9. Chronic Overproduction.

Along with the periodical crises and their permanent manifestations, along with the recurring periods of overproduction and their accompaniments of loss of wealth and waste of force, there develops chronic overproduction and waste of energy.

The revolution in the machinery of production goes on uninterrupted; the fields that it invades are ever more numerous. Year after year new branches of industry are captured by capitalist large production, and, consequently, the productivity of labor grows incessantly, and at an ever increasing rate. Simultaneously with this the accumulation of new capital proceeds without interruption. The intenser the exploitation of the single laborer and the larger the number of the exploited laborers, the larger also grows the quantity of the surplus and the mass of wealth that the capitalist class can lay by and apply as capital. The capitalist system, therefore, cannot remain stationary; its constant expansion and the constant expansion of its market are a vital necessity to it; to stand still is death. While formerly, in the days of handicraft and small farming, the country produced year in and year out a quantity of wealth, which, as a rule, increased only with the increase of the population, the capitalist system, on the contrary, is from the start dependent on an incessant increase of production; every stoppage indicates a social malady which grows more painful the longer it lasts. Thus, together with the periodical incentives to increase of production brought on by the periodical extensions of the market, there is a permanent pressure in this direction inherent in the capitalist system of production itself. This pressure, instead of being brought on by the extension of the market, compels the latter to be pushed constantly further.

But there is a limit to the extension of the markets; there have been periods during the last thirty years when it has not gone on. True enough, the field over which capitalist production can extend itself is immense; it leaps over all local and national boundaries, it has the whole globe for its market. But capitalism has virtually reduced the size of the globe. Only a hundred years ago the market for capitalist industry was limited to the western part of Europe and certain coastlands and islands almost exclusively dominated by England. But such was the vigor and greed of the capitalists and so gigantic were the means at their disposal, that since then almost all countries on earth have been forced open, not to the products of England alone, but to those of all capitalist nations. Today there are hardly any other markets to be opened, except those from which little is to be fetched besides fever and blows.

The wonderful development of transportation renders from year to year a completer exploitation of the market possible; but this tendency is counteracted by the circumstance that the market steadily undergoes a change in those very countries whose population has reached a certain degree of civilization. Everywhere the introduction of the goods of capitalist large production extinguishes the domestic system of small production and transforms the industrial and agricultural laborers into proletarians. This produces two important results in all the markets that are counted upon to absorb the surplus products of capitalist industry: first, it lowers the purchasing power of the population and thereby counteracts the effect of the extension of the market; and, second, and more important, it lays there the foundation for the capitalist system of production by calling into existence a proletarian class. Thus capitalist large production digs its own grave. From a certain point onward in its development every new extension of the market means the rising of a new competitor. At present, capitalist large production in the United States, which is not quite a generation old, is engaged not only in the work of freeing itself from its European competitor, but in an endeavor to seize upon the market of the whole American continent. The still more youthful capitalist industry of Russia has started in to be the sole purveyor of the whole extensive territory owned by Russian in Europe and Asia. The East Indies, China, Japan, Australia are developing into industrial states that sooner or later will be able to supply their own wants. In short, the moment is drawing near when the markets of the industrial countries can no longer be extended and will begin to contract. But this would mean the bankruptcy of the whole capitalist system.

For some time past the extension of the market has not kept pace with the requirements of capitalist production. The latter is, consequently, more and more hampered and finds it increasingly difficult to develop fully the productive powers that it possesses. The intervals of prosperity become ever shorter; the length of the crises ever longer.

Hence the quantity of the means of production that either cannot be turned to sufficient use or is forced to remain wholly unused, is on the increase; the quantity of wealth that goes to waste is greater and greater; the quantity of labor power compelled to lie idle is ever more appalling. Under this last head belong not only the swarms of unemployed who are rapidly growing into a threatening social danger; under it must also be numbered, first, that ever-increasing crew of social parasites who, finding all avenues of productive work closed to them, try to eke out a miserable existence through a variety of occupations, most of which are wholly superfluous and not a few injurious to society – such as middlemen, saloonkeepers, agents, drummers, etc.; second, that stupendous mass of humanity of all degrees that may be designated as “the slums,” such as the cheats and swindlers of high and low grade, the criminals and prostitutes, together with their innumerable dependents; third, the swarms of those who fasten upon the possessing classes in the capacity of personal servants; finally, there is the great body of soldiers, for the steady increase of armies during the last twenty years would not have been possible without the overproduction which has set free so large a part of the world’s labor-power.

The capitalist system begins to suffocate in its own surplus; it becomes constantly less able to endure the full unfolding of the productive powers which it has created. Constantly more creative forces must be idle, ever greater quantities of products be wasted, if it is not to go to pieces altogether.

The introduction of the capitalist system, that is, the replacing of small production, under which the instruments of labor were the property of the individual workers, with capitalist large production, under which the implements of labor became the private property of a few individuals and workmen were turned into propertyless proletarians, was the means whereby the productive powers of labor were immensely increased. To do this was the historic mission of the capitalist class The sufferings inflicted upon the masses of human beings expropriated and exploited were terrible, but it fulfilled its mission. It was as much a historic necessity as the two cornerstones upon which it rose; first, the production of merchandise, that is, production for sale; next, the private ownership of the implements of labor.

But however necessary were the capitalist system and the conditions which produced it, they are no longer so. The functions of the capitalist class devolve ever more upon paid employees. The large majority of the capitalists have now nothing to do but consume what others produce. The capitalist today is as superfluous a human being as the feudal lord had become a hundred years ago.

Nay, more. Like the feudal lord of the eighteenth century, the capitalist class has today become a hindrance to further development. Private ownership in the implements of labor has long ceased to secure to each producer the product of his labor and to guarantee him freedom. Today, on the contrary, society is rapidly drifting to the point where the whole population of capitalist nations will be deprived of both property and freedom. What was once a foundation stone of society has become a means of tearing up all foundations: instead of a means of spurring society on to the highest development of its productive powers, it has become a means of compelling society more and more to waste its powers of production. So private property in the means of production has changed from what it originally was into its opposite, not only for the small producer, but for society as a whole. From a motive power of progress it has become a cause of social degradation and bankruptcy.

Today there is no longer any question as to whether the system of private ownership in the means of production shall be maintained. Its downfall is certain. The only question to be answered is: Shall the system of private ownership in the means of production be allowed to pull society with itself down into the abyss; or shall society shake off that burden and then, free and strong, resume the path of progress which the evolutionary law prescribes to it?

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