How long will this last? Evidently not forever. If the surplus-product can only be gotten rid of by waste, and by the kind of waste described above, and if the surplus-product which must be disposed of by such waste is always increasing, we will evidently reach a stage when it will be physically impossible to dispose of it. In saying "physically" we take, of course, into consideration human nature, which is part of the "physics" of our social system. There is, however, no warrant for assuming that according to Marx capitalism would have to go on until such a "physical" catastrophe should occur. This theory of a final catastrophe which has been much exploited by Marx-critics is the result of their woeful ignorance of the Marxian philosophy and the connection it has with his economics. Even Tugan-Baranowsky says that in order that the transformation from capitalism to socialism should follow as an economic necessity, according to the Marxian philosophy, the impossibility of the continuance of production under capitalism indefinitely must be proven. That is why he exerts himself so much to prove that an absolute impossibility does not follow from an analysis of capitalistic production. But this assumption is entirely wrong. The Marxian philosophy does not require the arrival at an economic impossibility. This is a figment of the imagination of those who understand under the Materialistic Conception of History a Mechanical Conception of History.
Such is not the Marxian philosophy. It will be remembered that in describing the causes for social revolution generally, in outlining his philosophy of history, he says that a revolution occurs whenever the superstructure of laws, etc., turns from a means of helping production into fetters of production. He does not say that production under the old system must become impossible before a revolution sets in, but it is according to his theory sufficient that it becomes "fettered." And in speaking of the particular revolution now under discussion, that from capitalism to socialism, he says that the "knell of capitalist pri-
