Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/56

 they do not become independent of each other except in appearance and legal form; economically, they remain as closely bound to and dependent upon each other as ever. The functions of any of these undertakings could not continue if those of any of the others with which they are connected were to be interrupted.

The more commerce, credit and industry become interdependent and the more the separate functions of the capitalist class are assumed by separate undertakings, the greater is the dependence of one capitalist upon another. Capitalist production becomes, accordingly, more and more a gigantic body, whose various limbs are in the closest relation to each other. Thus, while the masses of the people become ever more dependent upon the capitalists, the capitalists themselves become ever more dependent upon one another.

The economic machinery of the modern system of production constitutes a more and more delicate and complicated mechanism; its uninterrupted operation depends constantly more upon whether each of its wheels fits in with the others and does the work expected of it. Never yet did any system of production stand in such need of careful direction as does the present one. But the institution of private property makes it impossible to introduce plan and order into this system.

While the several industries become, in point of fact, more and more dependent upon one another, in point of law, they remain wholly independent. The means of production in every