Page:Karl Kautsky - From Handicraft to Capitalism - tr. H. J. Neumann (1907).djvu/11

 for laziness, carelessness, and so on. This conception still prevails largely in petty bourgeois circles, though now dispossession has become an occurrence of an altogether different character to what it was formerly.

In the course of the Middle Ages handicraft developed more and more in Europe; division of labour in society increased, weaving for instance being split up into wool weaving, linen weaving and flannel weaving, and several processes connected with weaving, such as cloth trimming, became separate trades. Skill increased and the methods and tools of production were considerably improved. At that time commerce developed, mainly in consequence of improvements in the means of transit, particularly the advance of shipbuilding.

Four hundred years ago handicraft was at its height. This was also an eventful time for commerce. The over-sea route to India, this fairyland full of immeasurable treasure, was found, and America with its inexhaustible store of gold and silver was discovered. A flood of wealth which European adventurers had amassed in the newly discovered countries by commerce, fraud and robbery, was poured out over Europe. The lion's share of this wealth fell to the merchants, who were in a position to equip ships and man them with a numerous, powerful crew, whose members were as daring as they were unscrupulous.

At the same time also developed the modem state, the centralised state of officialdom and militarism, first of all in the form of absolute monarchy. This state met the requirements of the expanding capitalist class, just as it needed their support. The modern state, the state of the developed production of commodities, does not obtain its strength from personal services but from its financial income. The monarchs had, therefore, every reason to protect and to favour those who brought money into the country, viz., the merchants, the capitalists. In return for this protection the capitalists lent money to the monarchs, to the states, made them their debtors, subjected them to dependence on them and thus forced the state, in order to serve capitalist interests, to safeguard and extend traffic routes, acquire and retain colonies abroad, make wars against rival commercial states, and so on.

Our elementary economic primers tell us that the origin of capital lies in thrift, but we have just now observed altogether different sources of capital. The vast amount of wealth of the capitalist nations can be traced back to their colonial policy, that is to their plundering of foreign countries; it can be traced back to piracy, smuggling, slave traffic and commercial wars. Up to the present century, the history of these nations furnishes us with sufficient examples of such methods of obtaining capital by "thrift," and the assistance of the state proved a powerful means of enhancing this "thrift."

But the new discoveries and roads of commerce did not only yield great wealth to the merchants—they also rapidly extended the markets for the products of industry of the seafaring nations in Europe, particularly of the industry of England, which because the ruler of the sea. Handicraft was unable to satisfy the rapidly and extensively growing demand of the markets. Sales on a large scale demanded production on a large scale, the large market demanded production which entirely answered to its requirements, that is to say, a scale of production which could be undertaken only by the merchants.

The merchants were greatly interested in establishing production on a large scale to meet the extension of the markets; moreover, they