Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/26

 confronted each other in form. Wage contracts are to be the beginning of social peace. In reality organization simply concentrates the antagonisms. The struggle becomes less frequent, but more violent, and disturbs society far more than former little individual conflicts. The antagonism of conflicting interests becomes much harsher. Because of the existence of organization the conflict tends to drop its character of a momentary conflict of individual persons, and takes on the form of a conflict between whole

It is impossible for a Socialist to share the illusion of the reconciliation of classes and the coming of social peace. That he does not share it is what makes him a Socialist. He knows that if social peace is to come it will be not by a chimerical, but by the of classes. When he has lost faith in a revolution, however, there is nothing left for him but to await the peaceful and imperceptible disappearance of classes through economic progress—through the growth and increased power of the working class, which gradually absorbs the other classes.

That is the theory of the gradual growth into (hineinwachsen) the socialist society.

This theory contains a germ of truth. It is supported by facts of economic development that show an actual growth toward Socialism. It was Marx and Engels who first set forth these facts and explained the scientific laws that govern them.

We are growing from two directions. One of these is through the development of capitalism, and the concentration of capital. When, in the competitive struggle a larger body of capital is brought into conflict with a smaller the latter is first pressed, then oppressed, and finally suppressed. This fact, wholly apart from the rage for profits, compels every capitalist to increase his capital and to extend his undertakings. Ever larger grow the