Menshikov S., Millionaires and Managers, Structure of U.S. Financial Oligarchy (1969).pdf

CONTENTS

Page

Preface to the English Edition ..................................................

Chapter I. EVOLUTION OE CAPITAL AND OF

THE CAPITALIST .............................................................

Chapter II. THE VERY RICH.................................................. 25

1. American Plutocracy in the 1960s .... 25

2. The Old Fortunes............................................................ 42

3. Replenishment of the Plutocracy ....

4. "Diminishing Social Inequality" and "People's

Capitalism"..................................................................... 69

Chapter III. MANAGERS AT THE TOP ...

1. Social Nature of the Managerial Top Echelon

2. The Formation of the Managerial Elite . .

3. The "Market" of Top Executives ....

100

4. Various Interpretations of the Social Position

of Top Management ...................................................... 116

Chapter IV. DEVELOPMENT OF BANK MONOP-

OLIES AND BANK GROUPS ....................................... 135

1. Further Evolution of Capitalist Property . . 135

2. The Bank Monopoly System ......................................... 139

Chapter V. FINANCE CAPITAL. ITS FORMS AND

COMPONENTS.................................................................. 158

1. Intertwining of the Capital or the "Partici-

pation System" ............................................................... 160

2. Long-Standing Financial Ties......................................... 171

3. Personal Union ............................................................. 184

4. Self-Financing of Industrial Corporations and

Their Interconnection with Banking Institutions

191

Chapter VI. FINANCIAL GROUPS ........................................... 200

1. The Financial Group as an Economic Category 201

2. Regional

Concentration

Finance

Capital.

The Special Role of New York ...................................... 223

3. New York Financial Groups. Dictatorship of

the Morgans: Cause of Its Fall ....................................... 228

4. The Morgan Guaranty Trust Group .... 234

5. The

Group,

the

Chase

Manhattan

Bank, the Chemical Bank New York Trust Co. 258

G. The Group of the First National City Bank of

New

the

Fords,

Dillon,

Read

and

the

Harrimans ........................................................... : : 272

7. Other New York Groups .............................................. 292

8. Regional Financial Groups............................................. 301

9. Composition

the

Financial

Oligarchy:

Recapitulation ................................................................ 317

Rockefeller

York,

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

This book, written in 1962-63, is a result of a special investigation

of control in large American corporations. I decided not to confine

myself to a study of the sources available at the time, but also personally

to verify the correctness of the managerial revolution theory first ad-

vanced by A. Berle and G. Means in the early 1930s. For this purpose

I collected all the material published in the United States and accessi-

ble to foreign researchers on the distribution of share owner-

ship of the big corporations and banks and other financial institutions,

the position of the top managers in these institutions and corporations,

the fate of the old large fortunes and of the new multimillionaires who

appeared in recent decades despite tax legislation and other state reg-

ulatory measures. The results were compared with data on the situation

which existed in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, and the

respective conclusions were drawn, which the reader will find in the

book.

In the course of the work it became clear that it was necessary to

examine in detail the diverse ties between the big corporations in in-

dustry and trade, on the one hand, and large banks and other financial

institutions, on the other. For the problem of control in corporations

cannot be understood without considering the tendency of corporations

and banks to form large financial groups. The nature of these groups

and also the centrifugal and centripetal forces operating within them

were examined.

In the autumn of 1962, I had the opportunity of spending four

months in the United States under the programme for the exchange of

scientists between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A. Thanks to the

kind assistance of the Institute of International Education in New York

which took care of all organisational matters, these were very fruitful

months: they made it possible to supplement the materials gleaned

from books, magazine and newspaper articles, handbooks and other

literature with data obtained in the course of personal contact with

leading men in the U.S. business world and scientists of American

universities.

During the stay in the United States I visited New York and Wa-

shington, Boston and Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and

Los Angeles. I met chairmen of the board, presidents and vice-presidents

of dozens of corporations and of 13 out of the 25 commercial banks

which at that time had assets of over $1,000 million each, partners of

some of the principal investment banks and law firms, insurance com-

panies and investment trusts. Among them were Henry Ford II and

Henry S. Morgan, David Rockefeller and Cyrus Eaton, George Gund

and Charles Percy, Frank King of Western Bancorporation and Frede-

rick Eaton of Shearman and Sterling. Many days were spent at the

library of the New York Stock Exchange going over proxy statements

and other reports of the leading corporations. The results of these meet-

ings and studies were extensively utilised in preparing this monograph.

More than five years have passed since then. In preparing the En-

glish edition of the book I have fully reviewed it, giving, whenever pos-

sible, the latest statistical data and abridging some places not of prime

interest to the foreign reader. I was faced with the question, has not

the book become out of date? The world of Big Business is very dynamic

and changes take place in it every month, every day. But on turning to

the latest literature, I learned that, as the French say, "Plus ca change,

plus e'est la meme chose". Hence the decision not to concentrate on

altering all details since the main thing, the structure of the U.S. finan-

cial oligarchy, has hardly changed during this time.

The reader will find in the book, alongside an analysis of the facts

and data, an effort to explain the sum total of the examined phenomena

and processes from the positions of Marxism-Leninism. That is the

reason why the exposition of the problem begins with a theoretical

analysis of the process of separating functioning capital from capital as

property. To roam the empirical labyrinth without Ariadne's thread of

theory is a hazardous venture. I am convinced that only with the help

of Marxist-Leninist political economy is it possible to find one's way

in this maze of facts, opinions and theories.

Such an approach necessarily makes the book polemical. But it is in

keen disputes that the truth is born.

December 1968

S. Menshikov

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