Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/84

20 use, and the daily hours for each labourer would at the same time be shortened by two hours or more. We may safely assume that the productivity of each worker would not be diminished thereby, since we have numerous examples to prove that the advantages consequent upon such a reduction in the hours of labour are, generally speaking, at least equal to the disadvantages. Let us then further assume that every worker produces to-day in the more backward factories a yearly product which represents a value of £100, and that the worker in the larger factories is about 100 per cent, more productive (Mr. Sinzheimer assumes such a ratio between the productivity of large and small undertakings), so that every worker in a large factory produces, a value of £200. Then the half- million workers in the smaller textile factories and workshops produce at present value to the amount of fifty millions, whilst the other half-million in the large concerns produce a hundred millions. The one million workers together therefore produce total value to the amount of 150 million pounds.

If, now, under the new régime, the workers are all concentrated in the larger factories with more than 50 hands, every worker will produce an annual value of £200, the whole of the textile workers—200 million pounds, 50 million more than was produced previously. We assume for the sake of comparison that the values of each product would still be the same.

One may go, however, still further, and close not only the small factories but also those of a medium size with 50 to 200 hands, and concentrate the entire textile production in factories with more than 200 hands. The entire number of workers employed in these amounted in 1895 to 350,306, or about a third of all the textile workers. We should have therefore to introduce a three-shifts system in order to provide employment for all workers only in the big factories. Let us assume that in order to avoid night work, the hours of labour of each will be reduced to five hours, the half of the present ones. At present the worker in the large factory produces perhaps four times as much as in the small—according, therefore, to our assumption about £400 per annum. By the reduction of the hours of labour, its product would not be reduced in an equal degree, since the worker, after a good rest, can perform more than when overworked. If there is good reason to assume that in eight hours he can do as much as he does now in ten, we shall hardly be regarded as too optimistic if we further assume that the reduction of hours from eight to five will reduce the output by no more than 25 per cent.—certainly by less than 37 per cent. Accordingly every worker will then produce at least £250, perhaps £300 per annum; thus the million workers altogether £250,000,000 to £300,00,000. The entire product will thus amount to double the present, the wages could correspondingly be doubled—even while giving up all idea of confiscating the capital—simultaneously with the hours of