ABSTRACT
The authors of Monopoly Capital 1 , Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, attempt to overcome "the stagnation of Marxian social science" by shifting the focus of attention from competitive to monopoly capital. The Marxian analysis of capitalism, they say, "still rests on the assumption of a competitive economy", which has, however, in the meantime, undergone a qualitative change by turning into monopoly capitalism. Marx, the authors relate, "treated monopolies not as essential elements of capitalism but rather as remnants of the feudal mercantilist past which had to be abstracted from in order to attain the clearest possible view of the basic structure and tendencies of capitalism" (p.4). Their own book tries to remedy this situation and to do so by using Marx's own "powerful analytical method".
