Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/53

 the only object in collecting the money of non-capitalists is to place at the disposal of capitalists an increased quantity of capital and thus to accelerate the development of the capitalist system of production. What this means to wage-earners, small farmers and mechanics we have already seen.

At the same time that the present institutions of credit are converting the whole property of non-capitalists into capital and placing it at the disposal of the capitalist class, they see to it that the capital of the capitalist class itself is better utilized than before. They become the reservoirs of all the money which the individual capitalist may, from time to time, have no occasion to use, and they make these sums, which otherwise would have lain "dead," accessible to such other capitalists as may stand in need of them. Furthermore, they make it possible to convert merchandise into money before it is sold, and thereby diminish the quantity of capital formerly needed in a given business undertaking.

Through all these means the quantity and power of the capital at the disposal of the capitalist class is enormously increased. Hence it is that credit has now become one of the most powerful levers of the capitalist system of production. Next to the great development of machinery and the creation of the reserve army of unemployed labor, credit is the principal cause of the rapid development of the present system.

Credit is, however, much more sensitive than commerce to any disturbance. Every shock it receives is felt throughout the economic organization.