Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/72

 only as capitalist production. Under this system it is necessary, in order that production may be carried on smoothly, that the capitalist take the field with his capital and apply it effectively.

At the same time, the larger a capitalist undertaking becomes, the more necessary it is for the capitalist to relieve himself of a part of his increasing duties, either by passing them over to other capitalist concerns, or to some employe whom he engages to attend to his business. Of courescourse [sic], it makes no difference in the industrial process whether these functions are performed by an employe or by the capitalist himself; these functions produce no value when performed by the capitalist and they produce no value when performed by the employe. The capitalist, consequently, must now pay for them out of his surplus. This is another means by which the surplus of the capitalist, and accordingly his profits, are lowered.

While the growth of an enterprise forces the capitalist to relieve himself by the employment of lieutenants, it, at the same time, through the increasing surplus it yields, reduces the expense of the change. The larger the surplus, the more functions can the capitalist transfer to his employes, until finally he relieves himself of all his functions; so that there remains to him only the care as to how to invest profitably that portion of his profits that he does not need for personal consumption.

The number of concerns in which this final stage has been reached grows from year to year.