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.
