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The theory ofstate monopoly capitalism (also referred asstamocap)[1] was initially aMarxist thesis popularised afterWorld War II.Lenin had claimed in 1916 thatWorld War I had transformedlaissez-faire capitalism intomonopoly capitalism, but he did not publish any extensive theory about the topic. The term refers to an environment where the state intervenes in the economy to protect larger monopolistic oroligopolistic businesses from threats. As conceived by Lenin in his pamphlet of the same name, the theory aims to describe thefinal historical stage of capitalism, of which he believed theImperialism of that time to be the highest expression.[2]
The main Marxist–Leninist thesis is that big business, having achieved amonopoly orcartel position in most markets of importance,fuses with the government apparatus. State monopoly capitalism protected monopolistic economics from competition by smaller firms.[3]
Lenin insists inThe State and Revolution (1917) that state monopoly capitalism is not a development beyond capitalism but a manifestation of it, countering liberal and social-democratic politicians who characterised this economic development asstate socialism,[4] for example with regard to the so-namedState Socialism initiatives in theGerman Empire.
Different versions of this idea were elaborated by economists of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (e.g.,Eugen Varga), East Germany'sSocialist Unity Party, theFrench Communist Party (e.g.,Paul Boccara), theCommunist Party of Great Britain (e.g.,Ben Fine andLaurence Harris), and the AmericanCommunist Party of the USA (e.g.,Victor Perlo).
Ever since monopoly capital took over the world, it has kept the greater part of humanity in poverty, dividing all the profits among the group of the most powerful countries. The standard of living in those countries is based on theextreme poverty of our countries.
— Che Guevara, 1965[5]
The strategic political implication of the theory for Marxist-Leninists, towards the end of theJoseph Stalin era and afterwards, was that the labour movement should form apeople's democratic alliance under the leadership of the Communist Partywith the progressive middle classes and small business,against the state and big business (called "monopoly" for short). Sometimes this alliance was also called the "anti-monopoly alliance".[citation needed]
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In neo-Trotskyist theory, however, such an alliance was rejected as being based either on a false strategy ofpopular fronts, or on politicalopportunism, said to be incompatible either with apermanent revolution or with the principle of independentworking class political action.[citation needed]
Thestate in Soviet-type societies was redefined by the neo-Trotskyists as beingalso state-monopoly capitalist. There was no difference, in their view, between the West and the East in this regard. Consequently, some kind ofanti-bureaucratic revolution was said to be required, but different Trotskyist groups quarreled about what form such a revolution would need to take, or could take.[citation needed]
Some Trotskyists[who?] believed the anti-bureaucratic revolution would happen spontaneously, inevitably and naturally, others believed it needed to be organised - the aim being to establish a society owned and operated by the working class. According to the neo-Trotskyists, the Communist Party could not play its leading role, because it did not represent the interests of the working class.[citation needed]
Market anarchists typically criticize neoliberal forces for inconsistent or hypocritical application of neoliberal theory regarding stamocap (State monopoly capitalism); that in those inconsistencies exist the basis of continued selective state-guaranteed privileges for the plutocratic neoliberal elite.[6]
The concept was to a large extent either modified or abandoned in the era ofeurocommunism, because it came to be believed that the state apparatus could bereformed to reflect the interests of the working majority. In other words, thefusion between the state and big business postulated earlier was not so tight that it could not be undone by a mass movement from below, under the leadership of the Communist Party (or its central committee).[citation needed]
When Varga introduced the theory, orthodox Stalinist economists attacked it as incompatible with the doctrine that state planning was a feature only of socialism, and that "under capitalism anarchy of production reigns."[7]
Critics of the theory (e.g.,Ernest Mandel andLeo Kofler) claimed that:
The latter must be emphasized because the erroneous bourgeois reformist assertion that monopoly capitalism or state-monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can now be called "state socialism" and so on, is very common.
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