials” (158).... | | | N.B. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ---- |

N.B. [cf. above, p. 44 quotation: from pp. 159-60[10]] N.B.

| “According to statistical data, foreign capi-tal investments are estimated at 7 0,000 milli-on marks for Britain, 35,000 million forFrance (1910), but hardly 20,000 million forGermany in 1913” (160). | | | | 703520 | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | ------ |

Quoting facts confirming “export stipulations” and the benefit accruing to industry from foreign investments, Schulze-Gaevernitz says, incidentally, that France also benefits from this:

| “The French rentier state is thus experienc-ing a second industrial flowering”—the float-ing of the Turkish loan in 1910 was madeconditional on Turkey not giving to any coun-try more orders than to France... (p. 163). | | | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ------------------ | | | | | | | character-istic!!! | |

| “Germany today is a typical ‘entrepreneuroperating abroad’, whereas France, and grad-ually also Britain, are becoming ossified asrentiers.... Though the world of today has anAnglo-Saxon countenance, our banks, bymeans of railways, mines, plantations, canals,irrigation works, etc., are working to givethis countenance traits of the German spirit”(164).... | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ---- | | | | | | | | | N.B. |

(N.B.: p. 1, note. “Written before the war.”)

In Chapter X.

| C. “Political appraisal of foreign invest-ments.”“The export of capital is a means for achiev-ing the foreign policy aims and, at the sametime, its success depends on foreign policy. | | | N.B. | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ---- |

| | | “a) The creditor’ states: France, Great Brit-ain, Germany. Great Britain and France,the two big creditor powers of the world, are political bankers. The state and the bankingcommunity act as one and the same person.Such is the French Government and theCrédit Lyonnais. Such is the friendship ofEdward VII and Sir E. Cassel. Hoping towin the main prize in the political lottery,France staked thousands of millions of francs,on the Russian card alone. Russia, by obtain-ing money from France, was even able to actas a political loan giver in the Far East—in China and in Persia. France, as a loangiver, had a hold over Spain and Italy, andas her clients they helped her in Algeciras.France was prepared to extend to the Kossuthministry loans she refused to Count Kuehn:‘the earnest-money would have been theTriple Alliance’. As a political creditor,Great Britain cemented afresh the Britishworld empire, without fear of pressure on thecurrent value of her Consols. The guaranteedsafety afforded colonial state loans in themetropolis enabled, for example, such a half-opened-up new country as Natal to enjoy cheap-er credit than long-consolidated, highlyrespectable Prussia with her gigantic propertyin railways and state lands. This creditnexus is a ‘bond of interests’, stronger, per-haps, than Chamberlain’s preferential tariffswould ever have been. Going beyond theimperial connections, the British creditor keepsJapan in political vassalage, Argentina incolonial dependence, and Portugal in uncon-cealed debt bondage. The governors of Portu-guese Africa, for all their gold braid, areBritish puppets” (165).... | | - | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | |

| ...“Conditions within a country that areinimical to freedom are an obstacle also toworld political thought penetrating deeplyinto the soul of a people. How far we are fromthe slogan ‘imperium et libertas’, to whichthe Anglo-Saxons, from Cromwell to Rhodes,owe their greatest successes!” (168) | | | | ⎧⎪⎨⎪⎩ | impe-rialismanddemoc-racy[16] | ⎫⎪⎬⎪⎭ | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | ------------ | ----- | --------------------------------------------- | ----- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | gem!and N.B. | | | |

| | | | | | | - | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | the bribing of wide sections of the petty bourgeoisieand of the upper strata of the proletariat is more subtle,more cunning | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

| | “The German banks abroad everywhereencountered the competition of the long-established British ‘foreign banks’, whicheven today far surpass them in volume ofbusiness and size of share capital” (173).......“All the more soberly, therefore, must weregard the fact that we have arrived late onthe scene. The activity of the German foreignbanks can be likened to the highly promisingsteps of an eager youth from whom the greaterpart of the world has been barred by its for-tunate possessor. Hardly a single Germanbanking establishment is from be found in theBritish Empire, to say nothing of the Frenchand Russian empires, and yet it is claimedthat the Britisher rules the world in the inter-ests of all. The future of German foreignbanking depends largely on solving a politicalproblem: keeping of an open door to the stilluncolonised countries, rebirth of the Moslemworld, creation of a German colonial empirein Africa”... (174). | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | | ---- | | | | | | | | | | | | | gem! | | N.B. | | | | |

The second part of the book, the work of Jaffé is a dry-as-dust survey of Anglo-American and French banking. Nil.

Section VI of Principles of Social Economics. “Industry, Mining, Building.” Tübingen, 1914.

Many source references (cf. p. 37[11]).

For statistical data on big industry see ruled notebook.[12]

| | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | Copy from the book: pp. 34 and 143,industry in 1882 and 1907 | | | | | | | |

From the article by M. R. Weyermann: “Modern Industrial Technique.”

| N.B. | | | | | quotes K. Rathenau’s book, The Effect ofIncreased Capital and Output on ProductionCosts in German Engineering Industry, 1906. | | ---- | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| | (pumps) | | | | | --------------------------------- | --- | ----- | ----- | | | Pump Models | | | | | Approximately 50%output increase. | A | B | C | | 197 | 880 | 1,593 | marks | | 162 | 738 | 1,345 | |

Issues of German industrial shares {according to the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Dictionary of Political Science} ((“New Issues”))

According to _Behr_’s data, consumption of footwear in the United States was (p. 175):

From Th. Vogelstein’s article “Financial Organisation of Capitalist Industry and Formation of Monopolies”.

| “Ten years after May 9, 1873, when, in Schönlank’s exaggerated expression, the bellstolled the death of the economic boom andthe birth of cartels, Fr. Kleinwächter pub-lished his book on cartels” (216). | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ---- | | | | | N.B. | | | | |

From the history of cartels:

| | “If we examine the question on a Europeanscale, we will find that the development offree competition reached its apex in the sixtiesand seventies. It was then that Britain com-pleted the construction of her old—stylecapitalist organisation. In Germany, thisorganisation entered into a fierce strugglewith handicraft and domestic industry, andbegan to create for itself its own forms ofexistence” (ibidem). | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | ---- | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | |

“The great revolution commenced with the crash of 1873, or rather, the depression which followed it and which—with hardly discernible interruptions in the early eighties, and an unusually violent but short-dived boom about 1889—occupies twenty-two years of European economic history” (222)....

...“During the short boom of 1889-90, the system of cartels was widely resorted to in order to take advantage of favourable business conditions. An ill-considered policy sent prices soaring more rapidly and steeply than would have been the case if there had been no cartels, and nearly all these cartels ended ingloriously in the ‘grave of bankruptcy’. Another five-year period of bad trade and low prices followed, but a new spirit reigned in industry. The depression was no longer regarded as something to be taken for granted; it was regarded merely as a pause before another boom.

| secondepochofcartels | | | | | “The cartel movement entered its secondepoch: from a transitory phenomenon, thecartels became one of the foundations of econo-mic life. They were winning one industry afteranother, primarily, the industries processingraw materials. By the early nineties the cartelsystem had already acquired—in the organi-sation of the coke syndicate, on the modelof which the coal syndicate was later formed—a cartel technique which has hardly beenimproved on. For the first time the great boomat the close of the nineteenth century andthe crisis of 1900-03 occurred entirely—in themining and iron industries at least—withina cartel economy. And while at that time itappeared to be something novel, now thegeneral public takes it for granted that largespheres of economic life have been, as a generalrule, removed from the realm of free compe-tition” (224)....[13] | | -------------------- | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | N.B. | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Forms of cartels:

a) Cartels fixing sales conditions (terms, time limits,
payment, etc....)
b) Cartels fixing the sales areas
c) Cartels fixing output quotas
d) Cartels fixing prices
e) Cartels fixing distribution of profit

_Syndicate_—single sales office (Verkaufsstelle)

Trust_—_ownership of all enterprises

Notes

[1]Ibid., p. 303.—Ed.

[2]See present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 303-04.—Ed.

[3]Ibid., p. 211.—Ed.

[4]See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 228.—Ed.

[5]Ibid.—Ed.

[6]See present edition, Vol. 22 p. 218.—Ed.

[7]See present edition, Vol. 22. p. 211.—Ed.

[8]Ibid., p. 219.—Ed.

[9]See present edition. Vol. 22 p. 220.—Ed.

[10]See p. 59 of this volume.—Ed.

[11]See pp. 50-51 of this volume.—Ed.

[12]This refers to Notebook “μ”. see pp. 464—65 of this volume.—Ed.

[13]See present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 200-02.—Ed.

[14]Lenin refuted the apologetic inventions about the “democratisation” of capital as far back as 1902. He conclusively showed that individual workers acquiring small shares do not become owners of joint-stock enterprises, “propertied” people. The ones who profit from the issue of small shares are the big shareholders of the capitalist monopolies and joint-stock companies—they use for their enrichment even the very small crumbs of the people’s savings (see present edition, Vol. 6, p. 96). p. 61

[15]In the Notebooks and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin exposes the bourgeois-apologetic nature of “organised capitalism”, an unscientific theory that seeks to prove that imperialism is a special, transformed capitalism which has abolished competition, anarchy of production and economic crises, and has achieved planned economic development. This theory, advanced by the ideologists of monopoly capitalism—Sombart, Liefmann, etc.—was seized upon by Kautsky, Hilferding and other reformist theoreticians of the Second International. Lenin demonstrated that monopolies’ rule, far from abolishing, intensifies competition and anarchy of production, and does not rid the capitalist economy of crises (see present edition, Vol. 22, p. 208). p. 62

[16]In his study of imperialism, Lenin showed that political reaction in all aspects of home and foreign policy is the political superstructure of monopoly capitalism. Imperialism, he pointed out, is the negation of democracy in general (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 43). Monopoly capitalism curtails or nullifies even formal bourgeois democracy, and establishes its unlimited dictatorship.

The characteristic features of imperialist for policy are aggression, violation of the national sovereignty of weak and dependent countries. p. 69