Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/56

 and considers himself, according to the occasion, first one and then the other.

Out of this contradictory position there comes a division in the class of small property owners. One portion identifies itself with the proletariat, the other with its enemies.

The small industry is doomed to ruin, its ruin is now proceeding uninterruptedly. This shows itself but slowly in the actual diminution of the number of small industries, but rapidly in their demoralization. A portion of their owners are in absolute dependence upon capital, being nothing more than home and wage-workers, who labor for a master in their houses instead of in a factory. Others, especially small merchants and innkeepers, remain independent, but find their customers only in laboring circles, so that their existence is absolutely dependent upon the prosperity or adversity of the laboring classes. They have despaired of ever rising by their own exertions, they expect everything from above, and look only to the upper classes and the government for assistance. And as all progress threatens them they place themselves in opposition to all advance. Servility and dependence upon reaction make them not simply the willing supporters, but the fanatical defenders of the monarchy, the church and the nobility. With all this they remain democratic, since it is only through democracy that they can exercise any political influence, and obtain the assistance of the public powers.