Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/124

 Here also nothing is lacking but the necessary power to bring about socialization. The victorious proletariat will furnish this power.

The expropriation of the exploiting classes presents itself purely as a question of power. It proceeds essentially from the economic necessities of the proletariat, and will be the inevitable result of their victory.

The question of the possibility and necessity of the expropriation of the exploiters can be answered with much greater degree of certainty than the question which naturally arises therefrom: Will the expropriation proceed as a process of confiscation or compensation; will the previous possessors be indemnified or not? This is a question which it is impossible to answer to-day. We are not the ones who will have to complete this development. It is now impossible to determine any force inherent in conditions which will make either one answer or the other necessary. In spite of this, there are, however, a number of reasons which indicate that a proletarian regime will seek the road of compensation, and payment of the capitalists and landowners. I will here mention but two of these reasons which appear the most important to me. Money capital, as already stated, has become an impersonal power, and every sum of money can to-day be transformed into money capital without the owner