Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/187

 of production shows itself to be reactionary in the field of material production where it corresponds to the conditions of production of the now extinct hand work.

In the present stage of production there are only two possible forms of material production so far as production in quantities is concerned, aside from a few remnants which are mainly curiosities: on the one side communistic with social property in the means of production, and the systematic direction of production from a central point, or the capitalistic. The anarchistic system of production can, under the best conditions, be only a transitory episode. Material production through free unions without central production leads to chaos unless the commodities produced exchange on the basis of the law of value determined by free competition. We have seen above what the consequence is for individual industry under free competition. It determines the correct proportionality of individual means of production to one another and prevents any one from swamping society with buttons or leaving it without bread. Production of commodities under the present conditions of social production must continuously take on some form of capitalist production, as countless productive co-operatives have shown. To strive for an anarchist ideal in material production is at best a Sisyphus task.

It is wholly different with intellectual production. This is built upon material