Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/147

 capitalist society ceases. The distribution of goods in a socialist society might possibly continue for some time under forms that are essentially developments of the existing system of wage-payment. At any rate, this is the point from which it is bound to start. Just as the forms of wage-labor differ today, not only from time to time, but also in various branches of industry, and in various sections of the country, so also may it happen that in a socialist society the distribution of products may be carried on under a variety of forms corresponding to the various needs of the population and the historical antecedents of the industry. We must not think of the socialist society as something rigid and uniform, but rather as an organism, constantly developing, rich in possibilities of change, an organism that is to develop naturally from increasing division of labor, commercial exchange, and the dominance of society by science and art.

Next to the thought of "dividing up," that of "equal shares" troubles the foes of socialism most. "Socialism," they declare, "proposes that everyone shall have an equal share of the total product; the industrious is to have no more than the lazy; hard and disagreeable labor is to receive no higher reward than that which is light and agreeable; the hod-carrier who has nothing to do but carry the material is to be on a par with the architect himself. Under such circumstances everyone will work as little as possible; no one will perform the hard and disagreeable tasks; knowledge, having ceased to be appreciated, will cease to be cultivated; and the final