Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/90

 two important results in all the markets that are counted upon to absorb the surplus products of capitalist industry: first, it lowers the purchasing power of the population and thereby counteracts the effect of the extension of the market; and, second, and more important, it lays there the foundation for the capitalist system of production by calling into existence a proletarian class. Thus capitalist large production digs its own grave. From a certain point onward in its development every new extension of the market means the rising of a new competitor. At present, capitalist large production in the United States, which is not quite a generation old. is engaged not only in the work of freeing itself from its European competitor, but in an endeavor to seize upon the market of the whole American continent. The still more youthful capitalist industry of Russia has started in to be the sole purveyor of the whole extensive territory owned by Russian in Europe and Asia. The East Indies, China, Japan, Australia are developing into industrial states that sooner or later will be able to supply their own wants. In short, the moment is drawing near when the markets of the industrial countries can no longer be extended and will begin to contract. But this would mean the bankruptcy of the whole capitalist system.

For some time past the extension of the market has not kept pace with the requirements of capitalist production. The latter is, consequently, more and more hampered and finds it increasingly difficult to develop fully the productive powers that it possesses. The intervals of