Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/109

 only. A co-operative commonwealth co-extensive with the nation could produce all that it requires for its own preservation.

This dimension would by no means be unalterable. The modern nation is but a product and tool of the capitalist system of production; it grows with that system, not only in power, but also in extent. The domestic market is the safest for the capitalist class of every country. It is the easiest to maintain and to exploit. In proportion as the capitalist system develops, so also grows the pressure on the part of the capitalist class in every nation for an extension of its political boundaries. The statesman who maintained that modern wars are no longer manifestations of dynastic, but of national, aspirations was not far from the truth, provided one understands by national aspirations the aspirations of the capitalist class. Nothing so much injures the vital interests of the capitalists of any nation as a reduction of their territory. The capitalist class of France would long ago have pardoned Germany the $1,250,000,000 which she demanded as an indemnity for the war of 1870, but can never pardon the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.

All modern nations feel the necessity of extending their boundaries. This is easiest for the United States, which will soon actually control all America, and for England, which is enabled by its sea power to expand the extent of its colonies without interruption. Russia also enjoyed at one time great advantages in this respect, but the limits of her aggrandizement seem to have been reached; she is bounded on all sides by