concerned himself earlier than all others with this question, describes it thus:
"The chief controls the parent company: the latter in its turn reigns over the subsidiary or 'daughter' companies which similarly control others. Thus it is possible wth a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. As a matter of fact, if holding 50 per cent. of the capital is always sufficient to control a company through its shares, the chief needs only a million to control eight millions in the second subsidiaries. And if the method of organisation is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen, thirty-two or more."43
Experience shows this it is sufficient to handle 40 per cent. of the shares in order to direct the affairs of a company, since a certain number of small shareholders find it impossible in practice to attend general meetings.44 The "democratisation" of the system of shares and debentures, from which the bourgeois sophists, opportunists, and social-democrats expect the "democratisation" of capital, the strengthening of the small manufacturer and much besides, is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of the financial oligarchy. For this reason, among others, in the most advanced or most "experienced" capitalist countries, the law allows the issue of shares of very small value. In Germany, it is illegal to issue shares of less value than one thousand marks, and the magnates of German finance look with an envious eye on England, where it is legal to issue shares at one pound sterling. Siemens, one of the chief captains of industry and a "monarch" of German finance, told the Reichstag on the 7th June, 1900, that "the
