Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/182

 dare, nor can afford, to break with their own class, the problem can no longer be that of the abolition of the protetariatproletariat [sic]. At best they cannot go beyond the elevation of the proletarian. The proletariat is by all means to continue, able to work and satisfied with its condition.

Within these bounds, of course, philanthropy can manifest itself in manifold ways. Most of its methods are either wholly useless or calculated only to give temporary aid in isolated cases.

There is, however, one notable exception to this generalization. I refer to labor legislation. When, during the first decades of the nineteenth century, capitalist production on a large scale made its entry into England and was there accompanied by all the horrors which it can produce under the worst conditions, the wisest among the philanthropists arrived at the conviction that there was but one thing able to check the degeneration of the workers in the industries affected. They immediately began to propose laws for the protection of the workers, at least for the protection of the most helpless among them, the women and children.

The capitalists engaged in large production in England did not at that time constitute the ruling section of the capitalist class, as they do to-day. Many economic, as well as political, interests among the other sections—especially the small producers and landlords—spoke in favor of limiting the powers of the large capitalists over their workmen. The movement in this direction was favored also by the consideration that unless the large capitalists were restrained,