The first of these forces is to be found in the changed structure of
the capitalist enterprise. The foundations for the theory of the
monopolistic corporation were laid by Marx when he described the tendency
of capital to agglomerate in huge units. This comes about in the
first instance by the concentration of capital, which Marx defined as the
natural result of the accumulation process: each capital grows and with
it grows the scale of production it carries on. The centralization
of capital, on the other hand, changes the distribution of existing capitals,
bringing together “capitals already formed,” by means of “destruction of
their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist,
transformation of any small into few large capitals….Capital grows in one
place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place
been lost by many.” This centralization may be accomplished, as Marx
points out, either through competition of through the credit system, whereby
many owners make their capital available to a single control (179).