Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/112

 including but a few thousand men, the peoples belonging to non-European civilizations are fully capable of taking up that civilization, but the material conditions hitherto have been lacking.

The extension of capitalism changes these conditions but little, Capitalist exportation brings into the localities lying outside the scope of European civilization (within which America and Australia are, of course, included) at first only capitalist and not capitalist  Most important of all, even this influence is confined to the waterways, the sea coast and a few great rivers.

A tremendous transformation has taken place in this respect during the last generation, and especially during the last two decades. They have not only brought a new era of transoceanic conquest. The exports from industrial countries to undeveloped lands are no longer composed exclusively of they now include the  of modern industrialism.

We have already seen what a rapid advance there has been in railroad construction during recent years, especially in the Orient (Russia is here included). But capitalist industry is also rapidly developing in these countries. This is especially true of the textile and iron industries and mining. The latter has revolutionized South Africa.

It is from this export of the means of production that capitalist industry has drawn its new blood since the second half of the '80s of the last century. It appeared to be at the end of its capacity for expansion by the first half of the '80s, and it really was, so far as the export of manufacture is concerned. But the export of the means of production made possible a wholly unexpected and striking expansion, and developed the capitalist method of production in non-European civilizations, driving the