Page:Imperialism (Lenin).djvu/35

Rh The statement that combines do away with crises is only a tale for the marines, used by bourgeois economists who set out to justify capitalism at all costs. On the contrary, when monopoly appears in certain branches of industry, it increases and intensifies the chaos proper to capitalist production as a whole. The disparity between the development of agriculture and that of industry, which is already a characteristic of capitalism, becomes increased. The privileged position of the most highly trustified industry (i.e., heavy industry, especially coal and iron) has the effect of bringing about, in other branches of production, "a still greater lack of concerted organisation"—as it is called by Jeidels, who is the author of one of the best works on The Attitude of the Great German Banks to Industry.

"The more the economic system is developed," writes Liefmann, one of the most vigorous defenders of capitalism, "the more attention is given to risky enterprises or enterprises abroad, to those which need a great deal of time to develop, or finally to those which are only of local importance."

The increase of risk is connected in the long run with the prodigious increase of capital, which, as it were, overflows, flows abroad, etc. in one way or another. At the same time the extremely rapid rate of technical progress gives rise more and more to disturbances of equilibrium, to disproportion, crisis and chaos in the various spheres of economic life.

Liefmann is obliged to admit: "Very probably humanity may expect important technical revolutions in the near future. They will not fail to in-