Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/54

 Many political economists have looked upon credit as a means whereby people without any, or with little, property could be turned into capitalists. But, as its name indicates, credit rests upon the confidence of him who gives, in him who takes, credit. The more the latter possesses, the grater is the security that he offers, and the greater is the security that he enjoys. Consequently, credit is only a means whereby more money may be furnished to the capitalists than they possess, thereby to increase their preponderance and to draw sharper the social antagonisms, instead of to weaken or remove them.

To sum up, credit is not only a means whereby to develop the capitalist system of production more rapidly, and to enable it to turn to use every favorable opportunity; it is also a means whereby to promote the downfall of small production; and, lastly, it is a means to render modern industry more and more complicated and liable to disturbance, to carry the feeling of uncertainty into the ranks of the capitalists themselves and to make the ground upon which they move ever more uncertain.

While, on the one hand, the industrial development draws commerce and credit in ever closer relation with industry, it brings about, on the other hand, an increased division of labor; the various functions which the capitalist has to fulfill in the industrial life, divide more and more and fall to the part of separate undertakings and institutions. Formerly, it was the merchant's