Abstract
To Marxian economists, ‘monopoly capitalism’ denotes the stage of capitalism beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century and maturing after the Second World War. While Marx and Engels wrongly thought it heralded the demise of capitalism, later thinkers, like Sweezy and Baran, have tried to identify its main features and ‘laws of motion’. They argue that, by increasing the savings potential of the economy and reducing opportunities for productive investment, monopoly capitalism suppresses levels of income and employment. No other approach, whether mainstream or traditional Marxian, has satisfactorily explained capitalism’s growing tendency towards stagnation in the 20th century.
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Sweezy, P.M. (2018). Monopoly Capitalism. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_906
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_906
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