Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/42

 for the penitentiary—a wonderful social reform!

But it is not in the reduction of the number of small stores, it is in the debasement of their character that the influence of large production manifests itself in commerce. The small trader deals in ever worse and cheaper goods; his life becomes more precarious, more proletarian. In the large stores, on the contrary, there is constant increase in the number of employes—genuine proletarians without prospect of ever becoming independent. Child labor, the labor of women, with its accompaniment of prostitution, excessive work, lack of work, starvation wages—all the symptoms of large production—appear also in increasing quantity in the domain of commerce. Steadily the condition of the employes in this department approaches that of the proletarians in the department of production. The only difference perceptible between the two is that the former preserve the appearances of a better living, which require sacrifices unknown to the industrial proletarians.

There is still a third category of proletarians that has gone far on the road to its complete development—the educated proletarians. Education has become a special trade under our present system. The measure of knowledge has increased greatly and grows daily. Capitalist society and the capitalist state are increasingly in need of men of knowledge and ability to conduct their business, in order to bring the forces of nature under their power. But not only the hard-working small farmer, mechanic or the proletarian in general have no time to devote themselves to