First, according to Marx’s argument, isolated individual capitals within a social formation, are transformed through competition (and not through the political influence of the state exercised from outside, as, e.g. Hardt and Negri [2000: 304-5] mistakenly maintain), into elements of aggregate- social-capital (Gesamtkapital). Contrary to Hilferding’s belief, which has been adopted bymainstream theories of imperialism, according to which so-called “monopoly capitalism” has led to “the elimination of free competition among individual capitalists by the large monopolistic combines” (Hilferding 1981: 301), Marx’s theory makes clear that free competition is a structural feature of the capital relation, which clearly cannot be abolished.
read here
