Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/123

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THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
117

ration the stockholders will become holders of government bonds.

In this connection comes the consideration of landed property. I refer here to property in land, and not agricultural industry. The great capitalistic socially operated agricultural industries will be subject to the same evolution as the other great industries. They will lose their wage-slaves and be compelled to offer their possessions to the State or municipality for purchase, and will thereby become socialized. The little farming industries may well remain private property. But I shall return to this subject later.

But we are not here discussing agricultural industry, but the ownership of land, independent of industry, the private property in the ground that yields to its possessor ground rent, through leasing or renting or interest on a mortgage, whether the property be urban or rural.

What we said of the money capitalist holds true also of the land owner. He likewise has no longer any personal function to fulfill in the economic life, and can easily be shoved to one side. As noted above in the instance of private monopoly, so with regard to private property in land, we find much opposition even in bourgeois circles, which expresses itself in a demand for socialization, since this private land monopoly is constantly growing more oppressive and injurious, especially in the cities.