Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/157

 stage. Are we destined then to come to a barrack or prison-like State?

Certainly the problem is not simple. It is the most difficulty which will come to the proletarian regime and will furnish it with many hard nuts to crack. But its difficulties must not be exaggerated.

In the first place it must be remembered that we are not compelled to create out of nothing over night a complete organization of production and circulation. There is one existing at present of a certain character, or otherwise the existence of the present society would be impossible. The question is simply to transform this organization, which has hitherto been an unconscious one going on behind the shoulders of those engaged in it with friction, sorrow and woe, bankruptcies and crises, under the operation of the law of value, ever being re-adjusted, into a conscious system in which a previous calculation of all modifying factors will take the place of the retroactive corrections through the play of supply and demand. There is a proportionality between the different branches of labor to-day even though it is wholly incomplete and incompetent; it is necessary, not to introduce, but rather to make complete and permanent. As with money and with prices it is necessary to connect with that which is historically descended and not to build everything from the ground anew; but only to broaden out at some points or to restrict others