#kautsky

asking u cuz u seem at least a few notches above ur average tumblr “communist”. what (if anything) works of kautsky are worth reading?

Surplus value does not appear because the workers are cheated, but because of the peculiar nature of the commodity labor power, which is able to generate more value during its productive consumption than its own value amounts to. Mr. Lexis assumed, by contrast, that all capitalists cheat their neighbors, and that profits therefore come from the fact that workers are unable, for their part, to cheat the capitalists… According to Marx’s theory, surplus value originates in a highly moral way — on the foundation of today’s ruling ethics of justice and equality, corresponding to a commodity-producing society, in which each commodity is exchanged for its value. According to the theory of vulgar economy, improved upon by Lexis, profit has its source in a constant violation of the moral principles of commodity production, and the workers are the only moral people — though admittedly only out of necessity — for they are the only ones who do not cheat their fellows.

Let us look closely at the object lesson. This argument obviously rests on the following consideration: Under democracy, by virtue of which the majority of the people rule, Socialism can only be brought about when a majority in its favour is gained. A long and tedious way. We reach our goal far quicker if an energetic minority which knows its aims, seizes hold of the power of the State, and use it for passing Socialist measures. Its success would at once compel conviction, and the majority, which hitherto had opposed, would quickly rally to Socialism. This sounds very plausible, and sounded so in the mouth of old Weitling. It has only the one defect that it assumes that which has to be proved. The opponents of the method of dictatorship contest the assumption that Socialist production can be brought about by a minority without the co-operation of the great mass of the people. If the attempt fails, it certainly is an object lesson, but in the wrong sense, not by attracting, but by frightening. People who are influenced by such an object lesson, and not by examining and verifying social relations, thoughtless worshippers of mere success, would, in the case of the attempt failing, not inquire from what cause it did not succeed. They would not seek for the explanation in the unfavourable or unripe conditions, but in Socialism itself, and would conclude that Socialism is realisable under no circumstances.

The State & Revolution: Marxism and the dictatorship of the proletariat