The Class Struggle

Front matter

The Class Struggle

(ERFURT PROGRAM)

By KARL KAUTSKY

Chapter 1: The Passing of Small Production

The Class Struggle.

I. THE PASSING OF SMALL PRODUCTION.

1. Small Production and Private Property.

The program adopted by the German Social Democracy at Erfurt in 1891 divides itself into two parts. In the first place it outlines the fundamental principles on which Socialism is based, and in the second it enumerates the demands which the Social Democracy makes of present day society. The first part tells what Socialists believe; the second how they propose to make their belief effective.

We shall concern ourselves only with the first of these parts. This again separates itself into three divisions: (1) an analysis of present day society and its development; (2) the objects of the Social Democracy; (3) the means which are to lead to the realization of these objects.

The first section of the program reads as follows: "Production on a small scale is based on the ownership of the means of production by the laborer. The economic development of bourgeois society leads necessarily to the overthrow of this form of production. It separates the worker from his tools and changes him into a propertyless proletarian. The means of production become more and more the monopoly of a comparatively small number of capitalists and landholders.

"Along with this monopolizing of the means of production goes the crowding out and scattering of small production, the development of the tool into the machine, and a marvelous increase in the productivity of labor. But all the advantages of this transformation are monopolized by capitalists and landholders. For the proletariat and the disappearing middle class—the small business men and farmers—it means increasing uncertainty of subsistence; it means misery, oppression, servitude, degradation and exploitation.

"Forever greater grows the number of proletarians, more gigantic the army of superfluous laborers, and sharper the opposition between exploiters and exploited. The class-struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is the common mark of all industrial countries; it divides modern society into two opposing camps and the warfare between them constantly increases in bitterness.

"The abyss between propertied and propertyless is further widened by industrial crises. These have their causes in the capitalist system and, as the system develops, naturally occur on an increasing scale. They make universal uncertainty the normal condition of society and so prove that our power of production has got beyond our control, that private ownership of the means of production has become irreconcilable with their effective use and complete development."

Many a man thinks be has given proof of wisdom when he says. "There is nothing new under the sun." There is nothing more false. Modern science shows that nothing is stationary, that in society, just as in external nature, a continuous development is discoverable.

On the nature of this social development is based the theory of Socialism. No one can understand the one without study of the other.

We know that primitive man lived, like the animals, on whatever nature happened to offer. But in the course of time he began to devise tools. He became fisher, hunter, herdsman, finally farmer and craftsman. This development was constantly accelerated, until today we can see it going on before our eyes and mark its stages. And still there are those who solemnly proclaim that there is nothing new under the sun.

A people's way of getting a living depends on its means of production—on the nature of its tools and raw materials. But men have never carried on production separately; always, on the contrary, in larger or smaller societies. And the varying forms of these societies have depended on the manner of production. The development of society, therefore, corresponds to a development of the manner of production.

The forms of society and the relations of its members are intimately connected with the forms of property which it maintains. Hand in hand with the development of production goes a development of property. So long as labor was performed with comparatively simple tools which each laborer could possess, it went without saying that he owned the product of his toil. But as the means of production have changed, this notion of property right has passed away.

We shall examine the course of development which has brought this about.

2. Commodities and Capital.

The beginnings of capitalist society are to be found in agriculture and handicraft.

Originally the agricultural family satisfied all of its own needs. It produced all the food, clothing and tools for its own members and built its own house. It produced as much as it needed and no more. With the advance in the methods of farming, however, it came about that more was produced than enough to satisfy the immediate needs of the family. This placed the family in a position to purchase weapons, tools or articles of luxury, which it could not produce itself. Through this exchange products became commodities.

A commodity is a product designed for exchange. The wheat the farmer produces for his own consumption is not a commodity; the wheat he produces to sell is a commodity. Selling is nothing more nor less than trading a commodity for another which is acceptable to all, gold, for example.

Now the craftsman working independently is a producer of commodities from the beginning. He does not sell merely his surplus products; production for sale is his main purpose.

Exchange of commodities implies two conditions: first, a division of social labor; second, private ownership of the things exchanged. The more this division develops and the more private property increases in extent and importance, the more general becomes production for exchange.

This leads naturally to the appearance of a new trade; buying and selling becomes a business. Those engaged in it make their living by selling dearer than they buy. This does not mean that they control prices absolutely. The price of a commodity depends finally on its exchange value. The value of a commodity, however, is determined by the amount of labor generally required to produce it. The price of a commodity, nevertheless, seldom coincides exactly with its value; it is determined by the conditions of the market more than by the conditions of production—primarily by the relation of supply and demand.

The farmer or craftsman buys for consumption, the tradesman buys to sell. Now money used for this latter purpose is capital. One cannot say of any commodity or sum of money that by its very nature it is capital. That depends on the use to which it is put. The tobacco a merchant buys to sell is capital; that which he buys to smoke is not.

The original form of capital is merchant's capital. Almost equally old is interest-bearing capital, the profits of which are in the form of interest. As soon as these forms of capital have been developed, private property becomes something quite different from what it was in the beginning. Defenders of the present system try to distract attention from this aspect of property by talking constantly of the forms necessary to the beginnings of society. They attempt to prevent our seeing any difference between the ownership of a home and the ownership of a branch of industry.

At the stage of economic development now under discussion the income of the craftsman or laborer depends somewhat on his industry and skill. But it can never go beyond a fixed limit. That of the tradesman, however, is determined only by the amount of his capital. The possibilities of labor are limited; those of capital are unlimited.

So we have here a condition that would naturally lead to social development. We started with a society in which each owned certain means of production; in which, therefore, the individuals were approximately equal. The natural limitations of the income from labor and the lack of similar limitations of the income from capital would naturally tend to bring about a condition of inequality. But there is still another element of the situation to be taken into account.

Private property in the means of production implies for everyone the possibility of coming into possession of them, but it implies also the possibility of losing possession. That is, the craftsman may fall into absolute poverty. The existence of interest-bearing capital implies the existence of want. One who has what he needs will not borrow. By exploiting want, capital constantly increases it.

Here we have, then, the beginnings of modern conditions. Some "make" money without producing; others produce and remain in poverty. It is true that the evils of the system are not yet quite clear. The capitalist is dependent on the prosperity of the farmer and craftsman; his interest does not He in dispossessing them entirely. Whole classes are not driven into poverty. Therefore poverty is regarded as a visitation of Providence, or as the result of shiftlessness or carelessness.

This way of looking at things is still common among the small capitalist class, and representatives of the present system, editors, lecturers, etc., strive to maintain popular faith in it. Private property in the means of production was once necessary to the good of society; there was a time when the average man had a chance to own property. This condition of affairs, they would have us believe, still exists. But in reality the nature of private property has changed. The old conditions have passed away absolutely. How this came about we are now to see.

3. The Capitalist Method of Production.

In the course of the Middle Ages the handicrafts developed steadily. There was a great increase in the division of labor—e. g., weaving divided into woolen weaving, linen weaving, etc. There was also increase in skill and improvement in tools. Simultaneouly there came about a development of trade, especially as a result of improved means of transportation by water.

Four hundred years ago the handicrafts were at their height. This was an eventful time in the history of commerce. The waterway to India came into use and America was discovered, with its endless supplies of gold and silver. A flood of wealth inundated Europe, wealth which the European adventurers had scooped up by means of barter, deceit and robbery. The lion's share of this wealth fell to the tradesmen able to fit out ships with bold, unscrupulous crews.

At the same time there came into being the modern state, the centralized official and military state, at first an absolute monarchy. This state met the demands of the rising capitalist class and depended on it for support. The modern state, the state of developed commodity-production, draws its power, not from personal service, but from its financial income. The monarchs had, therefore, every reason to protect and favor the capitalists who brought money into the country. In return the capitalists lent money to the monarchs, made debtors of them and put them in the position of dependents. This enabled them more and more to force the political and military power into their service. The state was obliged to improve means of communication, take over colonies and carry on wars in the interest of capital.

Our text-books on economics tell us that the beginning of capital is to be found in thrift. But we have learned that its origin was an altogether different one. Colonial policies were the chief sources of wealth open to capitalist nations; i. e., capital was drawn from plundering of foreign lands, from piracy, smuggling, slave-trading and war. Even down into the nineteenth century history shows us plenty of examples of this "thrift." And "thrifty" trades-people found in the state itself a powerful ally in this sort of "saving."

But newly discovered lands and commercial routes did more than bring wealth to the merchants; they opened up a new market for the sea-going nations of Europe, especially England. Handicraft was unable to satisfy the rapidly increasing demands of this market. These demands were on a large scale; production had to proceed on a large scale. That is, the market demanded a form of production which could and would I adapt itself to the demand; in other words, a form absolutely in command of the merchants.

The merchants naturally found it to their interest to satisfy the demand of this new market; and they had the money to purchase the necessary means, raw materials, tools, factories and labor. But where was this last to come from? So long as a man owns tools of his own and can produce with them, he will not sell himself to another. Fortunately for the merchant, rural laborers were being driven from the soil. The landlords wanted their share of the new prosperity, therefore they enlarged their scale of production and demanded a larger proportion of the product. So agricultural laborers were forced to the doors of the new-built factories.

Thus the foundations of capitalist industry were laid by means of expropriation, by means of a revolution as bloody as any in history.

The separation of great masses of workers from the means of production, their transformation into propertyless proletarians, was a condition necessary to capitalist production. Economic development made the change inevitable. But the rising classes were not content to sit by and watch the course of events; they resorted to violence to accelerate the change. It was through violence of the most brutal, repulsive kind that capitalist society was ushered in.

4. The Death-Struggle of Small Production.

At first the new system differed but little from the old so far as external appearance was concerned. The capitalist delivered raw material to his hired workers and collected from them the finished product. Later he found it advantageous to gather them in a large building called a factory.

As soon as workers produced together in a factory, it was discovered that a division of labor increased the profits. Gradually systems of production became so developed that each operative had to make but a single motion or perform a single operation. That is, the laborer had been reduced to the level of a machine. Only one step remained—to replace him with a machine, and that step was soon taken. It was made possible by the development of science—and especially by the application of steam-power to industrial processes. The introduction of machinery meant an industrial revolution. With this change economic development, became the triumphant march of capitalism.

Between 1770 and 1789 the first practical machines were introduced into the English textile industry. The steam engine was invented at the same time. From that period on the machine conquered one branch of industry after another and one country after another. It has placed it in the power of a factory operative to do the work of several hundred handicraftsmen.

Under these conditions the factory rules, and the days of handicraft, of independent production, are numbered. What remains is carried on chiefly by unfortunates who cannot find places in the factory system.

Chapter 2: The Proletariat

II. THE PROLETARIAT.

1. From Apprentice to Proletarian.

We have seen that the capitalist system of production implies the separation of the laborer from the means of production. 'On the one side there is the capitalist, who owns the machine, and on the other the proletarian, who does the work.

Originally it took forcible methods to secure the supply of proletarians necessary to this system. Today, however, such methods are no longer necessary. The economic power of the system has become sufficient to accomplish the desired result without breaking the law of private property. In fact, it is by the operation of this law that every year a sufficient number of farmers and independent craftsmen are given the choice between starvation and work in the factories.

That the number of the proletariat is steadily on the increase is such a palpable fact that no one attempts to deny it, not even those who would make us believe that society today rests on the same basis as it did a hundred years ago, and who try to paint the picture of the small producer in rosy colors. Indeed a change has taken place in the make-up of society, just as it has in the system of production. The capitalist form of production has overthrown all others, and become the dominant one in the field of industry; similarly wage-labor is today the dominant form of labor. A hundred years ago the farming peasantry took the first place; later, the small city industrialists; today it is the wage-earner.

In all civilized countries the proletarians are today the largest class; it is their condition and modes of thought that tend to control those of all the other divisions of labor. This implies a complete revolution in the condition and thought of the bulk of the population. The conditions of the proletariat differ radically from those of all former categories of labor. The small farmer, the artisan, the small producers generally, were the owners of the product of their labor by reason of their ownership of the means of production. The product of the labor of the proletarian does not belong to him, it belongs to the capitalist, to the owner of the requisite instruments of production. True enough, the proletarian is paid by the capitalist, but the value of his wage is far below that of his product.

When the capitalist in industry purchases the only commodity which the proletarian can offer for sale, that is, his labor-power, he does so for the sole purpose of utilizing it in a profitable way. The more the working-man produces, the larger the value of his product. If the capitalist were to work his employes only long enough to produce the worth of the wages he pays them, he would clear no profits. But his capital cries for profits and finds in him a willing listener. The longer the time is extended during which the workmen labor in the service of the capitalists, over and above the time needed to cover their wages, the larger is the value of their product, the larger is the surplus over and above the capitalist outlay in wages, and the larger is the per cent of exploitation to which these workmen are subjected. This exploitation of labor finds a limit only in the powers of endurance of the working people and in the resistance they may be able to offer to their exploiters.

In capitalist production, the capitalist and the wage-earner are not fellow-workers, as were the employer and employed in previous industrial epochs. The capitalist soon develops into, and remains, essentially a merchant. His activity, in so far as he is at all active, limits itself, like that of the merchant, to the operations of the market. His labors consist in purchasing as cheaply as possible the raw material, labor power and other essentials, and selling the finished products as dearly as possible. Upon the field of production itself he does nothing except to secure the largest quantity of labor from the workmen for the least possible amount of wages, and thereby to squeeze out of them the largest possible quantity of surplus values. In his relation to his employes he is not a fellow-worker, he is only a driver and exploiter. The longer they work, the better off he is; he is not tired out if the hours of labor are unduly extended; he does not perish if the method of production becomes a murderous one. The capitalist is vastly more reckless of the life and safety of his operatives than the master-workman of former times. Extension of the hours of labor, abolition of holidays, introduction of night labor, damp and overheated factories filled with poisonous gases, such are the "improvements" which the capitalist mode of production has introduced for the benefit of the working-class.

The introduction of machinery increases still further the danger to life and limb for the working-man. The machine system fetters him to a monster that moves perpetually with a gigantic power and with insane speed. Only the closest, never-flagging attention can protect the working-man attached to such a machine from being seized and broken by it. Protective devices cost money; the capitalist does not introduce them unless he is forced to do it. Economy being the much vaunted virtue of the capitalist, he is constrained by it to save room and to squeeze as much machinery as possible into the workshop. What cares he that the limbs of his working-men are thereby endangered? Working-men are cheap, but large, airy workshops are dear.

There is still another respect in which the capitalist employment of machinery lowers the condition of the working-class. It is this: the tool of the mechanic of former times was cheap and it was subject to few changes that would render it useless. It is otherwise with the machine; in the first place, it costs money, much money; in the second place, if through improvements in the system it becomes useless, or if it is not used to its full capacity, it will bring loss instead of profit to the capitalist. Again, the machine is worn out, not only through use, but through idleness. Furthermore, the introduction of science into production constantly causes new discoveries and inventions to take the place of the old ones. So, because they cannot compete with the improved machinery, now this machine, now that, and often whole factories at once, are rendered useless before they have been used to their full extent. Therefore, every machine is in danger of being made useless before it is used up; this is sufficient ground for the capitalist to utilize his machine as quickly as possible from the moment he puts it in operation. In other words, the capitalist application of the system of machinery is a spur that drives the capitalist to extend the hours of labor as much as possible, to carry on production without interruption, to introduce the system of night and day shifts, and, accordingly, to make of the unwholesome night work a permanent system.

At the time the system of machinery began to develop, some idealists declared the golden age was at hand; the machine was to release the working-man and render him free. In the hands of the capitalist, however, the machine has made the burden of labor unbearable.

But in the matter of wages, also, the condition of the wage-earner is worse than that of the medieval apprentice. The proletarian, the workman of today, does not eat at the table of the capitalist; he does not live in the same house. However wretched his home may be, however miserable his food, nay, even though he famish, the well-being of the capitalist is not disturbed by the sickening sight. The words wages and starvation used to be mutually exclusive; the free working-man formerly could starve only when he had no work. Whoever worked earned wages, he had enough to eat, starvation was not his lot. For the capitalist system was reserved the unenviable distinction of reconciling these two opposites—wages and starvation—raising starvation-wages into a permanent institution, even into a prop of the present social system,

2. Wages.

Wages can never rise so high as to make it impossible for the capitalist to carry on his business and to live from the profits of it; under such circumstances it would be more profitable for the capitalist to give up his business. Consequently, the wages of the working-man can never rise high enough to equal the value of his product. They must always be below that, so as to leave a surplus; it is only the prospect of a surplus that moves the capitalist to purchase labor power. It is therefore evident that under the capitalist system the wages of the workmen can never rise high enough to put an end to the exploitation of labor.

The surplus which the capitalist class appropriates is larger than is usually imagined. It covers not only the profits of the manufacturer, but many other items that are usually credited to the cost of production and exchange. It covers, for instance, rent, interest on loans, salaries, merchant's profits, taxes, etc. All these have to be subtracted from the surplus, that is, the excess of the value of the product over the wages of the working-man. It is evident that this surplus must be a considerable one if a concern is to "pay." It is clear that the wages of the working-man cannot rise high enough to be even approximately equal to the value of his profit. The capitalist system means under all circumstances the exploitation of the wage-workers. It is impossible to abolish this exploitation without abolishing the system itself. And the exploitation must be great even where wages are high.

But wages rarely reach the highest point which even these circumstances would permit; more often they are found to be nearer to the lowest possible point. This point is reached when the wages do not supply the workman with even the barest necessities. When the workman not only starves, but starves rapidly, all work is at an end.

The wages swing between these two extremes. The less the necessities of the workman, the larger the supply of labor on the market, and the slighter the capacity of the working-man for resistance, the lower wages sink.

In general, wages must be high enough to keep the working-man in a condition to work, or, to speak more accurately, they must be high enough to secure to the capitalist the measure of labor-power which he needs. In other words, wages must be high enough, not only to keep the working-men in a condition to work, but also in a condition to produce children to replace them.

Now industrial development exhibits a tendency, most pleasing to the capitalist, to lower the necessities of the working-man and to decrease his wages in proportion.

There was a time when skill and strength were requisites for a working-man. The period of apprenticeship was long, the cost of training con Now, however, the progress made in the division of labor and the introduction of machinery render skill and strength in production more and more superfluous; they make it possible to substitute unskilled and cheap workmen for skilled ones; and, consequently, to put weak women and even children in the place of men. In the early stages of manufacturing this tendency is already perceptible; but not until machinery is introduced into production do we find the wholesale exploitation of women and children—the most helpless among the helpless.

Originally, the wage-earner had to earn wages high enough to defray, not only his own expenses, but also those of his family, in order to enable him to propagate himself and to bequeath his labor power to others. Without this process the heirs of the capitalists would find no proletarians ready made for exploitation.

When, however, the wife and young children of the working-man are able to take care of themselves, the wages of the male worker can safely be reduced to the level of his own personal needs without the risk of stopping the fresh supply of labor power.

The labor of women and children, moreover, affords the additional advantage that these are less capable of resistance than men; and their introduction into the ranks of the workers increases tremendously the quantity of labor that is offered for sale in the market.

Accordingly, the labor of women and children not only lowers the necessities of the working-man, it also diminishes his capacity for resist in that it overstocks the market; owing to both these circumstances it lowers the wages of the working-man.

3. Dissolution of the Proletarian Family.

The participation of women in industrial pursuits means the total destruction of the family life of the working-man without substituting for it a higher form of the family relation. The capitalist system of production does not in most cases destroy the single household of the working-man, but robs it of all but its unpleasant features. The activity of woman today in industrial pursuits does not mean to her freedom from household duties; it means an increase of her former burdens by a new one. But one cannot serve two masters. The household of the working-man suffers whenever his wife must help to earn the daily bread. Present society offers, in the place of the individual household which it destroys, only miserable substitutes; soup-houses and day-nurseries, where crumbs of the physical and mental sustenance of the rich are cast to the lower classes.

Socialists are charged with an intent to abolish the family. We do know that every system of production has had a special form of household to which corresponds a special system of family relationship. We do not consider the existing form of the family the highest possible, and we do expect that a new and improved social system will develop a new and higher form of family relationship. But to hold this view is a very different thing from_trying to dissolve all family bonds. Those who do destroy the family bonds—who not only mean to, but actually do destroy them right under our eyes—are not the Socialists, but the capitalists. Many a slave-holder has in former times torn husband from wife and parents from children, but the capitalists have improved upon the abominations of slavery; they tear the infant from the breast of its mother and compel her to entrust it to strangers' hands. And yet a society in which hundreds of thousands of such instances are a daily occurrence, a society whose upper classes promote "benevolent" institutions for the purpose of making easy the separation of the mothers from their babies, such a society has the effrontery to accuse the Socialists of trying to abolish the family, because they, basing their opinion on the fact that the family has ever been one of the reflexes of the system of production, foresee that further changes in that system must also result in a more perfect family relationship.

4. Prostitution.

Hand in hand with the accusation on the subject of family bonds goes the charge that Socialists aim at a community of wives. This charge is as false as the other. Socialists, on the contrary, maintain that ideal love, just the reverse of a community of wives and of all sexual oppression and license, will be the foundation of matrimonial connections in a Socialist Commonwealth, and that pure love can prevail only in such a social system. What, on the other hand, do we see today?