p At every step Herr Bernstein loses his bearings in the vagueness of his ideas and is entangled in his own contradictions. Nevertheless, his arguments contain a logical nub about which all his thoughts group themselves. That nub is the incomes doctrine.

p “It is quite wrong to think,” he says, "that present-day development shows a relative or even absolute decrease in the number of property-owners. Their number is growing, not ’more or less’ but simply more, i.e., is growing absolutely and relatively. If the activities and prospects of Social-Democracy depended on a decrease in the number of property-owners, then it could indeed sleep soundly. But that is not the case. It is not with a decrease but with an increase in social wealth that the prospects of SocialDemocracy are linked" (p. 90).

p 24*

p Neither Marx, Engels nor any of Ilieir followers ever linked their hopes with a decrease in social wealth. In his attempts to break such a “link”, llerr Bernstein is simply battling against windmills. However, all Marxists have been convinced that the growth of social wealth in capitalist society goes hand in hand with the growth of social inequality and a decline in the number of property-owners. Had llerr Bernstein been able to prove the reverse, it would liavo to be acknowledged that he had dealt Marxism a mortal blow. (And then, indeed, all talk of Ihe social revolution would be useless.) The trouble is that llerr Bernstein has proved absolutely nothing except his own lack of understanding. The arguments he adduces in defence of his bold statements boil down in practice to the thesis that moderate incomes grow more rapidly than the population does. This is an indisputable fact but it proves absolutely nothing. // social income grows more rapidly than the number of moderate incomes does, then the growth of that number is fully compatible with the growth of social inequality. We have proved that in an article against Mr. P. Struve specially dealing with the question of the “dulling” of socio-economic inequality.^^181^^ We shall refer the reader to that article, limiting ourselves here to some specific remarks.

p In the first place, the growth in the number of moderate incomes, which is quite compatible with the growth of socioeconomic inequality, in no way testifies either to the absolute, and still less to the relative increase in the number of property-owners. Property and income are two quite distinct notions.

p In the second place, llerr Bernstein’s references to the distribution of landed property are just as inaccurate as his mention of the growth in the number of moderate incomes lacks conviction. Here is one of the many examples available.

p He says that the group of medium-size peasant farms in Germany grew by almost 8 per cent in the period between 1882 and 1895, while their area went up by 9 per cent (p. 110). But what sense do figures on the growth in the absolute number of farms of the area of a single category of farms make if we are not told the total number of farms in the country and the total area under cultivation? If we take into account this circumstance, i.e., if we consider the share of medium-size peasant farms in the aggregate number of farms and the aggregate area, we shall find that the area occupied in Germany by farms in this category showed a quite negligible increase. In 1882 it formed 11.9 per cent of the entire land area, rising to 12.37 per cent in 1895, an increase of less than one-half per cent. But we say this about the entire land area in Germany. As for the agricultural area proper, farms in the category mentioned accounted for 12.26 per cent in 1882, and 373 13.02 per cent in 1895, a growlh of not more than 0.75 per cent.  [373•*  This growth was so insignificant that the use of the word growth is somewhat strange.

p So complex is the stale of affairs in German agriculture that it cannot be discussed in terms of bare statistics alone, but calls for a consideration of the geographical features of each locality, as well as the technical and economic features of each particular category of farms, and also the changes in those features in the periods under review.

p As for Britain, Herr Bernstein has forgotten to add, or does not know, that the small farmers, who have indeed increased in number in some areas, this under the influence of overseas competition, go by the name of "British slaves”,  [373•**  so poor is their economic condition.

p Marx’s theory is just as little disproved by the growth in the number of such “slaves” as it would be by the increase of the sweating system  [373•***  in any branch of the manufacturing industry.

p In the East of the United States, Herr Bernstein says, the number of small and medium-size farms is growing. Again this is untrue. In the Eastern States the number of small farms is falling, and in general, according to Levasseur, a certain trend towards concentration is to be seen in North America.  [373•**** 

The most recent statistics also reveal a concentration of landed property in Belgium,  [373•*****  where a relative decrease in the number of owners of land is an established fact.