The theory of state monopoly capitalism (also referred as stamocap) was initially a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

thesis popularised after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

had claimed in 1916 that

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

had transformed

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( , from , ) is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies or regulations). As a system of thought, ''laissez-faire'' ...

capitalism into ''monopoly capitalism'', but he did not publish any extensive theory about the topic. The term refers to an environment where the state intervenes in the economy to protect larger monopolistic or oligopolistic businesses from threats. As conceived by Lenin in his pamphlet of the same name, the theory aims to describe the ''final historical stage'' of capitalism, of which he believed the

Imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

of that time to be the highest expression.

The main thesis

The main Marxist–Leninist thesis is that big business, having achieved a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers ...

position in most markets of importance, ''fuses'' with the government apparatus. State monopoly capitalism protected monopolistic economics from competition by smaller firms. Lenin insists in ''

The State and Revolution ''The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution'' () is a book written by Vladimir Lenin and published in 1917 which describes his views on the role of the state in society, the ne ...

'' (1917) that state monopoly capitalism is not a development beyond capitalism but a manifestation of it, countering liberal and social-democratic politicians who characterised this economic development as state socialism, for example with regard to the so-named State Socialism initiatives in the

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Versions of the theory

Different versions of this idea were elaborated by economists of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

(e.g., Eugen Varga), East Germany's Socialist Unity Party, the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

(e.g., Paul Boccara), the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

(e.g., Ben Fine and Laurence Harris), and the American Communist Party of the USA (e.g., Victor Perlo).

Political implication

The strategic political implication of the theory for Marxist-Leninists, towards the end of the

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

era and afterwards, was that the labour movement should form a ''people's democratic alliance'' under the leadership of the Communist Party ''with'' the progressive middle classes and small business, ''against'' the state and big business (called "monopoly" for short). Sometimes this alliance was also called the "anti-monopoly alliance".

Neo-Trotskyist theory

In neo-Trotskyist theory, however, such an alliance was rejected as being based either on a false strategy of popular fronts, or on political

opportunism 300px, ''Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed'', engraving by Theodoor Galle, 1605 Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances — with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opport ...

, said to be incompatible either with a permanent revolution or with the principle of independent

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

political action. The

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

in Soviet-type societies was redefined by the neo-Trotskyists as being ''also'' state-monopoly capitalist. There was no difference, in their view, between the West and the East in this regard. Consequently, some kind of ''anti-bureaucratic revolution'' was said to be required, but different Trotskyist groups quarreled about what form such a revolution would need to take, or could take. Some Trotskyists believed the anti-bureaucratic revolution would happen spontaneously, inevitably and naturally, others believed it needed to be organised - the aim being to establish a society owned and operated by the working class. According to the neo-Trotskyists, the Communist Party could not play its leading role, because it did not represent the interests of the working class.

Market anarchism

Market anarchists typically criticize neoliberal forces for inconsistent or hypocritical application of neoliberal theory regarding stamocap (State monopoly capitalism); that in those inconsistencies exist the basis of continued selective state-guaranteed privileges for the plutocratic neoliberal elite.

Eurocommunism

The concept was to a large extent either modified or abandoned in the era of eurocommunism, because it came to be believed that the state apparatus could be ''reformed'' to reflect the interests of the working majority. In other words, the ''fusion'' between the state and big business postulated earlier was not so tight that it could not be undone by a mass movement from below, under the leadership of the Communist Party (or its central committee).

Criticism

When Varga introduced the theory, orthodox Stalinist economists attacked it as incompatible with the doctrine that state planning was a feature only of socialism, and that "under capitalism anarchy of production reigns."The Case of Eugene Varga
Raya Dunayevskaya 1949 Critics of the theory (e.g.,

Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel (; 5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter, was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...

and Leo Kofler) claimed that: * the theory wrongly implied that the state could somehow ''overrule'' inter-capitalist

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

, the laws of motion of capitalism and market forces generally, supposedly cancelling out the operation of the

law of value The law of the value of commodities (German: ''Wertgesetz der Waren''), known simply as the law of value, is a central concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy first expounded in his polemic ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (1847) agains ...

. * the theory lacked any sophisticated account of the ''class basis'' of the

, and the real linkages between governments and elites. It postulated a monolithic structure of domination which in reality did not exist in that way. * the theory failed to explain the rise of neo-liberal ideology in the business class, which claims precisely that an important social goal should be a ''reduction'' of the state's influence in the economy. However, neoliberalism does not oppose making states subservient to the aims of large corporations, in what is known as

government-granted monopoly In economics, a government-granted monopoly (also called a "de jure monopoly" or "regulated monopoly") is a form of coercive monopoly by which a government grants exclusive privilege to a private individual or firm to be the sole provider of a go ...

. * the theory failed to show clearly what the difference was between a ''socialist'' state and a ''bourgeois'' state, except that in a socialist state, the Communist Party (or, rather, its central committee) played the leading political role. In that case, the ''class-content'' of the state itself was defined purely in terms of the policy of the ruling political party (or its central committee).

References

External links

The Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital
by

John Bellamy Foster John Bellamy Foster (born August 19, 1953) is an American professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of the ''Monthly Review''. He writes about political economy of capitalism and economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, ...

, ''

Monthly Review The ''Monthly Review'' is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Established in 1949, the publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment Following ...

'', February 2010 {{Authority control Marxist theory Capitalism Monopoly (economics) Marxist terminology