Page:Karl Kautsky - From Handicraft to Capitalism - tr. H. J. Neumann (1907).djvu/15

 England was insignificant. In the fifties it developed extensively in France; in the sixties and particularly in the seventies it conquered the United States, Germany and Austria. In the course of the last decades it has seized even upon barbaric Russia, East India and Australia. It already begins to spread to Eastern Asia, South Africa and South America. What are the great world empires of past centuries compared with this gigantic empire which capitalist industrialism has succeeded in subjecting to its domination?

In 1837 there were in Prussia for industrial purposes 423 steam engines, with 7,500 horse power. In 1901, however, there were 70,832 such machines alone permanently installed, and the horse power in industry and agriculture in Prussia comprised over 4,000,000.

The work performed by the steam power of all the steam engines in the world was more than ten years ago estimated to be equal to that of 200 million horses and 1000 million men.

By the use of the steam engine, the entire mode of production has undergone constant evolution. One invention, one discovery superseded another. On the one hand, the machine conquered new fields which hitherto had remained reserved for handicraft. On the other hand, in branches of industry already subjected to the factory system, old machines are every day becoming superfluous owing to the introduction of new and more capable appliances; indeed, by new inventions, new trades are quite suddenly created and old ones doomed to extinction. Already thirty years ago a worker on a spinning machine produced a hundred times the amount of a woman's product by hand, and according to the statistics of the Department of Labour in Washington, the capacity of the machine in the textile industry had in 1898 become 163 times greater than that of hand work. The machine was already then producing in 19 hours and 7 minutes as much yarn (1 cwt.) as a woman could produce by hand in 3,117 hours and 30 minutes.

Of what significance can be the petty enterprise of the craftsman placed beside the industry aided by machines?

Even in its lowest stage, that of the industry carried on at home and exploited by the capitalist, capitalist enterprise is proved superior to the handicraft enterprise. We do not here take into consideration the fact that the former leads to specialisation, which naturally enhances the productivity of labour. Far more important is the advantage which the capitalist as merchant has over the handicraftsman. He buys his raw material and other means of production on a large scale, he surveys the market far more perfectly than the handicraftsman, understands far better how to take advantage of the moment to buy cheaply and sell dearly, and he also possesses the means to wait for this psychological moment, and thus the advantage of the capitalist over the handicraftsman becomes to great that the latter cannot maintain the competition, even in the industries carried on at home, when production on a large scale, production for commercial purposes, comes into question. Even in those branches of industry in which handicraft performed in the home of the worker is the only prevailing method of production, the independence of the worker ceases when these become export industries. To change handicraft into an export industry means to destroy handicraft, to change it into home industry exploited by the capitalist. One can see how "artful" those social reformers are who wish to save a threatened industry by extending the markets for its products.

Thus, from its beginning, capitalist production, although quite simple, has proved in the case of production on a large scale superior