Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/186

 All the increasing power of the modern state was called into action to teach the unruly apprentices their place. The suppression of the working-class has been from the beginning the chief function of the state, and in these early days it performed this function with terrible effect. But all its efforts did not succeed in putting an end to the trouble. Denied the right of organization, the apprentices formed secret unions and maintained them in the face of frightful persecutions.

But what the state could not accomplish was accomplished by industrial evolution. After the close of the Middle Ages, particularly during the eighteenth century, manufacturing was becoming an increasingly important feature of the industrial world. Before the introduction of machinery, employes in factories had the advantages neither of the Medieval system of industry nor of the modern. They lived in large towns and were often of various races. More than this, different degrees of skill were demanded for different occupations. For all of these reasons they found it difficult to organize. Their only advantage lay in the fact that their work did require skill. They were not compelled to compete against the entire mass of the unemployed.

Only the introduction of machinery altered this last condition. It made the whole mass of the unemployed serviceable to capitalism and threw even proletarian women and children upon the labor market.

Since the introduction of machinery the transformation of industry has proceeded at an