Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/66

 war worker cannot be coerced into doing good work. Not compulsion, but interest in the result, secures the best quality work, on the part of employers as on the part of wage workers.

All this may not sound very revolutionary, but Marx would not have devoted the best years of his life to the wilting of "Capital," and this would not have been greeted as the "Bible of the working classes," if the mere possession of power had sufficed for the emancipation of the working class, and a knowledge of the laws of capitalist economy had been superfluous.

A Socialist Government must take these laws into consideration. As regards this point, the distinction between a socialist and a non-socialist government is of the following description. The problem of the socialisation, of a branch of industry has two sides one, the degree of its economic development, particularly the concentration of its capital and resources, the nature of its direction (whether by employer or by managers), and the conditions of the market for its goods. The other aspect, which is most important, is the power of the classes which are interested in socialisation. A number of branches of trade and industry have long been ripe for socialisation, and urgently require it, in the general social interest as well as for the benefit of the proletariat. But the principle of socialisation remains unapplied, because its champions are weak. On the other hand, there, is a whole category of restrictions which could be imposed upon the power of capital without lessening the productivity of labour, which they would even raise, and which are not yet put into force because the proletariat lacks the requisite power to do so.

When the Proletariat is strong enough to put a Socialist Government in power, this step will enable it to enforce all necessary measures of socialisation, and to impose all reasonable restrictions upon the will of the employer. But every care must be taken to avoid over-estimating the efficacy