Almost half of all the production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by one-hundredth of those enterprises. Also, these 3,000 giant enterprises include 258 branches of industry. From this it can be seen that concentration of production, at a certain stage, approaches very nearly to monopoly. For some tens of enterprises can easily act in concert, whilst on the other hand, the difficulty of competition and the tendency to monopoly arise precisely from the importance of enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important—if not the most important—phenomena of modern capitalist economy, and we must pause a moment to consider it. But first we must clear up one possible misunderstanding.
American statistics say: 3,000 giant enterprises and 250 branches of industry, as if there were only a dozen of the biggest enterprises for each branch of industry. But it is not so. There are not big enterprises in every branch of industry and, moreover, a very important characteristic of capitalism in its highest stage of development is the "combine," that is to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry, which represent either the different stages in the working of the raw material (for example, the melting of iron ore, the making of steel, the manufacture of different steel articles), or which are auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilisation of waste, or of secondary products, the manufacture of packing, etc.).
"Combination" writes Hilferding, "levels out the fluctuations of trade and assures the combined enterprise of a more stable rate of profit. In the
