The origins of monopoly capitalism: theory and history (19th-20th centuries)

Abstract

This article aims to combine theory and history to contribute to the understanding of the origins of the systemic form that reaches us, namely: monopoly capitalism. Resorting to Marx's texts on the general law of capitalist accumulation, in addition to the economic literature and historiography on capitalist monopolies, and selecting evidence that historicize the process of capital concentration and productive centralization in a few and gigantic capitalist companies, it is possible to analyze the historical origins of the monopolistic drive that, at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, became the rule in the world market. In assessing the facts, data and analyzing the process, we assess the preponderance of the decline of competitive capitalism and the emergence of monopoly capitalism for the significant social, geopolitical and economic changes of that moment and which, in parts, reach us until the present.

Keywords:
Monopoly capitalismo; Theory; History