The Labour Revolution (Routledge Revivals)

Karl Kautsky, H. J. Stenning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136663734
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in English in 1924 this ambitious work, by the famous Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky, aims to provide nothing less than an "exposition of the methods to introduce socialism" amongst the capitalist economies of Europe in the post-World War One era. Looking back on the experiences of the German socialist movement and looking forwards to the likelihood of a Labour government in Great Britain, he discusses the problems facing a labour revolution in Europe, with particular reference to the role of the middle classes, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, and the economic impact of a socialist revolution.

III. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION

I

CONSUMERS AND PRODUCERS

(a) UNDER CAPITALISM.

IN the investigation of the governmental form, which best corresponds with the rule of the workers and with Socialism, a question remains to be considered. This leads us directly to the economic tasks of the Labour Revolution, that is, the epoch of the political power of the workers.

This question is whether the State power of Labour is to be organized as the power of consumers or of producers, whether the body which represents the supreme power in the State is to be an assembly of consumers or of producers.

The first system is the representation of districts where voting proceeds on the basis of universal and equal franchise and no vocational distinction is recognized. Modern tendencies oppose alternatives to this system, such as the class representation of Bolshevism, which grants a special franchise to wage workers and to peasants, and creates special peasants' and workers' councils as representative bodies, whereby the other classes are deprived of representation. Then we have the democratic proposal of Guild Socialism, which desires not class, but vocational representation. The citizens are to elect their deputies to the supreme popular assembly upon the basis of industry or occupation. This assembly will to some extent be a permanent trade union congress. It is not yet settled whether this national economic council will constitute the sole parliamentary chamber in the State, or whether there will be two such chambers, one elected as hitherto by universal suffrage and a vocational assembly, and what the relationship between the two will be. The most eminent representative of Guild Socialism, G. D. H. Cole, declares:

“The ultimate sovereignty in matters industrial would seem properly to belong to some joint body representative equally of Parliament and of the Guild Congress” (Self-Government in Industry, p. 87).

Unfortunately, Cole is obliged to add:

“The new social philosophy which this changed conception of sovereignty implies has not yet been worked out; but if Guild Socialists would avoid tripping over their own and other writers' terminology they would do well to lose no time in discovering and formulating a theory consistent with the Guild idea and with the social structure they set out to create” (p. 88).

This task of immediately formulating a new theory, which will prescribe the line of march, is characteristic of Cole's conception of science. Perhaps we could render some assistance to the Guild Socialists in this respect, although we shall hardly earn their thanks.

The chief question is this: is the supreme power in the State to be invested in the consumers or in the producers?

The Guild Socialists discuss the terms of consumers and producers as if they were self-explanatory, just as the Bolshevists deal with the term worker. Neither the ones nor the others consider it necessary to define these ideas more particularly. And yet they are not of so simple a nature as appears from the first glance.

Some years ago I wrote an article on “Producers and Consumers” for the Neue Zeit, in connection with Schippel's tariff agitation in the “interests of the producers.”

My article commenced as follows:

“Modern fiscal literature constantly turns upon the separation of society into consumers and producers, as if society were really divided into these two classes. Free trade is advocated in the interest of the consumers, and tariffs in that of the producers. Involuntarily the idea obtrudes itself that the producers' interest is the higher. The consumers are the people who eat and drink, while the producers are those who toil in the sweat of their brows.

“The superiority of the producers' interest may also be scientifically expressed by saying: we can only consume what has been produced. The prosperity of society depends upon the vigour of production. The interest of the producers is therefore the interest of society.”

From another standpoint, it would seem that there can be no opposition between producers and consumers at all, for if not every consumer produces, at least every producer consumes. For the working portion of mankind, consuming and producing are only different functions of the same individual. How then can one talk of an antagonism between consumers and producers?

And yet such an antagonism does exist, although not in every mode of production or within every mode of production to the same extent.

This antagonism does not exist in the most primitive conditions of production, where every household produces for itself and creates all that each of its members needs. Here as everywhere else the circle of consumers is wider than that of producers. Although every producer is necessarily a consumer, not all those who consume are engaged in the process of production. The infirm, the children, the sick, the aged, do not participate therein. But they all belong to producers' families, with which their interests are identical. Under these conditions, therefore, there are no consumers' interests in society apart from the interests of producers.

This is no longer the case with simple commodity production, where every worker has possession of his means of production, and as peasant or handicraftsman disposes of his product. Here we leave out of account any complicated conditions of exploitation.

The difference as compared with primitive production for use arises from the division of labour among various businesses. Under commodity production, the producer creates products which he does not use, in order to exchange them for the products of other businesses which he needs. The products are exchanged according to their value. The greater the value, or, expressed in money, the prices of his own products, the more of other products he is able to exchange for them. Therefore the producer has an interest in the high prices of his own products. If he can force up their prices by withholding ample supplies of his products from the market, he will do so.

But once he has sold his commodities, he enters the market no longer as a possessor of commodities, but as a possessor of money; no longer as a seller, but as a buyer; no longer as a producer, but as a consumer. And as such, he has an interest in low commodity prices. Thus an antagonism between consumers and producers arises here. But if, as stated, we leave out of account complicated conditions of exploitation, which are not bound to emerge at this stage, the whole of society consists of producers and the members of their families, just as in primitive times. The antagonism between producers and consumers, therefore, is one within the world of producers; in any given case it is an antagonism between the producers of one calling and the producers of the other callings. It is no permanent antagonism of classes, but an antagonism whose factors are continually changing.

Yet circumstances arise under simple commodity production which unite related branches of production in a common and permanent struggle against another branch. Thus the antagonism of interests between consumers and producers may develop into a great social antagonism, exercising the deepest historical effects.

On the one hand we find urban industry, whose producers confront) the producers of agriculture as consumers—as consumers of foodstuffs and raw materials, which they desire to obtain as cheaply as possible. On the other hand, the farmers are consumers of industrial products, which the industrialists desire to sell as dearly as possible.

The old antagonism between town and country, which is always being revived, appears in the light of an antagonism between consumers and producers, although we find producers and consumers on each side.

The appearance of wage labour in the service of industrial capitalists invests production with a new character. Until then the worker and the producer have been the same person. The producer's interest has been identical with the worker's interest. Under the rule of capitalism, the worker remains indeed the producer of the product in a technical sense, but he ceases to be so in an economic sense. He is no longer the owner of the business and of his means of production. It is not he who directs production, or determines the number and kind of the products. The latter do not belong to him. It is not he who markets them or has an interest in their price, but the capitalist employer. The latter is the producer in the economic sense. The producer's interest is now that of the capitalist who owns the means of production and the product.

From this interest the interest of the wage-worker differs. He also derives his income from the sale of a commodity in the market, but this commodity consists in his own labour power. Unlike other commodities, it is synonymous with human personality. Again, it is not produced for the market, but grows out of the life process of the worker himself. At the most, it is to some extent adapted to the needs of the labour market by the acquirement of special brands of skill. But the production of the quantity of existing labour power is not, as in the case of commodities proper, determined by the demand for it. It is not produced for the sake of profit.

The production of a commodity can be entirely suspended when no demand for it exists. With the aid of modern technical appliances, its production can be enormously accelerated when the demand grows rapidly. The production of unprofitable commodities ceases, and that of profitable commodities is extended. Upon this point the article from which I have quoted states:

“The production of the commodity labour-power may be conceived in a two-fold sense: in the first place, as the daily reproduction of the individual, as the repair of the labour-power he has expended in the course of the day, and secondly, as the reproduction of the generation, as the replacement of the dying individual by a new one.

“Neither the one nor the other kind of reproduction is carried on for profit; neither eating and sleeping nor the procreation and education of children belong to the category of profitable businesses. They are part of the life process of the worker, are carried out under all circumstances, without any regard to the demand. The supply of labour-power cannot be increased or diminished at will.”

In yet another respect the commodity labour-power differs from other commodities. The costs of production of the latter may always be estimated with technical exactitude. This is not the case with labour-power. The maintenance costs of labour-power are not only physiologically determined, but also comprise elements which are of a purely social nature. We quote Marx:

“The number and extent of his (the worker's) so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilization of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed. In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element” (Capital, vol. i., p. 150).

The result of all these factors is that the value and the price of labour-power are more conservative than is the case with other commodities. As a rule wages do not fall so quickly and to such a low point as the prices of other commodities, nor do they rise so rapidly and to such a high point. The worker has therefore an interest in the fall of commodity prices, unless this is accompanied by injurious social reactions, such as widespread unemployment. He has no interest in a rise in prices, unless this should be accompanied by compensating circumstances.

Thus the wage-earner suffers most from an artificial dearness of commodities through tariffs, or, as in our days, through inflation. In this respect his interest, strange though it sounds, is not the producer's but the consumer's interest. He has the greatest interest in free trade as well as in the stabilization of the currency.

Now, the individual industrial capitalist is interested as a producer merely in his own branch of production. He desires his own products to fetch a high price, not those of other branches of production. Towards these he feels the interest of a consumer, not of a producer. But he has no prospect of influencing politics to secure the passage of measures for his own branch of industry, which would artifically raise the prices of his commodities, while leaving other commodities untouched. To attain this end he must combine with the capitalists of other branches of production. In this respect he resembles, as a producer, the producers under simple commodity production. And accordingly we find in capitalist economy the same antagonism between town and country, industry and agriculture, as in former times. It expresses itself with special vigour in questions of fiscal policy. Where industrialists are free traders, the agrarians are protectionists, and vice versa.

Nevertheless, there is an essential distinction between capitalist and simple commodity production. In the latter case, there is no motive to cause all the branches of production to combine to promote a common policy of raising prices, as each person would lose as a buyer as much as he would gain as a seller.

The case is different under the capitalist mode of production, where the worker and the producer are different persons. To-day all employers stand to gain, even when every branch of production, in town and country, raises prices, whether by tariffs or syndicates or by other methods. For now every producer is able to shift his burden on to the wage-earner.

Thus the wage-earner is now the definite representative of the consumer's interest in antagonism to the united exploiters who exclusively represent the producer's interest.

These circumstances are, of course, lost sight of by the champions of the Guild or of the Soviet system. For them the worker is always synonymous with the producer.

(b) UNDER SOCIALISM.

These considerations only apply to specific economic conditions, as we have seen, such as primitive production for use, or simple commodity production. When Socialism is in full operation the idea of producer will be synonymous with the idea of worker. But this will by no means apply to the period of transition.

When, however, Socialism is in full operation, the worker will not only be identical with the producer, but labour will be the only source of income in society, which will consist only of workers and their families, precisely as in the primitive economy, which was our starting-point.

Consequently, it must be assumed that in a socialist society there will be no producer's interest separate from a consumer's interest.

Now the chief distinction between primitive Communism and modern Socialism consists in the division of labour. Primitive economy only discloses a division of labour between man and woman in the family. To-day we have an intricate and extensive division of labour in every industry and in society, upon which is based the productivity of labour and the possibility of a socialist system admitting everybody to a share in the benefits of our civilization.

Whereas Socialism, as we shall see, tends to establish equality among all the members of society as consumers, removing class distinctions, while preserving individual idiosyncrasies, it resembles the capitalism which preceded it, inasmuch as it divides the workers in the process of production into various sections, to each of which special conditions correspond, so that every section of labour develops a special interest in shaping for itself the most favourable working conditions. Moreover, the pull exercised by the different sections within society will vary. Some will be engaged in vital services, and others not. Some would endanger the entire process of society if they suspended work only for a short time. In the case of others, society would be able to hold out for a much longer time. Some workers do not require any special preparation and training, and are easily replaceable at any time, whereas it is impossible to replace other kinds of workers without difficulty.

Under these circumstances the producer's interest i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
• CONTENTS
• I. THE PROBLEM
• II. THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION
• III. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION
• INDEX