Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/50

 capital. The last of these is the youngest; perhaps it is not as many hundred years old as the other two are thousands. But the youngest of these brothers has grown faster, much faster, than either of his seniors; he has become a giant who has enslaved and forced them into his service.

In its classic form small production was not dependent on commerce. The farmer and the mechanic could acquire the means of production, in so far as they needed any, direct from the producer; furthermore, they could sell their product directly to the consumer. Commerce, at that stage of economic development, catered chiefly to luxury; it was not then a matter of necessity, either for the promotion of production or for the support of society.

Capitalist production, however, is from the very start dependent upon commerce; and vice versa, from a certain stage on, commerce needs capitalist production for its further development. The further the capitalist system of production extends, and the more dominant it becomes, the more requisite is the development of commerce to the whole industrial life. Commerce today no longer caters simply to superfluity and luxury. The whole system of production, yes, even the sustenance of the people, in a capitalist country, depends now upon the free and unrestricted action of commerce. This is one of the reasons why war is more devastating than ever; it interrupts commerce, and that has become equivalent to a stoppage of production, to a suspension of economic life, and to an industrial ruin that