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The root of the concept of monopoly capital is Rudolf Hilferding's pioneering book Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, originally published in 1910. In this book Hilferding aimed to develop Karl Marx's analysis of the processes of concentration and centralization of capital, as well as of the roles of competition and credit within these processes.

According to Hilferding, a twofold transformation in its economic appearance gives capitalism the form of finance capital. This transformation is said to be the outcome of processes that tend, on the one hand, to abolish competition through the formation of cartels and trusts, and on the other, to promote increasingly intimate relations between bank capital and industrial capital, in which the former becomes the dominant partner.

Economic crises, and disproportionalities among the various branches of social production are identified as causes of capitalist crises in the fourth part. Finally, Hilferding examines the economic policy of finance capital and presents a theory of capitalist imperialism.

Capital concentration and centralization processes, in Hilferding's view, tend to eliminate competition among capitals. The diffusion of cartels and trusts is said to enhance price rises in sectors affected by such monopolistic-oriented combinations, thereby originating differential profit rates among industries. As a result of the elimination of competition, Hilferding asserts that prices cease to be objectively determined magnitudes; therefore, an arbitrary and incidental component progressively prevails in their determination, the law of value being gradually weakened.

A decisive aspect in the monopolization process is the influence exercised by banks. By absorbing the different modalities of credit--commercial credit, capital credit, and corporation promotion--banking capital would come to control the reproduction of industrial capital and guide its monopolization process toward more advanced stages, even by promoting the formation of a general cartel.

Finance capital is the underlying concept in current explanations of how the capitalist mode of production operates in the twentieth century. It has attracted significant attention through the works of Lenin (1968), Bukharin ( 973), Sweezy ( 1968, 1972, 1981), Baran and Sweezy (1966), Mandel (1970), Magdoff (1969, 1978), Palloix (1972), Barrat Brown (1974), Boccara (1976), Kotz (1978), Sherman (1987), Itoh (1988), and many others who have studied different aspects of contemporary capitalism. Unfortunately, in most of these works the treatment of the concept of finance capital has been rather superficial and uncritical. In the case of Baran and Sweezy, however, finance capital has received a more in-depth treatment, and their work stands as the cornerstone of the theory of monopoly capital. Hilferding's classical book may thus be regarded as the seminal work of an influential current of contemporary economists that distinguishes different stages in capitalist development: the stage of free competition and the stage of monopoly capitalism. . .

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