Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/137

 particular branch of labor, and finally by the total number of labor powers at the disposal of society. Free competition sees to it to-day that the price of products, that is to say the amount of money that one can exchange for them, is continually tending towards the value determined by the socially necessary labor time. In this manner the result is attained that the production in each department of labor, in spite of the fact that it is not regulated from any central point, never goes very far, or continues long away from the proper level. Without the law of value the anarchy that rules in the production for exchange would soon end in an inextricable chaos.

An example will make this plain. We will make it as simple as possible. As the sum of social production only two different forms of goods are necessary, so far as I am concerned—trousers and suspenders.

Considering then that a society demands as the socially necessary labor within a definite time for the production of trousers 10,000 labor days and for suspenders 1,000, that is to say, this amount of labor is necessary in order to satisfy the social need for trousers and suspenders at the present stage of the productivity of labor. If the product of the labor day is worth one dollar, the value of the trousers will be $10,000 and of the suspenders $1,000.

If the individual laborer deviates from the social form in his production and produces for