Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/92

 forces must be idle, ever greater quantities of products be wasted, if it is not to go to pieces altogether.

The introduction of the capitalist system, that is, the replacing of small production, under which the instruments of labor were the property of the individual workers, with capitalist large production, under which the implements of labor became the private property of a few individuals and workmen were turned into propertyless proletarians, was the means whereby the productive powers of labor were immensely increased. To do this was the historic mission of the capitalist class. The sufferings inflicted upon the masses of human beings expropriated and exploited were terrible, but it fulfilled its mission. It was as much a historic necessity as the two cornerstones upon which it rose; first, the production of merchandise, that is, production for sale; next, the private ownership of the implements of labor.

But however necessary were the capitalist system and the conditions which produced it, they are no longer so. The functions of the capitalist class devolve ever more upon paid employes. The large majority of the capitalists have now nothing to do but consume what others produce. The capitalist today is as superfluous a human being as the feudal lord had become a hundred years ago.

Nay, more. Like the feudal lord of the eighteenth century, the capitalist class has today become a hindrance to further development. Private ownership in the implements of labor has long