Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/171



The recruiting ground of socialism is the class of the propertyless, but not all ranks of this class are equally favorable.

Though it is false to say, with the Philistines, that there have always been poor people, it is nevertheless true that pauperism is as old as the system of production for sale. At first it appeared only as an exceptional phenomenon. In the Middle Ages, for example, there were but few who did not own the instruments of production necessary for the satisfaction of their own wants. In those days it was an easy matter for the comparatively small number of propertyless persons to find situations with the property-holding families as assistants, farm-hands, journeymen, maids, etc. These were generally young persons, and their lot was alleviated by the prospect of establishing their own workshops and owning their own homes. In all cases they worked with the head of the family or his wife, and enjoyed in common with them the fruits of their labor. As members of a property-holding family they were not proletarians; they felt an interest in the property of the family whose prosperity and adversity they shared alike. Where servants are part of the family of the property-holder, they will be found ready to defend property even though they have none themselves. Among such socialism cannot strike root.

The position of the apprentices was much the same as that of the classes just discussed (Compare Ch. II., i.).