State monopoly capitalism

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State monopoly capitalism ( SMK ) or state monopoly capitalism is an originally Marxist-Leninist term for the amalgamation of the imperialist state with the economy - which in this phase only consists of thinly masked monopolies - into a single instrument of rule under the leadership of a financial oligarchy , which in the final phase of the Capitalism successes; this phase has currently been reached. In the Federal Republic of Germany (but not in the GDR ) the abbreviation Stamokap was used for this . In addition, the expression "capitalism in its (present) final phase" was used.

The Stamokap thesis was trend-setting in the socialist countries of Europe until the turn of 1989/90 . Although it was never undisputed among the western left , it was formative for parts of the left, for example for parts of the communist parties ( DKP , KPÖ ) and, in the 1970s, well into social democracy . In the party Die Linke (formerly PDS ) the theoretical debate about the Stamokap is still ongoing.

Development history of the stamokap theory

The stamokap theory is essentially based on Rudolf Hilferding and was considerably further developed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin . In 1910, Hilferding wrote in his work Das Finanzkapital : “The goal of proletarian politics, which has become reactionary, of restoring free competition, but complete abolition of competition by overcoming capitalism, can now be the only goal of proletarian politics.” Lenin wrote in the afterword to his earlier work The agricultural program of social democracy that the First World War "transformed monopoly capitalism into state monopoly capitalism" (Lenin-Werke, vol. 13, p. 436). This was the hour of birth of the term stamokap. Lenin coined this term and introduced it into the discourse. The first theoretical foundations of this theoretical approach are somewhat older.

Already Karl Marx and especially Engels observed, is that the classic capitalism of free competition in the last third of the 19th century to the monopoly capitalism transformed. This means that the concentration and centralization of capital and production reach a level by which a few large corporations are given a dominant position. These companies divided the markets among themselves and made agreements on prices, wages and the quantities of products to be produced. Here "free competition turns into monopoly", explained Friedrich Engels (MEW 19, p. 220). The monopoly in the Marxist sense is an association of large corporations to secure their profits , they systematically gain advantages over small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which means that they themselves are constantly becoming larger and more powerful, while the existence of the smaller, non-monopoly companies is constantly threatened be. At the same time, the large industrial and trading companies grow together with bank capital - this is how monopolistic finance capital arises . Capitalism is thus first entering its monopoly stage.

Lenin analyzed this monopoly capitalism in his work Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism (written in 1916, published in 1917) as a special developmental stage of capitalism. According to Lenin, imperialism (or monopoly capitalism) is the highest, last, and already parasitic stage of capitalism. Lenin also stated in this pamphlet that this monopoly capitalism was developing into a stamocap. According to Lenin, this process began with the First World War . The stamokap is not a completely new stage of capitalism, but only the last phase within imperialism, within the monopoly stage of capitalism. In this respect, the stamokap theory is a specific extension of Lenin's theory of imperialism, that is, the basic conditions of imperialism established by Lenin continue to have an effect and remain decisive. According to Lenin, the main characteristic of this stamocap is that, because of the omnipotence of the big corporations, because of their needs and constraints, these monopolies would increasingly subordinate themselves to the state apparatus; they permeate society as a whole and certain economies and politics . As the economic power of the corporations grew together with the political and military power of the state, imperialism developed further and found its full development as a stamocap. The state monopoly phase of imperialism thus means that there is a direct amalgamation of state action and the interests of the large corporations, monopoly capital. The Stamokap is characterized by the functional integration of the monopoly associations of the large corporations with the state organs. This creates an efficient political-economic structure of rule that pervades all areas. The mechanisms of the Stamokap are now characterized by the state safeguarding the increased power position of large companies, by the mutual influence of politics and business, which happens in the interests of the monopolies, as well as by the tendency to expand state power in an increasingly authoritarian direction, which with militarization both internally and externally.

Other theorists have also made contributions to the analysis of imperialism and the Stamokap, although there are always contradictions to Lenin, for example Rudolf Hilferding ( Das Finanzkapital , 1910), Nikolai Bukharin ( Imperialism and World Economy , written in 1915, published in 1917) or Rosa Luxemburg ( The Accumulation of Capital , 1913). The writings of Antonio Gramsci and Georgi Dimitrov also have a certain relevance for the stamokap approach, who primarily dealt with questions about the alliance policy pursued by all the layers that are oppressed by the large monopolies (corporations) . This alliance policy is directed against those elements of capitalism that support imperialism.

After Lenin's death there was a certain standstill in the further development and specification of his theses. In 1952 Josef Stalin undertook a certain revision of Lenin's concept of stamokap in his “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”. After Stalin's death there was again a more open discourse on the stamokap analysis, especially in the GDR , scientists again dared to follow Lenin's guidelines directly. In East Berlin , published by the Institute for Social Sciences , the two central books on the Stamokap theory in German-speaking countries, namely Imperialism today (1965) and The Imperialism of the FRG (1971), are published. Even before that, in 1960, the term and theory of the Stamokap had been established in the official party programs of the communist and workers' parties at their world conference in Moscow. The Marxist historian Dietrich Eichholtz cited the Reichsvereinigung Eisen in his work History of the German War Economy as an example of the Stamokap.

The stamokap theory, however, was not limited to the socialist countries: it was also spread among Marxists in the capitalist countries of Europe - from Italy to Scandinavia and not least in the Federal Republic of Germany among parts of the SPD (e.g. Hans-Ulrich Klose and Diether Dehm ), but above all with the Jusos (for example Olaf Scholz ), with the SJD - Die Falken , with the Socialist University Association (SHB), with DKP , SDAJ and PDS as well as in Austria especially with the Socialist Youth and the KPÖ. The renaissance of the current in the mid-nineties around the then SJÖ Association Secretary Andreas Babler was remarkable , since since then the socialist youth have had the authority to interpret the Stamokap theory in Austria. In response to this, communist groups were ready to deal with the topicality of the theory in terms of political content and to align their strategies accordingly.

With regard to Germany and the SPD jusos, there are three dates in particular. First to 1972, when the Juso regional associations Hamburg and Berlin adopted strategy papers in which they made the Stamokap theory the basis of their political work. This caused heated discussions in the Federal Association of Young Socialists. Then to the year 1977, when Klaus Uwe Benneter (later - after rejoining the SPD - from February 2004 to November 2005 Secretary General of the party) became the new chairman of the Jusos. As a supporter of the Stamokap theory, Benneter advocated broad “anti-monopoly alliances”, which also included cooperation with the DKP. Benneter was then expelled from the SPD, and Gerhard Schröder became the new Juso chairman . The third important year for the German Jusos is 1980, when the " Herford theses " were published, in which the then left-wing district executive of the Young Socialists in the SPD Ostwestfalen-Lippe formulated his theses "on the work of Marxists in the SPD", which were essentially based on the stamokap theory. The Marxist-inspired movement within the SPD has reformulated its foundations several times since then. It is continued in the magazine spw .

Outside of Europe, too, the strategic implications of the stamokap theory were reflected in real politics. The government of the Unidad Popular under Salvador Allende in Chile from 1970 to 1973 orientated its anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly and anti-oligarchic policies closely to the guidelines of the Stamokap alliance policy, especially since in this popular front government, in addition to the socialists, the communists ( Luis Corvalán ) and trade unions and Christian leftists collaborated. This strategy was ended by the 1973 US-backed military coup under Augusto Pinochet .

Key messages of the stamocap theory

As mentioned above, from a Marxist point of view, the stamocap developed on the basis of imperialism - according to the stamocap theory, it is its full development. This means that the Stamocap would also initially be based on those five fundamental characteristics which Lenin in his 1916 paper identified as characteristic of imperialism (or monopoly capitalism) as a whole. This classic Marxist definition of imperialism by Lenin reads: “1. Concentration of production and capital, which has reached such a high stage of development that it creates monopolies which play the decisive role in economic life; 2. Merging of bank capital with industrial capital and the emergence of a financial oligarchy on the basis of this 'finance capital'; 3. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of goods, is of particular importance; 4. international monopoly capitalist associations are formed, which divide the world among themselves, and 5. the territorial division of the earth among the capitalist great powers is over. Imperialism is capitalism at the stage of development where the rule of monopolies and finance capital is taking shape, the export of capital has gained outstanding importance, the division of the world by international trusts has begun, and the division of the entire territory of the world by the largest capitalist countries has been completed is. "(Lenin Works, vol. 22, p. 270 f.)

Based on Lenin's findings, the Stamokap analysis now makes several key statements based on this for the state monopoly phase of imperialism. These are mainly the following:

  1. The stamokap is a historical phase of late capitalism, which is characterized by special economic and political characteristics. On the economic side, a small number of large corporations would play an important role in any industry. These large companies, which had a contradicting relationship between competition and cooperation , had immense market power and, due to their monopoly character and their economies of scale, had decisive profitability advantages over other smaller companies. The centralization and concentration of capital and production would continue at a higher level - on the one hand, the large mergers and acquisitions of the present, on the other hand, the annual waves of bankruptcies on the part of small and medium-sized enterprises.
  2. From a political point of view, state intervention in the capitalist mode of production is characteristic of the Stamokap. This regulation is characterized by state tax policy, subsidies , investments , distribution policies, social transfers, etc. These state influences succeed in defusing the basic capitalist contradiction between social production and private capitalist appropriation. Because under the conditions of the scientific and technical revolution, despite the immense wealth of large companies, state expenditure is necessary to maintain their conditions of exploitation, on the one hand to finance cost-intensive, productivity-increasing investments by large companies through subsidies and, on the other, to compensate for the decline in domestic demand through state demand policy worry that is associated with the monopoly appropriation of social wealth. Ultimately, the state always ensures an acceleration of capitalist accumulation in the interests of the corporations, for redistribution from the bottom up and for the reproduction of the entire monopoly capitalist system.
  3. The economic influence of large companies has an impact on the political sphere. Via links with the state, the corporations would steer and influence the direction and measures of politics in favor of their interests. This influence takes place through association lobbies (for example industrial association ), mutual exchange of personnel between business and politics as well as institutionalized alliances (for example " social partnership "). Ultimately, the imperialist state is an ideal total capitalist who works in the service of the monopolies.
  4. In the Stamokap, capitalist contradictions are not resolved, but only concealed. The gap between poor and rich people is growing, the contradiction between social production and capitalist appropriation persists. Likewise, the contradiction between the “developed” industrialized countries of the center ( above all the USA , EU and Japan ) and the countries in Africa , Asia , Latin America and European peripheral areas that they exploited in a neo-colonial manner is inevitably growing . Finally, there is also a contradiction between the individual imperialist states, which are in a constant battle among themselves for spheres of influence, raw materials, sales markets and cheap labor. It is these contradictions that must lead to the expansion of the state apparatus of repression and, above all, of military power. Ultimately, oppression, militarization and war are inherent in the Stamokap's system, since violence - in whatever form - remains its mechanism of mediation.
  5. The high degree of social, albeit monopolized, production in the Stamokap shows potential for socialism . It is important to put production under social control and to democratize the factories as well as the state. The direction and the how of the state interventions should be redirected in the interest of the majority of the population, especially the employed. To achieve this goal, antimonopoly alliances of the wage-dependent class with non-monopoly strata are necessary on a temporary basis . A radical democratic movement should first reach the stage of anti-monopoly democracy within the framework of the bourgeois state, which is the point of passage and prerequisite for socialist society. Lenin thinks that the " dialectic of history is precisely that [...] the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state monopoly capitalism [...] has brought humanity extremely close to socialism." (Lenin-Werke, vol. 25, p. 370 )

Marxist criticism of the stamocap theory

Other Marxist currents also criticized the insufficient scope of the theory of the SMK:

  1. The existence of companies with a market-influencing character modifies the legality of market structures, but does not abolish it. The assumption, sometimes expressed by representatives of the SMK theory, that the law of value would be abolished by large corporations that allegedly could control the economy is neither theoretically justified nor empirically proven. Large corporations would not determine the regulatory structures according to which they compete, merge, invest and produce in spite of all market influence, but these would ultimately also be imposed on large corporations by the logic of the anonymous abstract movement of capital.
  2. The SMK theory does not adequately explain the specific formal definition of the state in the narrower sense in capitalism, namely the separation of autonomous state apparatus from society, in which, however, social disputes - albeit broken - would materialize and reflect.
  3. The SMK theory portrays history too strongly as a will- freely chosen by man and too little as a structural relationship guiding human action. But capitalism is to a large extent also domination by people in the context of value and capital logic and not consciously created relationships about people. In capitalism, the state is not an instance of arbitrary degrees of freedom that social forces such as large corporations can easily make use of, but the state itself - like capitalist companies, by the way - is classified in a capitalist structure of socialization through values. Socialism therefore does not only mean to strive for the elimination of the legacy of big capital, on which the SMK theory focuses too strongly, but the goal must be to abolish the capitalist conditions that dominate people as a whole and to turn them into an "association of free people" in which the individuals would control their relationships as consciously, rationally and cooperatively as possible.
  4. In spite of the relationships that structure people's actions, history is not totally determined, but leaves room for action. If one wants to analyze this, however, it must be conceded that the SMK theory's concept of the state, which is limited to direct statehood, should be narrowed and therefore expanded in Gramsci's sense. The state in the broad Gramscian sense includes the political society, which has the direct state apparatus, as well as the so-called civil society, i. H. social bodies such as the church, associations etc. Both the practices in the direct state apparatus and the disputes in civil society would play an important role in the struggle of social forces for hegemony.

See also

literature

  • Gerold Ambrosius : On the history of the term and the theory of state capitalism and state monopoly capitalism , Tübingen, Mohr, 1981.
  • Paul A. Baran , Paul Sweezy : Monopoly Capital / German: Monopolkapital. An essay on the American economic and social order , Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, ​​1973.
  • Gretchen Binus, Beate Landefeld, Andreas Wehr: State monopoly capitalism , Cologne, Papyrossa, 2014.
  • Paul Boccara : Studies on state monopoly capitalism, its crisis and its overcoming , Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Marxistische Blätter, 1976.
  • Nikolai Bukharin : Imperialism and World Economy (1914/15), New Critique Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1969.
  • Jean-Pierre Delilez , Robert Katzenstein , Josef Schleifstein : Contributions to the Stamokap debate , Cologne, Pahl-Rugenstein, 1973.
  • Freimut Duve (ed.): The dispute about "Stamokap". The documents for the basic discussion of the Young Socialists , Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1973.
  • Rolf Ebbighausen : Monopoly and State. On Marx's reception in the theory of state monopoly capitalism , Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, ​​1974.
  • Werner Goldschmidt : Crisis of Theory or Theory of Crisis? Reflections on the problem of the crisis in the current discussion about the theory of state monopoly capitalism. (PDF file; 4.33 MB) In: Das Argument 112, pp. 814–822.
  • Rudi Gündel : On the theory of state monopoly capitalism , Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1967.
  • Horst Heininger , Lutz Maier : International Capitalism. Trends and conflicts of state monopoly internationalization , Berlin, Dietz, 1987.
  • Helle Panke (ed.): State monopoly capitalism and socialist perspective. On the topicality of the Herford theses from 1980 . (= Pankower Lectures 28), Helle Panke, Berlin 2000.
  • Herford theses . On the work of Marxists in the SPD, Berlin, SPW-Verlag 1980.
  • Institute for Marxist Studies and Research (IMSF), Red .: Heinz Jung : The State in State Monopoly Capitalism in the Federal Republic / Volume 1: State Discussion and State Theory; Volume 2: Empirical analyzes, facts , Frankfurt am Main, 1981/82.
  • Heinz Jung : Deformed socialization. On the sociology of state monopoly capitalism in the FRG , Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1986.
  • Heinz Jung, Fritz Krause : The Stamokap Republic of the Flicks , Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Marxistische Blätter, 1985.
  • Heinz Jung, Josef Schleifstein : The theory of state monopoly capitalism and its critics in the Federal Republic of Germany. A generally understandable answer , Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Marxistische Blätter, 1979.
  • Dieter Klein : Crises of Capitalism. Strategies and Tendencies , Berlin, Dietz, 1989.
  • Lothar Kramm : Stamokap, a critical demarcation. On the role of the state in the democratic-capitalist society , Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1974.
  • Jürgen Kuczynski : On the early history of German monopoly capital and state monopoly capitalism , Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1962.
  • Jürgen Kuczynski: Studies on the history of state monopoly capitalism in Germany 1918 to 1945 , Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1963.
  • Alfred Lemmnitz : Basic features of monopoly capitalism. Industrial and banking monopolies, finance capital and finance oligarchy , Berlin, Dietz, 1975.
  • VI Lenin : Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism
  • Sergej I. Tjulʹpanov , Viktor L. Šejnis : Current problems of the political economy of today's capitalism , Frankfurt, Verlag Marxistische Blätter, 1975.
  • Margaret Wirth : Theory of capitalism in the GDR. Origin and development of the theory of state monopoly capitalism , Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, ​​1972.
  • Margaret Wirth: On the critique of the theory of state monopoly capitalism , in: Problems of the class struggle 8/9, 1973.
  • Tibor Zenker : Stamokap heute , screenplay publisher, 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the stamocap to the cot, DIE ZEIT of March 13, 2003 (accessed on May 19, 2013)
  2. ^ Joachim Raschke : Internal party opposition. The left in the Berlin SPD. Hamburg 1974, p. 402. ISBN 3-455-09116-4
  3. ↑ pdf