Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/41

 By one side it was proposed to say "private capitalistic" in place of "capitalistic." That is not practicable. It is perfectly correct to speak of private capitalistic production, but the expression comprehends only a part of capitalistic production. We have to do with the whole of capitalistic production, which may not necessarily he private, but as we have already seen may also be carried on by the state. The state, when it assumes control in place of the private entrepreneur, carries on the capitalistic exploitation exactly as the private entrepreneur. It can, in fact, exercise yet greater oppression. As we expressed it in our first draft—in the present one the passage is lacking—state capitalism is the worst form of capitalism, since it concentrates the economic and political power in one hand, and can exercise the power of exploitation and oppression more sharply and intensely than can private capital.

Another motion was made to say "great capitalistic" instead of "capitalistic," since we are not obliged to consider small capital. Now, capitalism is capitalism. Marx wrote "Capital"; he did not call his book "Great Capital." Capitalistic exploitation is one and the same thing and that it will become the more intense the more capital is concentrated lies in the nature of capitalistic production, which according to its nature must exploit and without exploitation is not conceivable. Therefore we retain the word "capitalistic."

Further, one will observe that the word "state" is not to he found in the draft. It does not occur in the draft of the committee or in other outlines; neither is it in the Magdeburger, which contains many good formulations. I will not expand here upon the question of the state; that is, the question whether the socialistic society would be a state or not. I know that concerning this point I have different views from many of my colleagues, but so far as I am in the affair the difference is