11 
They buy their own shares, financing themselves by debt. 
These developments explain why the corporate system gets 
more and more loaded by debt. The normal process of investment 
in real capital has nothing to do with it: it is carried out 
with no more borrowing than before. 
The sums of money involved in the take-over transactions 
are very big, they have increased rapifdly all the time 
and especially so in the current year. It is only fitting 
to speak of a casino society. What is the consequence for 
the real sphere of the economy, the one which matters? 
Real investment is neglected in favor of financial 
investment. The interest of managers is concentrated on 
short term considerations^on speculation and finance / 
distracting effort from the field of production and technical 
progress. Lonj run perspective gets lost. 
We must not forget the role which certain economic policies 
have played in this change of attitudes. The high interest 
rates make it rational to behave in this way rather than 
work like hell in improving technique and risk a lot. 
The fluctuating foreign exchanges have open^ed up a new 
field of speculation which did not exist before and which 
engages enormous sums and a loijof nerve. 
How can we sum up this colorful picture of the post-war scene? 
No doubt we are still in the phase of monopoly capitalism 
but the way it works is different and the problems we have 
to heed are not the same as they were before. 
Our interest has to shift very strongly to personal distribution, 
because that is what household saving depends on, and this 
is, we have seen, particularly dangerous. What interests us 
moreover, is the distribution of profits. I sjued to speak of 
maldistribution of profits in my book and ^[referredjthat) to 
the distribution of profits between industries.