This file is a single-author methodological essay in official statistics and social administration. Across eight numbered sections, Inama-Sternegg argues that “labor statistics” should not become an isolated administrative specialty, but must be built into the whole apparatus of central state statistics.
Die moderne Verwaltung beruht auf dem Grundgedanken der inneren Einheit des gesellschaftlichen Lebens.
English translation: Modern administration rests on the fundamental idea of the inner unity of social life.
From this premise the essay derives both an institutional and a conceptual thesis. The “social question” appears in every administrative branch, yet no departmental statistic can grasp the interdependence of population, occupation, production, household, welfare, and mobility. Centralization is therefore not merely bureaucratic convenience; it is the condition for non-partial knowledge of social relations. The same argument governs the critique of moral, welfare, and labor statistics as separate fields: each is a viewpoint on the total social body, not a self-contained empirical province.
Die „Arbeitsstatistik“ kann also nicht zu einem selbständigen Hauptgebiete der Statistik ausgebildet werden.
English translation: "Labor statistics" cannot, therefore, be developed into an independent principal branch of statistics.
The key conceptual move is taxonomic. A class distinction cuts across all demographic and occupational groups, and therefore cannot serve as the highest principle of statistical classification. Yet Inama-Sternegg’s refusal of an autonomous labor-statistical bureau is not a refusal of labor statistics. It is a demand that social position in occupation be consistently registered within general statistics. He also insists that the object is not “labor” as a productive force, but the life-condition of those who live from labor power.
Denn eben darum handelt es sich, daß die menschliche Arbeitskraft nicht mit der maschinellen Arbeitskraft auf eine Stufe gestellt werde, daß der arbeitende Mensch nicht als Maschine betrachtet werde, sondern als ein ethisches Wesen, als ein vollgültiges Glied der menschlichen Gesellschaft, dessen Lebensfunktionen nicht nur insofern von Wert für die Gesamtheit sind, als sie eine der Maschine äquivalente Kraftäußerung für die Güterproduktion darstellen.
English translation: For this is precisely the point: that human labor power should not be placed on the same footing with mechanical labor power, that the working man should not be regarded as a machine but as an ethical being, as a full-fledged member of human society, whose vital functions are of value to the community not merely insofar as they represent an expression of force equivalent to a machine for the production of goods.
Sections 5–7 translate this thesis into a program of sources. The census is foundational because only it can place workers within the complete population by sex, age, civil status, household, dwelling, occupation, and social standing in occupation. Inama-Sternegg stresses that modern censuses already contain more labor statistics than reformers usually acknowledge; the task is better combination and processing of the material, especially through census cards.
Die erste und wichtigste Aufgabe fällt hier immer noch der Volkszählung zu.
English translation: The first and most important task here still falls to the census.
Population-movement statistics then add the dynamic complement: marriages, births, deaths, causes of death, legitimacy, and migration must be related to occupational and social position. The Betriebszählung, too, is necessary, but it must remain tied to the occupational census. Establishments matter less as production organisms than as social environments shaping dependence, rank, qualification, and the contrast between small shop, household labor, and factory.
The final section distinguishes the special tasks of labor statistics: wages, working time, rank, stability of employment, change of place or trade, welfare institutions, consumption, and household budgets. Here Inama-Sternegg is sharply methodological. Wage questionnaires and typical averages are inadequate beside actual wage lists, though such lists are rarely available; insurance registers may become a substitute if coordinated with general demographic categories. Worker biography and household life often require monograph or enquête, but these are auxiliary forms, not statistics proper.
Mit Enqueten kann man eben nicht Statistik machen.
English translation: One simply cannot produce statistics by means of inquiries.
The essay’s relevance lies in this disciplined middle position. It rejects both neglect of the labor question and inflated expectations of a special labor office with executive authority. Arbeitsstatistik is instead the social inflection of the whole statistical system: a centralized, comparative, technically competent way of making class position visible within population, occupation, establishment, movement, welfare, and everyday life.
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