# The Social Revolution/Part 2/Chapter 5

​descent of wages. It is a law of wages for the socialist system of production.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PRODUCTIVE PROCESS.
The application of the two above mentioned methods of the trust to production have not exhausted the resources of the proletarian regime in relation to the increase of production. The productive process considered as a continuous transaction, as a reproductive process demands an undisturbed continuation, not simply of production, but also of circulation. If production is to go on without interruption it is necessary not simply that there be laborers for the creation of products, but it is also necessary that there be no break in the securing of raw materials and essentials of production, the necessary tools and machines, and the means of sustenance for the laborers, and that no interruption occur and that the finished product find a sale.
A stoppage in circulation signifies an economic crisis. It stops in some cases because too much is produced of some wares. In this case the industrial plants from which these products came cannot further function in their full capacity because of the lack of sale for their products. They receive no money for their products and the result of this is they lack the means to buy raw materials, to pay wages and so forth.
​But crises can also occur because too little of many of certain wares have been produced, as for instance was the case in the crisis of the English cotton industry at the time of the war of the Rebellion in the United States, which for some time greatly disturbed the production of cotton.
The crises are the worst scourges of the modern productive system. To abolish them is one of the most important tasks of a proletarian regime. This can be done only through the systematic regulation of production and circulation as well as of re-production.
It has already been admitted that the object of socialism is the organization of production. But a portion of this problem is already solved by capital in that it substitutes for a number of little independent industries the organization of production into one great industry in which thousands of laborers are employed. The trusts have already accomplished the organization of whole branches of industry.
What, however, only a proletarian regime can accomplish is the systematic regulation and circulation of products, the exchange between industry and industry, between producers and consumers, in which the idea of consumption is taken in its highest sense, so as to include not simply personal but productive consumption. The weaver for example consumes yarn in productive consumption while the piece of bread that he eats is included in personal consumption.
​The proletarian can only accomplish this regulation of the circulation of products by the abolition of private property in industry, and it not only can do this but it must do it if the process of production is to proceed under its direction and its regime is to be permanent. It must fix the height of production of each individual social productive plant according to the basis calculated upon the existing productive power (laborers and means of production) and of the existing needs, and see to it that each productive plant has not only the necessary laborers but also the necessary means of production and that the necessary products are delivered to the consumers.
Is not this task however insoluble in the great modern States? It would presuppose that in Germany the State is to become the director of production of two million productive plants and to act as medium for the circulation of this product, which will come to it partially in the form of means of production and partially as means of consumption to be distributed to sixty million consumers, of which each one has a special and changing need. The task appears overwhelming if one does not proceed from the point of view of regulating the necessities of humanity from above according to a very simple pattern and assigning to each one, barrack fashion, his portion, which would mean the lowering of modern civilization to a much lower ​stage. Are we destined then to come to a barrack or prison-like State?
Certainly the problem is not simple. It is the most difficulty which will come to the proletarian regime and will furnish it with many hard nuts to crack. But its difficulties must not be exaggerated.
In the first place it must be remembered that we are not compelled to create out of nothing over night a complete organization of production and circulation. There is one existing at present of a certain character, or otherwise the existence of the present society would be impossible. The question is simply to transform this organization, which has hitherto been an unconscious one going on behind the shoulders of those engaged in it with friction, sorrow and woe, bankruptcies and crises, under the operation of the law of value, ever being re-adjusted, into a conscious system in which a previous calculation of all modifying factors will take the place of the retroactive corrections through the play of supply and demand. There is a proportionality between the different branches of labor to-day even though it is wholly incomplete and incompetent; it is necessary, not to introduce, but rather to make complete and permanent. As with money and with prices it is necessary to connect with that which is historically descended and not to build everything from the ground anew; but only to broaden out at some points or to restrict others ​and to formulate more clearly the loose relations.
This problem is considerably restricted by the fact already discussed that the concentration of production in the most perfect productive plants has already perceptibly decreased the number of industries. Of the 2,146,972 businesses which constituted the industry of the German Empire in 1895 there were only 17,941 great businesses having more than 50 laborers (and these contained three million laborers out of the total number of eight million industrial workers). To be sure I do not assert that only these great industries will be retained in activity. To attempt to give absolutely exact figures of a future condition would be absurd. All the numbers herewith printed have simply the purpose of illustrating the problems which arise and not of narrowly setting forth how things will be formulated in reality. The relation of two million industrial plants to 18,000 great industries shows that the number of industrial plants would be perceptibly decreased under a proletarian regime.
But the difficulties of the organization of production and circulation can be diminished in other directions as well as by a decrease in the number of plants. Production can be divided into two great fields; those in which the production is for consumption and those in which production is for production. The production of means of production, thanks to the ​extensive division of labor, has become to-day the most important portion of production and it continues to increase steadily. Scarcely a single article of consumption comes from the hand of a single producer, but all run through a number of productive processes so that those who finally fit it for our use are only the last in a long row of producers. The production of articles for consumption and for the means of production have a wholly different character. The production for further production belongs to the domain of gigantic industries such as the iron industry, mining, etc. These are all highly organized in owner's agreements, cartels, etc. But even among the users of these means of production, operator's agreements are already very extensive. In most cases in this field to-day the individual operator does not deal with individual operators, but union of operators with union of operators, industrial branch deals with industrial branch, and those places where the union of operators is least developed are just the regions in which there are relatively few producers and few consumers dealing with each other. For consumption is here not by an individual but by a whole industry. In the manufacture of spinning and weaving machines, for example, there were in 1895 1,152 businesses with 17,047 laborers. Of these, however, there were 774 industries which had only 1,474 laborers and were scarcely to be considered. Among the great industries there were only 73 ​with 10,755 laborers. Opposed to these were 200,000 textile industries (not simply spinners and weavers) whose numbers, as we have seen, may be reduced to a thousand or perhaps to a hundred. On the one side there remained after the completion of the concentration of production in the most perfect industries perhaps 50 manufacturers of machinery and on the other side 2,000 spinning and weaving establishments. Is it then so impossible that the former should agree with the latter in regard to the demand for machines, and that their production should be systematically regulated?
With this relatively small number of purchasers and consumers it is easily conceivable that in the sphere of the production of the means of production to-day, production for the open market has already disappeared and production for orders, that is to say, regulated, thoughtful production and circulation has taken its place.
The production of articles for consumption has another character. To be sure we have here the gigantic industries (sugar factories and breweries), but as a general thing the little industry is still generally dominant. Here it is necessary to satisfy the individual needs of the market, and the small industry can do this better than the large. The number of productive plants is here large and would not ordinarily be capable of reduction as in the production of means of production. Here also ​production for the open market still rules. But because of the greater number of consumers this is much more difficult to supervise than is production for production. The number of operators' agreements is fewer here. The organization of the production and circulation of all articles of consumption accordingly offers much greater difficulties than that of the means of production.
Here also we must again distinguish the two forms, namely: the production of necessary articles of consumption, and of luxuries. The demand for necessary articles of consumption ordinarily shows rather small fluctuations. It is quite definite. Day in and day out one needs the same amount of flour, bread, meat and vegetables. Year in and year out there is little change in the demand for boots and linen. On the other hand, the demand for means of consumption changes the more readily the more these take on the character of unnecessary luxuries, whose possession or use is agreeable but not indispensable. Here consumption is much more whimsical, but when we look closer we see that this really proceeds much less from the purchasing individual than from the industry itself. Changes in fashion, for example, spring not so much from the changes in taste of the public as from the necessity of the producer to render impossible of further use the old wares which have already been sold, in order to thereby appeal to consumers to purchase new ​wares. The new and modern goods must accordingly be very strikingly distinguished from the old. Next to the restlessness which lies in the very nature of the modern manner of production, this strife of the producer is the main cause of the rapid changes of fashion. It is this which first produces the new fashions and then makes them necessary to the public.
The variations in demand for articles of consumption, especially of luxuries, are influenced much more by the variations in the income of the consumers than by variations in taste. These last variations again, so far as they do not remain isolated but really have a wide extension through society, so as to perceptibly influence consumption, arise from the contrast between prosperity and crises, from the contrast between the strong demand for labor and the increase of enforced idleness. When, however, we investigate the source of these variations we find that they spring from the field of the production of the means of production. It is universally known and recognized that to-day it is the iron industry especially which gives rise to crises.
The alternation between prosperity and crises and therewith the great variations in the demand for articles of consumption also arises out of the sphere of the production of the means of production. In the other sphere, as we have already seen, the concentration of industry and the organization of production is already so far ​developed that it has made possible a really complete organization of production and circulation. Stability in the production of means of production carries with it stability in demand for means of consumption, and this can be easily established by the State without direct regulation of consumption.
Only one phase of the disturbances in circulation which spring from production is of importance to the proletarian regime,—only under-production, never over-production. To-day the latter is the principal cause of crises, for the greatest difficulty at present is the sale, or getting rid of the product. The purchase of goods, the procuring of the products that one needs, ordinarily causes very little complaint from those lucky ones who have the necessary small change in their pockets. Under proletarian regime this relation would be reversed. There will be no need of anxiety regarding the disposal of the products when completed. Private individuals will not be purchasing for sale to other private individuals, but society will be purchasing for its own necessities. A crisis can then only arise when a sufficient amount of a number of products has not been produced to supply the need either for production or personal consumption. If accordingly there are here and there, or even anywhere, too much produced this will signify only a wasting of labor power and a loss for society, but will not hinder the progress of production and ​consumption. It will be the principal anxiety of the new regime to see to it that there is not insufficient production in any sphere. Accordingly it will, to be sure, also take care that no labor power is wasted in superfluous production, for every such waste signifies an abstraction from all the others and an unnecessary extension of the labor time.
THE REMNANTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION.
We have seen that the proletarian regime would make short work of the smaller businesses where they represent the little, undeveloped plants, not only in industry but also in exchange.
The efforts referred to above for the organization of circulation would also lead to the greatest possible abolition of the little middle-men by crushing them out, partially through co-operatives for consumption, partly through extension of municipal activity. Superintendence and organization of the productive processes will be much easier when it is not necessary to deal with countless operators, but rather with only a few organizations.
Besides the work of the middle-men the direct producers of articles of consumption for local necessity would fall to the co-operatives and municipalities—for example, bakeries, milk and vegetable production and erection of buildings.