Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/160

 with 10,755 laborers. Opposed to these were 200,000 textile industries (not simply spinners and weavers) whose numbers, as we have seen, may be reduced to a thousand or perhaps to a hundred. On the one side there remained after the completion of the concentration of production in the most perfect industries perhaps 50 manufacturers of machinery and on the other side 2,000 spinning and weaving establishments. Is it then so impossible that the former should agree with the latter in regard to the demand for machines, and that their production should be systematically regulated?

With this relatively small number of purchasers and consumers it is easily conceivable that in the sphere of the production of the means of production to-day, production for the open market has already disappeared and production for orders, that is to say, regulated, thoughtful production and circulation has taken its place.

The production of articles for consumption has another character. To be sure we have here the gigantic industries (sugar factories and breweries), but as a general thing the little industry is still generally dominant. Here it is necessary to satisfy the individual needs of the market, and the small industry can do this better than the large. The number of productive plants is here large and would not ordinarily be capable of reduction as in the production of means of production. Here also