Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/44

 definite facts. Socialists are all agreed that the capitalist manner of production when unhindered has as a result an increase of physical misery. They are also agreed that in present society the organization of the laboring class and the capture of governmental powers has attained a height where it is able to somewhat ameliorate this misery. Finally they are agreed that the emancipation of the laboring class is not to be expected from its increasing demoralization, but from its increasing strength.

The question of the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is a wholly different one. It is primarily a question of increasing exploitation.

That this does increase Marx proved a generation ago, and to my mind no one has yet confuted him. Whoever denies the increasing exploitation of the proletariat must, first of all, set about a refutation of Marx's Capital.

To be sure it will be at once replied that this is purely theory and that for us nothing is to be held as true and proven that we cannot grasp with the hands. We are not given economical laws, but only statistical figures. These are not so easily to be discovered for, as yet, no one has been pleased to set forth the amounts, not simply of the wages, but also of the profits in a statistical form, because of the fact that the fire-proof safes are a castle which even the cowardly and benevolent bourgeois will defend like a lion against every administrative attack.