Boston Finance Group

one of the oldest financial coalitions of monopoly capital in the USA; a monopolistic union of powerful financiers and industrialists of the city of Boston. It controls great amounts of loan capital, more than was controlled by any of the 17 provincial finance groups in the USA during the 1960’s. It occupied third place, after the Rockefeller and Morgan groups.

The Boston Finance Group was formed at the end of the 19th century as an investors’ organization. It played an active role in foreign trade and aided the economic expansion of America’s monopolies through the gigantic United Fruit Company trust, which took over the economies of a number of Latin American countries. Included in the group are commercial banks, insurance companies, and investment banks and companies, whose total assets in 1967 amounted to more than $25 billion. Leading the group is the First National Bank of Boston, which in 1968 had assets of $3.8 billion and holds 17th place among the nation’s 50 largest commercial banks. Other members are the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, with assets of $9.3 billion, and a group of investment companies headed by Vance and Sanders, with assets of more than $3.8 billion.

The Boston Finance Group controls in a major way the textile industry and the production of equipment for light industry in New England and Massachusetts. The capital and interests of these Boston financiers are also involved in such gigantic corporations as American Telephone and Telegraph and United States Steel, which are dominated by New York financial groups. Through its affiliates and subsidiaries the Boston group is involved in the expansion of the American economy into Canada and the countries of Europe and Latin America.

The Boston Finance Group is a major east coast coalition of monopoly capital which controlled commercial establishments whose assets totaled $32 billion in 1969. Until World War II (1939–45) it was one of the most important financial groups, but in the postwar years it was pushed into the background and lost its former position. During the 1960’s the group showed a tendency to strengthen its role because of the rapid growth of New England’s defense and electronics industries, which it controls.