Cartels and Trusts.  Commodity Production.  Monopoly and Prices. 6 3 2026 

It looks like he is threatening to use the tariffs again, even though the Supreme Court rebuked his privilege a few months ago.  Don has a theory that it doesn’t matter how unpopular he or his government looks, that if he finds a legal loophole, he does what he wants.

He did this to get appointed in 2016, he found a loophole in the electoral college, and was appointed without a majority.  When it failed in 2020 he had the January 6th episode, which he pardoned the members of when he was voted in, in his third attempt to be president. 

He has the Senate behind him as it was designed for large scale landowners to dominate the body.  Given it is 2 votes per state, Alabama is equal to Illinois, home of Chicago. It is remarkable that anything ever gets accomplished around here.    

The Senate has yet to get the bill to legalize the metric system.  Given the conditions,  it would be a surprise if they passed it, if it ever did come.  The Republican bourgeoisie supports the non metric industry, the farm equipment and autos are still not metric. 

The tariffs are for competition between American autos and Chinese autos.  Without protectionist tariffs, the big three Ford, Stellantis, and GM stand little chance of being able to compete with China.

It costs about the same amount as five Chinese BYD autos to purchase one American truck.  The electric vehicles the Chinese have developed cost 12 thousand US dollars.  The Ford starts around 41 thousand, but there is tax.  So it’s closer to 46 thousand.  But most F 150’s cost more like 60 thousand, when you add in features that people want, often considered luxury add ons.

The BYD has features too, like computers etc., but is a basic car.  It makes up for features in that it is entirely electric, it does not use fossil fuels.  The F150 sells 6 cylinder motors, and also the 8 cylinder V8.  People like the V8 because it has more power.  I guess if you don’t care about your fossil fuel usage, the V8 might be for you.  But it will cost you more than $60,000 after taxes.

This system of protectionism was working until Trump invaded Iran, and was unable to conquer the Persians with airplanes, satellite guidance systems, and missiles.  Congress has voted against allowing Trump to continue his unpopular war there,  the price of gasoline has doubled  with the strait of Hormuz closed due to the war.   Gasoline went from less than 3 dollars a gallon to about $4.85 a gallon.  

Fueling a big motor F 150 suddenly got a lot harder.  EV”s do not use petroleum; it doesn’t matter what gas costs, the EV uses electricity to power it. 

So Trump wants his tariffs back, even though it was ruled against the law, and he was forced to return 180 billion dollars to the parties that were tariffed, the importers.  

It looks like racketeering, or conspiracy to commit wire fraud.   Another boldfaced white collar crime, using the legal system with high powered lawyers and big money to continue to protect Trump’s  effort  to maintain a monopoly on autos, so American autos can compete domestically at least, with Chinese autos.

Monopolies control prices, like  Trump’s tariffs.  They do not tolerate competition, and include trusts and Cartels to control commodity prices, much like what Vladimir Lenin described in Lenin’s Imperialism,  the Highest Form of Capitalism. 

“Cartels come to an agreement on the terms of sale, dates of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc”

Later he writes

“Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialisation of production. In particular, the process of technical invention and improvement becomes socialised..”

Passage continues 

“Here we no longer have competition between small and large, between technically developed and backward enterprises. We see here the monopolists throttling those who do not submit to them, to their yoke, to their dictation. This is how this process is reflected in the mind of a bourgeois economist:

“”Even in the purely economic sphere,” writes Kestner, “a certain change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of the word towards organisational-speculative activity. The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to estimate the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and, so to speak, ‘awaken’ a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance, the organisational development and the possibilities of certain connections between individual enterprises and the banks. . . .”

“Translated into ordinary human language this means that the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still “reigns” and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the “geniuses” of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialised production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit . . . the speculators.”

Vladimir Lenin, Chapter one, Imperialism the Highest Form of Capitalism

Lenin saw this forming more than a hundred years ago, prior to him Engels wrote about it in Anti Duhring.  Capitalism becomes monopoly, cartels and trusts divide up whole industries, the state responds with favorable taxes, and often armed support like the oil wars of the late 20th century and beginning of the 21st century.

The big three auto producers form a trust to keep Chinese EV’s from competing with their petroleum motor driven non metric auto production.  Trump’s tariffs are efforts at cementing monopoly control  of the auto industry, supporting cartels and trusts.  The days of competition in the industry are behind us. On the domestic market there is no low cost vehicle, at least nothing like BYD’s EV.  Instead workers are supposed to buy the big three autos, to “Make America Great Again”.

Monopoly trusts are a part of all industries in the late stages of capitalist industrial development.  Whether there are two, or three producers of a commodity, real competition is rare. When it does happen it is technologically driven. Computers had done this, it revolutionized society, and companies like Google experienced competition to gain a hold on the servers of the internet.  

But how long did it take before Google became the server, with little of non competition remaining, on a server system that appears, at least, to be changing little from its conception?  It migrated to phones and ipads, but it seems to be going nowhere new on the bigger computers.

Regardless of Google’s status as a monopoly, they own Youtube, and if you pay $15 a month it is advertising propaganda free.  The monopoly seems to be becoming more like a cooperative, its main cash cow removed.  

But the point is, monopoly capitalism seems to be a part of life, and Trump is controlled by it.  His desire to return to the 20th century can only be called childish.  The auto industry  he is supporting cannot deal with competition, instead they operate in unison, and in this way control prices,  as a form of monopoly.  As the living  representative of capitalism, Don likes monopoly.  His tariffs support this.  Whether or not it is legal seems not to concern Don, if there is a loophole in the law he will find it, even after being snapped back, like having to return the 180 billion dollars in tariffs to the importers.  

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

6 3 2026