Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/143

 that are brought forth by the use of these means. In what way will society distribute these among its members? Shall it be according to the principle of equality or according to the labor performed by each? And in the latter case, is every kind of labor to receive the same reward, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, hard or easy, skilled or unskilled?

The answer to this question seems to be the central point of socialism. Not only does it greatly preoccupy the opponents of socialism, but even the early socialists devoted a great deal of attention to it. From Fourier to Weitling and from Weitling to Bellamy, there runs a steady stream of the most diversified answers, many of which reveal a wonderful cleverness. There is no lack of positive propositions, many of which are as simple as they are practicable. Nevertheless, the question has not the importance generally ascribed to it.

There was a time when the distribution of products was looked upon as wholly independent of production. Since the contradictions and ills of the capitalist system manifest themselves first in its peculiar method of distributing its products, it was quite natural that the exploited classes and their friends should have found the root of all evil in the "unjust" distribution of products. Of course, they proceeded, in accordance with the ideas prevalent at the beginning of the nineteenth century, upon the supposition that the existing system of distribution was the result of the ideas of the day, especially of the legal system in force. In order to remove this unjust