Fictitious Capital, capital in the form of securities, which bring profit to their owners. Securities—shares (see Stock \Share]) and bonds of various enterprises, state bonds and bank mortgages—are issued to show that a certain sum is loaned or given over to establish an enterprise. In this connection, their owners are entitled to receive a set profit, which comes from the surplus value created by wage labourers in the process of capitalist production. Shares bring their owners profit in the form of dividends, while bonds yield profit in the form of interest. Shares and bonds are bought and sold on the stock exchange (2). Unlike operational capital invested in various sectors of economy, fictitious capital does not have intrinsic value and is not real wealth, which is why it does not perform any function in the process of capitalist reproduction. This is brought to light in a particularly striking way during stock market calamities, when the value of shares and bonds goes down sharply, while the actual national wealth remains the same. Alongside this, profiteering in shares and bonds and the lowering or raising of their selling price are effective means of enriching the big bourgeoisie at the cost of the ruin of small and medium holders of shares and bonds. As bourgeois society develops, fictitious capital grows faster than real capital because of the extensive development of the shareholding form of enterprises, greater profits received from securities as various monopolies thrive, the lowering rate of interest, and the increasing national debt. Fictitious capital grows particularly rapidly in current conditions as a result of the further concentration of social wealth in the hands of the financial oligarchy and the increasingly parasitic character of capitalism.