Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/81

Rh be drafted into the different branches of production under military compulsion, irrespective of their wishes, it may well turn out that some will have a superfluity of labour, while others will suffer from scarcity. The necessary equilibrium could then be restored by reducing the wages in those industries where the applicants are too many and by raising them in those where the applicants are too few, till each branch has just the number of workers which it requires. It could be restored also by other means; for instance, by the shortening of the hours of labour in those industries that are short of workers. With all that, however, the general rate of wages throughout the working class will be influenced no longer by supply and demand, but by the quantity of available products. A general fall of wages in consequence of overproduction will be impossible. The more wealth is produced, the higher will be, generally speaking, the wages.

Now, however, another question arises. If a continued progress of production is to be secured, it will be necessary to rivet the worker to his work by a general rise of wages. Where, however, are the higher wages to come from?—in other words, where is the increased quantity of products to be got from?

If we assume the most favourable case—a thing which we hitherto have not done—viz., that all property has been confiscated, and the entire income of the capitalists flows to the workers, then this alone would, of course, produce a very great rise in wages. In my pamphlet on "Reform and Revolution" I have quoted a statistical table, according to which the total income of the workers in England was, for the year 1891, ₤700,000,000 in round figures, and the total of the capitalist income' amounted to ₤800,00,000. I have further remarked that in my opinion these statistics are too rosy. I have reason to think that the wages were put too high and the capitalist income too low. If, however, we accept these figures of 1891, then they show that if the income of the capitalists were added to that of the workers, the wages of each would be doubled. Unfortunately, however, the matter will not be settled so simply. If we expropriate capitalism, we must at the same time take over its social functions—among these the important one of capitalist accumulation. The capitalists do hot consume all their income; a portion of it they put away for the extension of production. A proletarian régime would also have to do the same in order to extend production—it would not, therefore, be able to transfer, even in the event of a radical confiscation of capital, the whole of the former income to the working class. Besides, a portion of the surplus value which the capitalists now pocket they must hand over to the State in the shape of taxes. This portion will grow enormously if the progressive Income and Property Tax is to form the only State and communal tax, and the more so as the burden of taxation will not diminish. I have shown above what costs the re-organisation of education alone would entail. Besides, a generous sick insurance