Monopoly Profit

A form of high profit which is higher than the average profit that a monopoly capitalist obtains by virtue of its monopoly position in social production and market circulation. Monopoly profits are realized mainly through monopoly prices set by monopoly organizations, which, by virtue of their control over the production and sale of products and through the setting of monopoly prices, make it possible for monopoly capitalists to obtain high monopoly profits far in excess of average profits over a long period of time. At the stage of state monopoly capitalism, the fusion of state power and monopoly capital is realized, further safeguarding the interests of monopoly capital.

Monopoly profits can also be made by relying on the natural forces that are favorable to monopoly.

Monopoly profits comes ultimately from the surplus-value created by laborers in the production process. Under the conditions of modern monopoly capitalism, monopoly capitalists grab high monopoly profits mainly through the following ways: extracting part of the revenues of other small and medium-sized enterprises and other non-monopoly enterprises by defining monopoly high price and monopoly low price; obtaining high profits by intensifying the exploitation and plunder of the working people of other countries through such means as foreign investment, capital export, unequal exchange, etc.; realizing a combination of monopoly capital and state power; redistributing profits in favor of monopoly capital through such means as state armament orders, financial subsidies, tax reductions and tax exemptions, so as to turn part of the national income created by the working people into a high level of income for the monopoly capitalists.

The emergence of monopoly profit does not change the law of surplus-value, but only the form in which this law operates. Before the monopoly stage, free competition was predominant and capital could be freely transferred among the various branches of production, and the law of surplus-value manifested itself chiefly through average profits. Although individual capitalists obtained surplus-profits over and above the average profit due to the early adoption of new technology, this was only a transitory phenomenon for a few of them. This surplus-profit vanishes as more and more capitalists increase their production technology and productivity of labor. After entering the stage of monopoly capitalism, monopoly capitalist class were able to make stable monopoly profits by manipulating monopoly prices by virtue of their monopoly position. This has, to a certain extent, fettered the development of the productive forces of society.