By means of the banking system the distribution of capital as a special business, a social function, is taken out of the hands of the private capitalists and usurers. But at the same time, banking and credit become the most effective means of driving captialist production beyond its own limits and one of the most effective vehicles of crises and swindle.

The process of capitalist production as a whole, ed. by Frederick Engels. Tr. from the 1st German ed. by Ernest Untermann (ed. 1909)