14. The Struggle between small-scale and large-scale Production (between working Ownership and capitalist non-working Ownership).
(a) The struggle between small-scale and large-scale capital in manufacturing industry. Huge factories, sometimes employing more than ten thousand workers, and having enormous machines, did not always exist. They appeared by degrees, growing up upon the remnants of artisan production and small-scale industry when these were under-going ruin. In order to understand why this came about, we must first of all take into account the circumstance that, under private property and commodity production, a struggle for buyers, competition, is inevitable. Who is the winner in this struggle? He is the winner who knows how to attract buyers to himself and to wrest them from his competitors. Now the chief means for the attraction of buyers is to offer commodities for sale at a lower price.1 Who can sell at a very low price? This is the first question we have to answer. It is obvious that the large-scale producer can sell more cheaply than the small-scale producer or the independent artisan, for the large-scale producer can buy more cheaply. Large-scale production has in this respect many advantages. Above all, large-scale production has this advantage, that the entrepreneur who commands much capital can install better machinery, and can procure better tools and apparatus generally. The independent artisan or the small master finds it very difficult to get along; he cannot usually command a power plant; he