Conglomerate, a form of monopoly which exercises financial control over companies operating in different branches of industry with no technological links to each other. Conglomerates form and develop as a result of diversification. Conglomerates became widespread in the leading capitalist countries in the late 1950s and 1960s. They present a peculiar form of centralisation of monopoly capital in a period of deepening crises in various industries and of scientific and technological revolution. The largest conglomerates are to be found in the USA. Lower profits in the traditional industries, the emergence of new and very 64 lucrative businesses, and the possibility of reaping superprofits from certain kinds of non-productive activities, such as research, design and consultation services, as well as the provision of everyday services, make monopolies disperse their new investments in different sectors. The largest engineering, chemical, automobile and electrical engineering concerns have long ceased limiting themselves to expansion in their own or related fields, while investing in off-shore mineral explorations, the processing of agricultural products, publishing, insurance, retail trade and the motion picture industry. Unlike the monopoly combines, when the monopolies’ expansion occurred in the realms technologically allied to the basic line of production, or in those servicing it, the rise and growth of conglomerates embodies the complete alienation of financial interests and those of reaping higher profits, from the interests of production. By investing in different branches, today’s monopolies try to reduce the risk of possible profit losses and to obtain superprofits in the new branches of production and services. Capital investments in new industries acquire the forms of building new enterprises or buying those already in operation. These deals are often speculative, aggravate inter- and intrasectoral competition, result in excess production capacities, and increase the anarchy of production.