This is the third in a series of commentaries on the Fighting Program for the Revolutionary Communists of America. In this article, originally published in issue 9 of The Communist, we discuss the program’s third point, “Nationalize the Major Banks and Monopolies.”
In 2023, just 500 American companies accounted for two-thirds of US GDP—with $18 trillion in revenues that year. This includes corporations like Amazon, Walmart, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and UnitedHealth Group.
Firms like these have complex operations requiring a high degree of internal planning. For example, Target uses a sophisticated inventory management system to keep track of every item in its warehouses and stores. They have an intricate, partially automated logistics system to ship products around the country. Some of their distribution centers are almost completely automated. Internal planning allows Target’s bosses to squeeze workers to be as efficient as possible—and to lavish shareholders with the greatest possible profits.
Every big corporation is, in many ways, a small planned economy. However, while there is a high degree of centralization and planning internally, these monopolies compete against each other on the broader market, creating an anarchic mess. As Lenin explained in his masterpiece Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,
Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome, and intolerable.
Everything in society is produced by the collective labor of the working class, but ownership—and the appropriation of profit—is private. These profits come from the unpaid labor of the working class.
The 15 largest banks in the US hold $12.95 trillion in assets, as of 2023. Banking in this country is highly monopolized, with the top three banks controlling 40% of the sector. In 2023, / Image: Davidt8, Wikimedia Commons
The crisis of the banks
The 15 largest banks in the US hold $12.95 trillion in assets, as of 2023. Banking in this country is highly monopolized, with the top three banks controlling 40% of the sector. In 2023, JP Morgan Chase alone had annual revenues of $145.67 billion.
For the banking system, the risks are public—because a crisis of the banks threatens the entire capitalist system—while the profits are private. During the 2008 financial crisis, the banks got bailed out by the federal government, while millions of workers and retirees took a massive hit or completely lost their retirement savings. Few workers have pensions anymore. Workers lucky enough to be able to save for retirement are forced to risk their savings on the stock market in 401(k)s and IRAs. These 401(k)s and IRAs lost about $2.4 trillion in the final two quarters of 2008.
Capitalists force the working class to pay for the banks’ crisis multiple times over—through taxpayer dollars used for corporate bailouts, job losses, loss of savings, cuts to social spending, and decreases in real wages.
Nationalization with no compensation and workers’ control
Communists say the billionaires should pay for the crisis of their system—not the working class. To rationalize the economy, the socialization of production cries out for the socialization of ownership. Major corporations and banks should be expropriated with no compensation to the bosses and put under the genuine democratic control of the working class. Only then can their operations be harmoniously planned to meet the needs of the majority, instead of enriching a tiny minority.
During the Russian Revolution, bodies called soviets, meaning “council” in Russian, emerged to coordinate the class struggle. These organs of workers’ power were the basis for a new government of the working class and peasantry that was established in Russia. The soviets had direct control over industry, in accordance with priorities established by the majority at the Soviet Congresses. These congresses met multiple times a year for a week at a time, and they were made up of working-class delegates who debated issues and decided the way forward.
In the period after the Bolsheviks first came to power, the workers had more or less direct control over production. However, this was undermined by a brutal civil war, imperialist invasion, and the country’s low level of economic development. This would not be the case in the United States today. Unlike in backward, semi-feudal Russia, well-educated American workers will be in control of a highly industrialized economy. Eliminating the anarchy of the market will unleash its full potential.
The RCA is fighting to rid the world of the anarchy and endless crises of the market economy. / Image: RCA
For a world socialist federation!
With a planned economy, we will be able to meet every single person’s needs. When there are crises like the COVID pandemic or natural disasters, we will be able to swiftly reallocate resources where they’re needed, rather than relying on the whims of profit-seeking capitalists. Capitalism is a worldwide system, and socialism needs to be global too. The RCA is fighting to rid the world of the anarchy and endless crises of the market economy. Our aim is to replace it with a world socialist federation linking up rationally planned economies, with the workers of the world working in harmony for the benefit of all of society.