WTE
Transnational Monopolies
A GROUP
One of the most characteristic phenomena in the world capitalist economy of recent years has been the formation and expansion of international capitalist monopolies. With their vast resources, these huge concerns play an increasing role in both the economic and political life of the developing countries. The Chilean episode has focused attention on the political role. The ECOSOC report includes analysis of serious economic and social consequences and other factors influencing present-day inter-nationalization of economic life.
This subject is dealt with in detail: origin of supranational monopolies; modifications that the scientific and technological revolution has injected into the forms and methods of their activities; growth of state monopoly capital; and the role played by these monoplies in aggravating the contradictions of imperialism. The experts devote much of their attention to the new phenomena in the contemporary process of concentration:
the scale of concentration (500 corporations account for nearly half of the industrial output of the developed capitalist world); the factors intensifying concentration; and the characteristics of this process in the USA, western Europe and Japan.
The salient features of the mounting concentration in all the industrial capitalist countries, according to the group are: swift growth of the average size of the mammoth concerns, replacement of the single-stage pre-monopoly capitalist forms of concentration of production by multi-stage economic formations, extension of the process of concentration beyond the Unfits of individual industries and countries, and the development of concealed forms of concentration under which small business is drawn into the orbit of the big entrepreneurs, while legally retaining independence.
The report divides the trusts and concerns operating on a world