p Every new hypocritical form of bourgeois defence of capitalism reflects definite socio-economic shifts within the capitalist economy. By speculating on this or that real phenomenon of modern bourgeois society, bourgeois ideologists try to present some individual and partial changes in 191 capitalism (which do nothing to change its nature and essence as a whole) as fundamental changes, working a radical transformation in the whole of the capitalist system in such a way that capitalism itself allegedly ceases, or is capable of ceasing, to be an exploiting system.

p Those who spread various stories about “people’s capitalism”, about the “welfare state” or the “affluent society” have put forward the idea that capitalist property is being “democratised” in view of the growing number of shareholders. This is one of the most popular methods in the ideological defence of capitalism.

p Bourgeois economists who belong to this trend assert that in the capitalist countries of the West there has been a fundamental “transformation” in the nature of property, a “diffusion” of the ownership of capital through a spread of shareholding among the population.

p Adolf Berle, an American economist, says, this process is the “capitalist revolution of the 20th century”.  [191•1  In his book, The American Economic Republic (1963), he draws the conclusion that capitalism in the USA has disappeared because it is a system only of individual private property. The Italian economist M. Salvadori says that the “diffusion” of property in the USA has expanded the capitalist class to a majority of the population. He draws the conclusion that in the USA the capitalist economy has been democratised and transformed into a partial people’s capitalism, at any rate.  [191•2 

p Indeed, the bourgeoisie has been trying hard to spread small-denomination shares among the working people. This facilitates its propaganda that the interests of the capitalists and wage workers are identical, and—the main thing—helps to concentrate the main holdings in the hands of the monopolies.

p Back in 1913, Lenin wrote: “The professors who defend capitalism chatter about the increase in the number of property-owners when they see a growth in the number of small shareholders. What actually happens is that the power (and the income) of the millionaire magnates over 192 the capital of the ‘small fry’ is increased.” Following legislation for publication of company reports “the swindling has merely taken new forms and become more subtle than before. Big capital, gathering around itself small sums of shareholders’ capital from all over the world, has become more powerful still.”  [192•1 

p In present-day conditions, the development of jointstock companies provides even stronger evidence of the centralisation of capital, and of even greater domination of the whole economy by monopoly capital. Despite the growth in a number of individual shareholders in the USA, from 6.5 million in 1952 to 20.1 million in 1965, shareholders in that year, according to official data, made up only 10 per cent of the country’s population, while one per cent of the population held 76 per cent of all the stock.

p There are many facts to show that the diffusion of shareholding steadily results in ever greater concentration of capital and the growth of the power of financial oligarchy. The bourgeois economist, Robert Lampman, says that in the USA the bourgeois elite, making up one per cent of the country’s adult population held 62 per cent of all stock in 1922 and 76 per cent in 1953. J. M. Budish says that at the end of the 1950s, only 0.2 per cent of the unskilled workers, 1.4 per cent of the semi-skilled workers, and 4.4 per cent of the skilled workers and foremen owned any stock at all.

p In Britain, in 1954, the top one per cent of the population held 81 per cent of all stock, and 10 per cent of the population—98 per cent.

p In Japan, 96 per cent of shareholders owned 35 per cent of the stock, and 0.2 per cent—48 per cent.

p However wide the shares of a corporation are spread among small shareholders, the control remains entirely in the hands of the monopolies. Thus, in Britain, the large F. W. Woolworth company has 93,000 equity shareholders, but the 20 largest holders account for 66.3 per cent of the voting shares.

p The bourgeois myth that “the capital in corporations is being collectivised” so that the “waning factor is the capitalist”  [192•2  while “property, in its ultimate sense, has been 193 diffused”,  [193•1  is blasted by reality, which confirms what Lenin said about the development of joint-stock companies leading to increasing domination of the economy by monopoly capital.

p The ideological advocates of capitalism have also tried hard to vindicate the corporations. Behind the theory of “corporate revolution”, the bourgeois ideologists seek to conceal the existence of a financial oligarchy of monopoly capital, supplanting it with a mythical presentation of a faceless corporation, which is in the nature of “a public institution”.

p This version of “transformation” of capitalism has been advanced by the US economist Gardiner C. Means, who says that a “collective capitalism” has been established in the USA.  [193•2  The basis for this conclusion, he believes, is to be a substitution of associated capitalists for the individual capitalist, that is, collective enterprises, merging the exploiters and the exploited in a single “collective” and supplanting the powerful corporations. Means is not an advocate of the theory of “democratisation of capital” because there property is much too obviously separated from control. Means gives a reflection of the incontestable fact that the economic life of the USA is dominated by the major corporations, and like a number of other bourgeois ideologists, takes another approach. He denies the class, monopoly character of corporations and says that a new social system, which he called “corporate” or “collective” capitalism, has supplanted the old capitalism. He writes: “We now have single corporate enterprises employing hundreds of thousands of workers, having hundreds of thousands of stockholders, using billions of dollars’ worth of the instruments of production, serving millions of customers, and controlled by a single management group. These are great collectives of enterprise, and a system composed of them, or dominated by them might well be called ‘collective capitalism’.”  [193•3  Means confuses the question about the character of labour and the question of who owns and makes use of the means of 194 production at these enterprises, where large collectives are indeed employed.

p As Means presents it, real control over the property of the financial and industrial oligarchy loses its class character and becomes no more than a “management group”. His conception is very close to the “managerial revolution”, another highly popular bourgeois theory in defence of capitalism.

p Means also tries to combine the apology of the corporations and a proposal for Utopian reforms. Thus, he has proposed that the major industrial corporations with assets of $100 million and over should be legislatively set apart in a special category of “collective enterprises”, with a statutory maximum rate of earnings of eight per cent. He says that such a reform would lead “toward reorienting the corporate action of big business so as to bring it closer to the public interests... . The freedom of enterprise would be retained but canalised to serve the public interest.”  [194•1 

p The Soviet economist E. Y. Bregel says Means’s proposals are “a typical example of bourgeois reformism, similar to the ideas of reform which Lenin had criticised in his lifetime. Means’s project has not a leg to stand on. It is absurd to assume that a modern bourgeois state, which stands on guard of the interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie, would agree to issue such a law, under which the profits of the major corporations would be limited.... This is a typical bourgeois utopia, which, to put it in Lenin’s words, seeks to distract attention from the most important and essential thing ... from the domination of the monopolies over the entire American economy, by means of ’reform’ projects which are not to be taken seriously at all.”  [194•2 

p Applying Lenin’s methodology of the differentiated approach to bourgeois theories, specifically, making a distinction between the two approaches to imperialism—the bourgeois-apologetic and the bourgeois-critical, Bregel subdivides modern bourgeois theories of corporations into two groups: avowed apologists of the monopolies (David E. Lilienthal and others), and advocates of “reasonable and ethical competition” (T. K. Quinn and others).

p Lilienthal writes: “My conviction about Big Business, as expressed throughout this book, is that it represents a proud and fruitful achievement of the American people as a whole; that in Big Business we have more than an efficient way to produce and distribute basic commodities, and to strengthen the nation’s security; we have a social institution that promotes human freedom and individualism.”  [195•1 

p Quinn, by contrast, comes out against the “monster corporations”, and writes: “Even if it were true—which it is not—that giant corporations must be so big to be efficient, they stand convicted of the crime of collectivism, against new ventures, against equality of opportunity—-They are cancer growths on the free market.”  [195•2  He urges the return to the reasonable and ethical competition, and adds: “We must have a degree of governmental participation and regulation without complete governmental control, competition without excessive, destructive competition, freedom without the license to use it regardless, big business units without monster business units”.  [195•3 

p These statements inevitably put one in mind of what Lenin said about the bourgeois ideologists who would like to see “an ‘honest’, moderate and genteel capitalism”, those “who want to go ‘back’ to small capitalism (and not towards socialism)”.  [195•4 

p The Utopian “criticism” of capitalism, which ignores the objective laws of its development, and sees it in the light of the past, instead of the future, which idealises capitalism of the free-competition era, and puts forward Utopian projects for a return to that day, this “criticism” of capitalism, however critical it may be, in fact covers up the real processes in the present-day development of imperialism and is a peculiar form of defence of capitalism.

p Another myth that has gone the rounds is that of the “managerial revolution”, first spread by the US reactionary sociologist James Burnham, who said that a managerial society was supplanting the capitalist system so that the Western capitalist countries were in a state of transition 196 from capitalist society to the “managerial society”.  [196•1  Fortune, mouthpiece of US monopolies, actively supported the theory and said that power in the capitalist countries had shifted from the capitalists to the managers. This idea of a “managerial revolution” had been put forward, before Burnham, by American followers of Keynes, notably Berle and later J. K. Galbraith. The idea of “managerial revolution” became a characteristic feature of the “people’s capitalism” theory, which is that since the functions of management in the capitalist countries have now been transferred to the managers and the executives, these allegedly cut loose from the capitalists and become the social basis of a new system. Galbraith says: “But most important, the professional manager or executive has taken away from the man of wealth the power.”  [196•2  He believes this to be the main social achievement of society.

p Although Burnham and Galbraith speak of a “managerial revolution” they take a different view of its results. The ideologist of neo-conservatism, Burnham, says it has led to the establishment of a peculiar version of American technocratic fascism, whereas Galbraith and other liberals believe it is “transforming capitalism” along “liberal” lines.

p This theory naturally reflects definite processes taking place in reality. Indeed, in the present-day capitalist world there is a growing tendency for the financial oligarchy to be separated from immediate management of enterprises.

p Lenin wrote: “It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital is separated from the application of capital to production. .. . Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions.”  [196•3  The objective process of the development of the productive forces stimulates the separation of capital as function from capital as property.

p However, the senior executives and managers, who exercise the functions of management and supervision over the enterprises, do what they are told by their owners. 197 Besides, in terms of earnings, these executives are very close to the financial oligarchy, which shares its profits with them, the profits it derives from exploitation, and these executives and managers do not in any sense constitute an independent class ranged against the monopolies and concerned with the welfare of society as a whole.

p The management of the capitalist economy is being tremendously complicated by the scientific and technical revolution, and more and more engineers and technicians join the ranks of the managerial personnel causing within the administrative section a process of differentiation. The social status and interests of the bulk of rank-and-file managers increasingly differ less and less from the status and interests of industrial workers, and they are exploited almost as intensively by capital. Meanwhile, a small managerial elite is taking shape, and its ties with monopoly capital are, by contrast, intensified. From this managerial section come those who have large personal fortunes, and who become monopolists themselves, and a component part of the financial oligarchy.

p The “income revolution” is another “revolution” which has allegedly changed the nature of capitalism. It was announced by the US economist Simon Kuznets in 1950,  [197•1  who said that the distinctions between the capitalists and the workers were disappearing because the poor were becoming richer, and the rich poorer. Victor Perlo has shown that this “revolution” is ’a gross distortion of reality, and that there is no ground to draw the conclusion that the shares of the upper income groups in the overall national income has been declining.  [197•2  In fact, in the USA the share of the richest families in private property has been steadily growing. In 1922, it stood at 32 per cent, and in 1961 it went up to at least 40-41 per cent.  [197•3  A Soviet researcher into US capitalism, S. Menshikov, says: “The share of the plutocracy in the national wealth, far from dwindling, has in fact increased.”  [197•4  Only in the last 40 years, the wealth of men 198 like the Rockefellers has increased roughly 8-fold, that of the Morgans, over 3-fold, of the Fords, almost 7-fold, of the Mellons, more than 11-fold, and the Du Fonts, over 23-fold.  [198•1 

p In 1962, a group of bourgeois scientists in the USA headed by Leon N. Keyserling, issued a book, Poverty and Deprivation in the United States. The Plight of Two-Fifths of a Nation, which said that in 1960, almost 10.5 million families and almost four million unattached individuals—a total of 38 million Americans, or 21 per cent of population, lived in poverty. Of those more than 12.5 million Americans lived in dire poverty. More than 39 million Americans lived in deprivation, that is, more than 77 million Americans, or more than two-fifths of a nation, lived in poverty or deprivation. The authors of the book draw the conclusion that “a large amount of the progress among the higher income people, especially the affluent and wealthy, has been achieved only by trends which relatively have held down those at the bottom”.  [198•2 

p The English scientist, Allan Brown, says that in Britain the capitalists are becoming richer, while the workers live in acute privation.  [198•3  Professor of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, Richard M. Titmuss says that the welfare society spells “welfare for the better-off”. In Britain, at the one pole there is “an accumulation of the great tax-free fortunes ... the growth of monopoly and other factors ... threatening concentrations of power and privilege”, and at the other pole “the powerless groups: the dependent poor, the disabled, the deprived and the rejected”.  [198•4 

p As to France, despite the growth of the workers’ wages from 1938 to 1960, by an average of 27-fold, the cost of living in the country increased 41-fold, and taxes, over 72-fold.  [198•5  Against this background, any concessions the 199 working class has managed to wrest from the bourgeoisie are highly relative.

p Another thing that needs to be considered is that the social and cultural benefits which socialism assures for the working people are not available in the capitalist countries. Thus, the US sociologist, Evelyn Duvall, says that the children of 25 per cent of US population attend only primary school and start to work “as soon as the law allows”, the children of another 34 per cent of the population do not usually complete high school, and “for a member of the lower class to graduate from high school ... is apparently a rarity”.  [199•1  There is good ground to assume that even in the richest capitalist countries a sizable part of the population suffers from material and spiritual hardships.

p One must accept the conclusions drawn by V. S. Semyonov, on the strength of a detailed study of the social contradictions of modern capitalism, namely that, first, the rise in workers’ living standards in the capitalist countries lags well behind the growth of the national wealth, whereas the earnings of the bourgeoisie are going up much faster than the national income; second, improvement in the working people’s living conditions lags far behind the rate of monopoly profits growth, and this also widens the social gap between the two poles of capitalist society. New forms of exploitation and oppression of the working people, unprecedented intensification of labour, spiralling prices, greater racial discrimination, the housing crisis, uncertainty of employment, and unemployment in consequence of automation merely help to widen this gap.

p Even the bourgeois economists now and again have to admit the disparity between the dominant theories on equality and economic justice in the United States.  [199•2 

p The theory of “planned” or “regulated” capitalism and of the “mixed economy” are no more than recent modifications of the same idea of a “capitalist revolution”.

p The American economist John Maurice Clark suggested back in the mid-1940s that there had been a “revolution” in the economic functions of the state, as a result of which 200 the nature of capitalism had allegedly changed. He wrote: “The upshot is that government is changing from a policeman to a positive economic agency.”  [200•1 

p The economic role of the bourgeois state has undoubtedly become much greater, but it does not hold the decisive means of production. The theory of “planned capitalism” is a reflection of some real processes but, like the other theories, it distorts their meaning.

p With the emergence of monopoly capitalism, planning came to be practised on the level of monopoly associations, but it does not result in balanced economic development for the country as a whole, because balanced development of the national economy is an economic law which operates only in the socialist economic system. State regulation of the economy under capitalism cannot lead to planned direction of the national economy as a whole, although it does yield considerable benefits to the monopolies which receive government contracts, credits and subsidies.

p Today, there is much meaning in Lenin’s conclusion that state-monopoly capitalism merely intensifies capitalist exploitation and the rule of the financial oligarchy. This conclusion is also important for a critique of the so-called mixed economy theory. Bourgeois propagandists of this theory, like the US economist Alvin H. Hansen, insist that in the capitalist countries there has been a “transition from an individualistic economy to a mixed public-private economy with emphasis on social welfare”.  [200•2  Hansen says modern capitalism is a “dual economy—the partnership of government and private enterprise”.  [200•3  Another advocate of this view, the American economist Paul A. Samuelson, declares that “ours is a ’mixed economy’ in which both public and private institutions exercise economic control”.  [200•4 

p In this instance, the apology of capitalism includes the apology of the- capitalist state, which is presented as a supraclass body displaying concern for “public welfare”.

p These assertions that the nature of capitalism has changed 201 and that it has reached the stage of “general welfare” are frequently based on data which merely show the relatively high economic outlook and living standards in some of the most industrialised capitalist countries. However, nothing is said about the crying contradictions inherent in the capitalist system as a whole, including these advanced countries, and also the staggering poverty in the Third World countries. Meanwhile, countries like the USA are dealt with in special theories (like the “great society” concept).

p It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who announced a programme in 1964 to build a “great society”, providing for a number of bourgeois reforms to improve public health services, education and housing construction, to fight poverty, etc. This programme virtually remained on paper. Senator William Fulbright in fact admitted that the US Congress lost interest in the “great society” and so it was left to be a “sick society”.

p Victor Perlo has estimated that the rate of exploitation of workers in the USA is close to 150 per cent, and many workers are unable to secure the means of subsistence for themselves and their families. Even workers with “average living standards” have mediocre housing conditions and unsatisfactory opportunities for obtaining medical services and education. A large part of a worker’s wages goes to cover his debts and interest on instalment credit, and there are more and more cases of repossession because of failure to pay debts. It is officially admitted that 30 million persons live below the poverty line.

p “The country with the greatest accumulation of capital”, according to John Gibbons, is “simultaneously the country with the greatest accumulation of human misery and poverty”.  [201•1 

p At about the time the “great society” idea was first being spread in the USA, the “formed society” theory came to light in the FRG.

p The “formed society” doctrine is a neo-fascist approach to the defence of capitalism and is one of those concepts which most visually reflect the anti-democratic character of the modern capitalist system. It also makes extensive use of social demagogy. It is an especially visual 202 presentation of the pronounced crisis of bourgeois thinking, as a blend of extremely reactionary content and demagogic form. Suffice it to say that the doctrine is based on the classless society idea, which it has grossly distorted and adapted to the interests of state-monopoly capitalism.

p The “formed society” doctrine was put forward in 1965 by a number of West German political leaders, notably, the then Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, in a speech at a CDU congress. This doctrine was spelled out in detail in the magazine Gesellschaftspolitische Kommentare. The numerous statements by West German sociologists warrant the conclusion that this doctrine is akin to the “stages of economic growth” and the industrial society theories, with the difference that it does not provide for the possibility of convergence or integration between capitalism and socialism but formulates, as an alternative to socialism, the prospect of capitalist society’s developing along the way of consolidation. On its way, the “industrial” (that is, capitalist) society, according to the theorists of the “formed society” Goetz Briefs, Eric Voegelin and others, must pass through three phases:

p 1) the emergence of modern industrial society when it is still divided into classes (19th century);

p 2) the “pluralistic society of associations” (early 20th century) when classes allegedly gave way to associations with group interests (enterprises, establishments, communities) ; and

p 3) the formed society which is characterised by a repudiation of group egoism and priority for state, national interests.

p The “formed society” is presented as a new stage in the development of the “industrial society”. It is said to be a coherent organism with “common public consciousness” based on equilibrium and co-operation, and this new model of the refurbished capitalism is high-handedly recommended as a model for other countries of the world. The main role in the “formed society” belongs to the entrepreneurs, who must be given utmost support because they carry “the main burden of responsibility for the concrete public will”.  [202•1 

p But what is to be done if the working people refuse to 203 join the monopolists in a “common public consciousness”? Voegelin declares: “More and more people are saying that ... adoption of legislative acts against the workers are inevitable where they may jeopardise the rationality of the overall process by their unreasonable behaviour.” Elaborating on the idea, he draws the conclusion that if “the common undertaking stagnates . .. there is no alternative . .. except a switch from political democracy to some form of authoritarian or totalitarian regime”.  [203•1 

p An article carried by Handelsblatt, a mouthpiece of West German big bourgeoisie, considered the “formed society” and said roughly the same thing: “If the groups and associations do not unite ... voluntarily, there is need to reckon with the fact that the state will ultimately have to use the iron fist.”  [203•2 

p We find, therefore, that the ideologists of West German capitalism present the “forming” as being “voluntary” association by all social groups inside the country on the platform of imperialist reaction. Should the workers refuse to submit, the demagogy is to be thrown out and the “forming” of West German society is then conceived as a switch to the dictatorship of monopoly capital.

p It is a highly characteristic fact that spokesmen for political clericalism have taken an active part in formulating and studying this doctrine, for they seek to apply in practice their social doctrine and the principle of “solidarity” which is designed to prove the possibility of class harmony under capitalism.

p The “post-industrial” or “new industrial” society doctrine is possibly the latest and most modern theory in the defence of capitalism. Bourgeois ideologists have been straining to peer into the future to discern an answer to the prospect of communist progress which is assuming ever more tangible and definite contours on mankind’s historical path.

p In the last few years, the West has been a scene of feverish activity in futurological studies. Many specialised institutes have been set up to prognosticate the future. Since the end of 1965, a “commission of the year 2000” has been operating in the USA.

p Roughly speaking the “post-industrial society” concept is an attempt to project the future of capitalism without allowing for any modification of its substance or nature. However, because of the rapid development of science and technology it is assumed that changes are to take place in society which must lead to a sharp reduction in the need for manpower, inevitably increasing the number of men who are unable to apply themselves to any job. Most workers and employees, it is assumed, will be concentrated in the non-productive branches of the economy. The gap between the highly-developed and the backward countries will remain. Scientists are to head the political organisation of society. This is a futile attempt to reconcile the rapid advance of the scientific and technical revolution with the narrow and absolutely unsuitable political and social framework of capitalist society.

p Like the theorists of the “one industrial society”, the theorists of the “post-industrial society” envisage the rapid development of the productive forces and ignore the need to develop the relations of production.

p The main factor of the coming society is to be a development of science which is to create a mechanism of “equalising forces” and to take over the running of “mature corporations”. Naturally enough, all the theorists of “postindustrial society” are unanimous in denying the inevitability of deepening social contradictions of capitalism and consequently of the necessity of social revolution. That is what makes their theories reactionary Utopias.

p Whatever the name given to the coming society by its bourgeois inventors—“post-industrial society” (Daniel Bell, Herman Kahn and others) the “technotronic society” (Zbigniew Brzezinski) and the “new industrial society” (J. K. Galbraith), they present it as embodying a “deproletarisation” of capitalist society, for as D. Bell says, the proletariat is to give way to a “salariat”, that is, a category of wage workers receiving salaries.

p These predictions do not stand up in the light of the scientific approach to the class structure of society. According to the theory of Marx and Lenin, it is not occupation but status within the social system of production that determines men’s membership of classes, and this depends above all on their relation to the means of production, 205 and the other marks of class membership formulated by Lenin.  [205•1 

p The proletariat is to continue performing its mission in world history, that of working a revolutionary transformation of the world, of which the essential need is being further accentuated by the great potentialities opened up in the scientific and technical revolution.

p We have taken a brief look at the most popular and fashionable concepts used in the ideological defence of capitalism.

p What then are the most characteristic features of the modern bourgeois apology of capitalism?

p First, there is the unparalleled degree of camouflage and embellishment of capitalism, which are expressed in the numerous theories of “capitalist revolutions”. The main content of these theories boils down to the thesis that the nature of capitalism has either changed already or that capitalism can be radically improved and its nature eventually modified. This means that it does have a future.

p Second, there is a search for and attempts to substantiate social harmony and the urge to establish a class peace in bourgeois society. This aspect of the apology of capitalism is expressed in the attempts by bourgeois sociologists to intrude into the sphere of class struggle at the enterprises and to side with the employers. These sociologists seek to combine their theoretical substantiations of a class peace and practical activity as advisers and consultants, specialists in human and public relations at capitalist enterprises, etc.

p Third, there is the characteristic speculation on the scientific and technical revolution and the problem of spiritual values, a specific feature of the apology of capitalism which springs from the growing victories scored by socialism in the economic competition, and also the urge spiritually to unite the whole non-socialist world on the basis of a religious ideology.

The growing importance of clericalism in the political and ideological arsenal of imperialism makes it important to take a closer look at the defence of capitalism modified on religious lines.