Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/146

 matter of course, be the subject of distribution; and the same holds good with regard to all such products as are intended for common use, i. e, for the establishment, preservation or enlargement of public institutions.

Already in modern society the number and size of such institutions increases steadily. It is in this domain especially that large production crowds down small production. It goes without saying that so far from being checked, this development will be greatly stimulated in a socialist society.

The quantity of products that can be absorbed by private consumption and, accordingly, be turned into private property, must inevitably be a much smaller portion of the total product in a socialist, than in modern, society, where almost all the products are merchandise and private property. In socialist society it is not the bulk of the products, but only the residue, that is distributed.

But even this residue socialist society will not be able to dispose of at will; there, too, the requirements of production will determine the course to be pursued. Such production is undergoing steady changes; the forms and methods of distribution will be subject to manifold changes in a socialist society.

It is entirely Utopian to imagine that a special system of distribution is to be manufactured, and that it will stand for all time. In this matter, as little as any other, is socialist society likely to move by leaps and bounds, or start all over anew; it will go on from the point at which