Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/138

 example one-half as many products in a labor day as his colleagues, then, the price of his product for a day's labor would be only the half of that inhering to what was produced by the others in a day of labor. This is well known. This happens also if the proportionality of labor is abnormal, for example, if the manufacturers of trousers attract more labor power to-day than is socially necessary this labor power must be taken away from other places so that the number of labor powers at the disposal of society in this line would be diminished. Take it in the simplest possible form, that they are all drawn away from the tailors. In place of the socially necessary time of 10,000 labor days here and the 1,000 there, we find only 8,000 actual labor days here and 3,000 there. The world is swamped with suspenders and we do not have enough trousers. What will be the result? The price of suspenders sinks and that of trousers rise. The 3,000 actual salable labor days in the manufacture of suspenders will then represent only the value of the 1,000 socially necessary and the value of the individual suspenders will sink to one-third of their former value. The prices will correspondingly sink below these one-third. The value of the trousers will, however, be determined as before by the socially necessary 10,000 and not by the actually supplied 8,000 labor days and as a result the individual producers will be worth five-fourths of their previous price. As a result of