Underloading of Enterprises, Chronic, a phenomenon most characteristic of the capitalist economy during the general crisis of capitalism, expressed in the productive capacities of capitalist enterprises constantly being utilised below their possibilities. In the initial stage of imperialism, enterprises were underloaded on a mass scale only during economic crises, while during the general crisis of capitalism, productive capacity in capitalist countries becomes permanently and chronically underloaded. This results from the aggravation of the problem of marketing output, which is a consequence of the deterioration in capitalism’s positions in its economic competition with socialism and intensification of the competitive struggle on the world capitalist market. The aggravation of the marketing problem makes full use of production capacities impossible. Even when production is growing faster, the capacities of capitalist enterprises are rarely 90 per cent loaded. The average figure is 75-85 per cent, but, in certain periods and certain branches, as low as 40-50 per cent. Enterprises operate below capacity in all capitalist countries, but this situation assumes the greatest dimensions in the United States, Britain and France. The fact that enterprises are chronically underloaded does not exclude the possibility of an increment in new productive capacity through additional capital investment. Chronic underloading of enterprises is one indicator that the capitalist relations of production have become a brake not only slowing down the development of the productive forces, but also preventing existing productive forces from being used to the full. This testifies to a deep-going disturbance of the process of capitalist reproduction, to an intensification of the decay and parasitism of modern capitalism.