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In any case,.Hilferding later on explicitly links up the above
analysis with the present German and Italian economies:
One of the essential characteristics of the totalitarian govern–
ment is the fact that it subordinates the economy to its aims.
Economy no longer has its own laws, for it
is
now subject to
direction from above. In proportion as this subjection is being
carried out, market economy is transformed into an economy for
use, the character and the extent of the needs being determined by
the State administration. The example of German and Italian
economy shows how in a totalitarian state such a management of
economy, once it has been started, assumes greater and greater
proportions and endeavors to become all-embracing, as was the
case in Russia from the very beginning. Notwithstanding the great
differences in the points of departure, the economic systems of the
totalitarian regimes present an increasing similarity to each
other. In Germany, too, the government, intent upon maintaining
and strengthening its power, determines the character of produc–
tion and accumulation; the prices lose their regulating function,
become a means of distribution. Like the economy itself, those
who are engaged in the management of the economic activities are
more or less subordinated to the State; they become its assistants.
Economy loses the priority which it possessed under a bourgeois
system.
This does not mean, of course, that the economic spheres do
not exert a considerable influence upon the government both in
Germany and in Russia. But they do not determine the contents
of politics. The general policy is determined by a small circle of
those who hold power. Their interests, their ideas about what is
needed for the preservation, application and strengthening of
their own power are the determining factors of their policy which
they impose, as a law, upon the economic life that is subordinated
to them. Hence the importance which the subjective element, the
element of the 'unforeseen,' of the 'irrational' in political develop·
ment has acquired in politics.
The believer knows only of heaven and hell. The Marxist
sectarian knows only Capitalism and Socialism, he knows only
of classes-the bourgeois and the proletariat-as determining
forces. He cannot conceive the idea that modern State power,
having become independent, develops its enormous strength
according to its own laws, that it subjects the social forces and
compels them to serve it.
In this remarkable analysis, Hilferding not only demonstrates
the non-capitalist nature of a 'Stateified' economy, but also suggests
the general political conclusion to be drawn from this: that the
decisive controls today are political and not economic. The world
