Centralisation of Capital, one of the methods (along with concentration) of amassing capital. It is a process of enlarging capital through the amalgamation of several capital funds into one, or of engulfing or merging with other capital. Centralisation considerably expands the growth possibilities of capitalist enterprises. Capital is centralised during fierce competitive struggle, in which the weaker capitalists who are unable to withstand competition are ruined, and their capital expropriated by the bigger and stronger capitalists or capitalist amalgamations. One of the forms of the centralisation of capital is the setting up of jointstock companies with the aim of establishing the domination of big capital over many formerly independent capital funds. The centralisation of capital is closely linked with the concentration of capital: the growth and expansion of capital via the accumulation of surplus value ensures the progress of centralisation by engulfing and squeezing out weaker capitalists. In its turn, centralisation, while engulfing capital, stimulates the extensive capitalisation of surplus value. Taken together, the concentration and centralisation of capital lead to greater concentration of production in the hands of a few big owners, with much of the aggregate capital of the industry concentrated at their enterprises. At a definite stage of development, this process leads to the appearance of monopolies. Under imperialism, the centralisation of capital is accelerated many times, resulting in the concentration of the decisive part of society’s capital and wealth in the hands of the leading monopolies, with the process of centralisation taking place at the monopoly capital level. The greater mobility of loan capital predetermines the special intensity of centralisation in banking affairs, where more and more financial resources find themselves under the centralised monopoly control of the biggest banks and other financialcredit institutions—insurance monopolies, investment companies, pension funds and savings banks. The finance capital formed by the merging, interlocking and joining of industrial and bank monopolies is the key link in the system of financial oligarchy domination. In the period of the general crisis of capitalism, capital is centralised not only horizontally, i. e., when the capital of enterprises of one branch merges, but also vertically, i. e., when companies engaged in all stages of production (mining, processing, power generation, manufacture of completing parts and articles, and sales) are taken over by one firm. Such firms subsequently spread their domination on all the branches and spheres of capitalist economy. As of the mid-1950s, a new form of capitalist centralisation began to spread, viz., diversification. This is the absorption of companies which have no production links, and which manufacture heterogeneous products. In search of new spheres to invest their capital, the biggest monopolies try to weaken their dependence on the marketing of a single commodity, and become intricate multi-branch organisms. With the further internationalisation of economic life inherent in modern imperialism, the centralisation of capital has occupied an important place in the 36 expansion of international industrial and bank monopolies. They make investments in the economy of other countries not only at the cost of their own internal accumulation, but also thanks to mergers with and takeovers of foreign companies. The centralisation of capital of both national and international monopolies and banks is based on the broad support of the bourgeois state, which makes use of diverse direct and indirect methods of stimulating the growth of the finance capital’s economic power. In today’s world, the direct consequence of the centralisation of capital is the unprecedented aggravation of monopoly competition on the national and international levels, and heightened exploitation of the working people.