Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/86

22 there is an extensive large industry it is easy for a Socialist society to concentrate in it the entire production, and to get rid quickly of the petty concerns. The Cassandras of Socialism, who can only announce misfortunes for it, cling obstinately to the fact that the number of small concerns has in the German Empire increased, from 1882 to 1895, by 1.8 per cent.; but they are blind to the fact that within the same period the number of big industrial concerns with more than 50 hands has increased 90 per cent., that of the gigantic establishments with more than 1,000 hands 100 per cent. It is this latter growth which is the necessary condition of Socialism, and it is amply fulfilled. Even if petty industry does not diminish absolutely, that proves only that the number of ruins which, the proletarian régime will have to get rid of is still considerable. However, the trusts promise, even in this respect, to prepare, efficiently and in advance, the way for us.

In still another respect can they be regarded by us as a model. The present-day trusts increase their profits not only by raising the profit-rate, but also by economies of the most various description. A Socialist production will be obliged to do the same in an even greater degree. To these economies belong those on machinery, accessories and transport costs. To stick to our example of the textile industry; it requires quite a different sort of expenditure to convey raw material and accessories to 200,000 or to 800 factories. The same with management. Of the 200,000 textile factories and workshops, only the smallest require practically no supervision; among these we can reckon those with less than five workers. Here the manager works alongside with them. Only 12,000 factories are above this figure. But even their management involves, of course, considerably more work than the supervision of merely 800. Other economies are attained by the trusts dispensing with the competitive struggle for customers. Since they have arisen in the United States the number of commercial travellers has decreased; most striking is a case related by Mr. G. W. Jenks in an article on the question: A certain trust has extended the sphere of its production to such an extent that the number of unskilled workers employed by it increased by 51 per cent., and the number of skilled by 14 per cent. At the same time the number of its commercial travellers declined by 75 per cent. The same Mr. Jenks reports that many trusts, according to their own showing, have saved, in advertising, &c., 40 to 85 per cent., and so on.

Finally, however, the raising of wages in industry will set free a great amount of labour, which to-day finds a parasitic existence as middle men. They drag on a miserable existence in their small shops, not because there is a need for them but because they doubt if they will be able to earn a living elsewhere, or because they do not earn enough by wage labour and look out for some by-occupation.

Of the close upon 2,000,000 persons who are engaged to-day in