In the years from 1870 to 1900, the so-called Second Industrial Revolution, both the United States and Europe were going through considerable social, technological changes (transport, communication), industrial (new energy sources and steel) and considerable increase in population. This new scenario made it possible to increase production and encouraged large companies to expand their businesses.
From then on, banks started to control large North American and European companies. The financiers came to dominate companies and the industrialists were transformed into salaried directors, delegates of the real owners. Financial or monopoly capitalism presented fundamental models, the domination of the industry by bank investments; the formation of large capital reserves; the distinction between the private property of the company's directors and the organization's assets and economic responsibility. But the greatest feature of financial or monopoly capitalism was Imperialist expansion.
The grandiose accumulation of capital of modern industry was organized according to the
trusts (merger of several companies in the same field), the cartels (a group of large independent companies that establish an agreement among themselves with the aim of controlling prices or the market in a given sector) and holdings (company that dominates the control of shares over other companies, as the owner of most of its shares). THE Holding it does not intrude on production, but receives its profits paid by the production units.Corporations S/A represent a type of commercial company with supposedly democratic characteristics. These S/A are generally made up of millions of owners, that is, thousands of individuals who used their savings to buy shares, only that in practice, the direction of the S/A is in the hands of a group of directors, chosen by a minority of shareholders who monopolize the shares with the right to vote. It is noted that from the First World War to the present day, industrial monopolies persist with tiny changes in the financial or monopoly capitalist structure.
By Lilian Aguiar
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/o-capitalismo-financeiro.htm
