Abstract

Capitalist Confiscation

Over three-quarters of all the wealth in the United States today is corporate. Three-quarters of the possessions of the people of the United States are represented today not by tangible goods, but by pieces of paper. And of this, 200 great organizations control 38 percent. There were in 1929 over 300,000 non-financial corporations in the United States. The shifting of ownership from the original owner or investor to a "remote control" comprises many steps. Each step has spelled a weakening of the stockholder's position, a lessening of his power to determine the disposition of his property. The "control" of a corporation, exercised by relatively fewer and fewer men, has little by little encroached on the supposed rights of the owner-shareholder and diminished the value of his holdings.