(IMPERIALISM, THE WAR, AND THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM)
26. Financial Capital.
We have previously seen that among the entrepreneurs there is a continuous and fierce struggle for buyers, and that the unfailing result of this struggle is the victory of the great entrepreneurs. Hence the lesser capitalists are ruined, so that capital and production as a whole accumulate in the hands of the great capitalists (the concentration and centralisation of capital). By the beginning of the eighties in the nineteenth century, the centralisation of capital was already far advanced. In place of the individual owners of enterprises there now appeared large numbers of joint-stock enterprises, cooperative concerns; but it must be carefully noted that these “cooperatives” were companies of capitalist shareholders. What was the significance of this development? Why did joint-stock companies come into existence? It is easy to answer the question. The time had arrived when every new undertaking required the command of a considerable quantity of capital. If an enterprise scantily furnished with capital was founded, its chance of life was poor; on all sides