Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/87

Rh commerce and the transport industry in the German Empire (leaving out the post and railways), and in restaurants, public houses, &c., possibly a million could, under sufficiently high wages in industry and a sufficient demand for labour, be set free and transferred from parasitic to productive activity.

Such are the two methods of increasing the productive power of the workers—the abolition of parasitic businesses and the concentration of production in the best organised establishments. By the application of these two methods a proletarian régime could at once raise the production to such a high level, that it will be possible to increase the wages considerably, and at the same time reduce the hours of labour. Every rise of wages and reduction of hours must also increase the attractive forces of work and draw in new workers who previously were only active in a parasitic way as servants, small dealers, &c. The higher the wages the more numerous are the workers. But in a Socialist society one can also reverse the sentence—the more numerous are the workers, that is, the fewer are the idlers, the more will be produced and the higher will be the wages. This law would be meaningless in a society under free competition—the wages fall in the same ratio as the supply of labourers increases—others things being equal. This is a wage law of a Socialist mode of production.

With the application to production of the two above described methods of the trusts the initial duties of a proletarian régime with respect to the further progress of production are not yet exhausted. The process of production as a self-renewing process, as a process of reproduction, needs the uninterrupted progress not only of production, but also of circulation. If production is to proceed without any interruption, it is not merely the workers who create the products that are required; it is also requisite that no stoppage should occur in the supply of the raw materials, accessories (coals), tools and machinery, food, &c., for the worker, and also that the products when ready should find a market.

A stoppage in the circulation means an economic crisis. It can come to a standstill because too much is produced of certain commodities. In this case the factories where they have been produced can no longer work at full pressure on account of the insufficient market for their products. They get no money for them, and in