Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/141

 can use. But the relation between supply and demand has really no influence upon a universal levelling of the wages of the entire laboring class which is determined only by the amount of existing product. A universal decline in wages as the result of over-production is impossible. The more there is produced the higher in general are the wages.

Now the following question arises. If the continuous progress of production is to be secured it will then be necessary to hold the laborers to production by a universal raising of wages. Whence then shall this increase of wages be paid and whence shall come the necessary amount of product?

If we accept the most favorable conditions for the new regime, which we have not done, with all property confiscated, and with the total income of the capitalists flowing to the laborers, this in itself would give a very handsome rise in wages. I have pointed out in my writings on "Reform and Revolution" the statistics of England in the year 1891 where the amount of the income of the laborers was seven hundred million pounds sterling and where the amount of the income of the capitalists was in the neighborhood of eight hundred million pounds sterling. I have further shown that these statistics in my opinion were painted too rosily. I have reason to believe that they calculate the wages too high and the capitalist income too low. If we take, however, these figures of 1891 they will show