Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/161

 artists the instinct after a harmonious development is perceptibly losing ground. On all sides specialists are springing up. Science and art are degraded to the level of a trade. What Socrates said of ancient handicraft now holds good of these pursuits. The philosophic way of looking at things is on the decline—that is, within the classes here considered.

In the meantime, a new sort of labor has sprung up—machine labor; and a new class—the proletariat.

The machine robs labor of all intellectual activity. The working-man at a machine no longer needs to think; all that he has to do is silently to obey the machine. The machine dictates to him what he has to do; he has become an appendage to it. What is said of hand labor applies also, though to a slighter extent, to homework and hand-work done in the factory. The division of labor in the production of a single article among innumerable working-men paves the way for the introduction of machinery.

The first result of the monotony and absence of intellectual activity in the work of the proletarian is the apparent dulling of his mind.

The second result is that he is driven to revolt against excessive hours of work. To him labor is not identical with life; life commences only when labor is at an end. For working-men to whom labor and life were identical, freedom of labor meant freedom of life. The working-man, who lives only when he does not work, can enjoy a free life only by being free from labor. As a matter of course, the efforts of this