degree. The sums of capital sucked up by the banks are continually increasing. And to an increasing extent the banks invest capital in industry. Banking capital is ever “at work” in industry; it undergoes conversion into industrial capital. Industry grows dependent on the banks, which support it and nourish it with capital. Banking capital coalesces with industrial capital. Here we have the form of capital which is known as financial capital. To summarise, FINANCIAL CAPITAL IS BANKING CAPITAL WHICH HAS BEEN GRAFTED ON INDUSTRIAL CAPITAL.
Through the instrumentality of the banks, financial capital effects a yet more intimate union of all branches of industry than was effected by the direct combination of enterprises. Why is this?
Let us suppose that we have before us a great bank. This great bank supplies with capital (or, as the phrase runs, “finances”) not merely one, but a large number of enterprises, or quite a number of syndicates. It is naturally to the bank’s interest that these financial dependents should not