Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/161

 for the open market still rules. But because of the greater number of consumers this is much more difficult to supervise than is production for production. The number of operators' agreements is fewer here. The organization of the production and circulation of all articles of consumption accordingly offers much greater difficulties than that of the means of production.

Here also we must again distinguish the two forms, namely: the production of necessary articles of consumption, and of luxuries. The demand for necessary articles of consumption ordinarily shows rather small fluctuations. It is quite definite. Day in and day out one needs the same amount of flour, bread, meat and vegetables. Year in and year out there is little change in the demand for boots and linen. On the other hand, the demand for means of consumption changes the more readily the more these take on the character of unnecessary luxuries, whose possession or use is agreeable but not indispensable. Here consumption is much more whimsical, but when we look closer we see that this really proceeds much less from the purchasing individual than from the industry itself. Changes in fashion, for example, spring not so much from the changes in taste of the public as from the necessity of the producer to render impossible of further use the old wares which have already been sold, in order to thereby appeal to consumers to purchase new