by the details of the process which result from these contradictory tendencies, and by the way those details affect their individual fortunes.
For while the net result of the process, as far as the whole mass of capital is concerned, is a pretty rapid growth, this growth is not at all equally distributed among the different individual capitals. Quite to the contrary: the contradictions of the process manifest themselves largely by the extreme rapidity of the growth of some of the individual capitals, and the equally extreme rapidity in the shrinkage, or the total extinction, of some other individual capitals, due to the fact that the benefits derived and the losses incurred by reason of the contradictory elements of the process are not equally distributed among the individual capitalists. Under a system based on competition they could not very well be.
The general process of accumulation of capital, by reason of its mechanical basis alone, leads to the concentration of capital and production, that is to the formation of economic centers whereat are "run together" within comparatively small space and under one guidance large amounts of value in the shape of costly machinery and other means of production, and large numbers of workingmen. And the particular way in which this process works its way, by benefiting some capitalists at the expense of others, leads to the centralization of capital, that is the amassing of large amounts of wealth in the same hands, by transferring the capital of those capitalists who lose by the process to those that come out winners. This leads to an increase in the number of large capitalists, whose capital grows at the expense of the general body of capitalists, whose number constantly decreases. The few chosen capitalists fatten at the expense of their fellows.
These two processes—the concentration and the centralization of capital—accelerate each other. Particularly does the concentration of capital become a powerful factor in its centralization, by turning over to the control, and
