Elberfeld. In 1905, one of these groups, and in 1908 the other one, each concluded a separate agreement with yet another factory; the result being two big industrial "triple alliances," each provided with a capital of from 40 to 50 million marks. And these two triple groups are beginning to come close to one another, to make arrangements about prices, etc. (In June, 1916, the newspapers announced the establishment of a big trust embracing the whole of the German chemical industry.)
Competition turns into monopoly. The result is an immense process of socialisation of production. More especially does the process of technical invention and improvement become socialised.
There is no longer the old type of free competition between factory managers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration has arrived at such a point that it is becoming possible to make an approximate inventory of all sources of raw material (such as all the mineral deposits of a country, and even, as we shall see, of several countries or of the whole world). Not only is such an inventory made, but the sources are seized by gigantic monopolist alliances. An approximate inventory of markets is also made, and the trusts divide them up amongst themselves by contract. Skilled labour is monopolised, the best engineers are engaged; monopoly seizes the means of transport—railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism, in its imperialist phase, arrives at the threshold of the complete socialisation of production. To some extent it causes the capitalists, whether they like it or no, to enter a new social order, which marks
