Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/99

Rh society, and cannot get out of it or above it. Even in a Socialist society science will be dependent on the social conditions; but then these will at least be homogeneous, not antagonistic.

Still worse, however, than the inner dependence on the social conditions, from which no student can escape, is the external dependence on the power of the State, or other ruling institutions, such as the Church. These compel them to accommodate their views to those of the ruling classes, not to investigate freely and independently, but to seek in the domain of science for arguments to justify the existing order and to refute the rising classes. In this way the class rule has a directly demoralising effect on science. The latter will have every reason to breathe more freely when the proletarian rule will abolish the direct or indirect control of, the capitalist and landlord classes over our schools. The intellectual life, so far as it depends on the educational system, has, therefore, everything to hope for, from a victory of the proletariat, and nothing to fear.

But how does it stand with the production of intellectual commodities?

We will consider first the independent producer. Under this head come principally painting and sculpture, as well as a portion of literature.

A proletarian system will make this sort of intellectual production of commodities as little impossible as the small private concern in material production. Just as little as the needle and the thimble do the paint brush and the palette, or the pen and ink, belong to those means of production which must under all circumstances be socialised. But one thing is certainly possible, namely, that with the capitalistic exploitation should also disappear the moneyed buyers, who have, hitherto formed the market for the commodity-production of the individual art-worker. That would certainly not remain without effect on the artistic production; still it would not make it impossible, but merely alter its character. The picture painted on an easel, and the statuette, which can change their place and owner, which can be set up wherever one likes, are the real expression of the production of commodities in art, they are those forms of art which easiest assume the form of commodities, which can be collected like gold coins in great numbers, whether to sell them again for a profit or to keep them as a treasure. Possibly in a Socialist society their production with a view to selling them will meet with considerable difficulties. But in their place other forms of artistic production will necessarily arise. A proletarian régime will increase enormously the number of public buildings; it will also endeavour to make every resort of the people—whether it be for labour, deliberation, or pleasure, beautiful and attractive. Instead of turning out statues and pictures which are thrown into the process of circulation of commodities, and arrive finally at a place quite unforseen by the artist, there to serve a purpose equally