Hans Bayer: Review of Gemeinwirtschaft in Westeuropa (1964)

Hans Bayer’s journal book review assesses Wilhelm Weber’s edited volume Gemeinwirtschaft in Westeuropa, published in 1962, through its conceptual framing and four country studies. His judgment is favorable but discriminating: the volume largely succeeds as an account of the extent, organization, and practice of public economic activity, while its terminology and theoretical contributions remain uneven. Bayer gives the greatest attention to E. F. Schumacher’s study of Britain, whose examples show why public enterprises cannot be evaluated adequately by profitability alone.

The review begins with a problem of definition:

Gemeinwirtschaft kann in verschiedener Weise aufgefaßt werden. Das Vorwort bemüht sich um Klärung dessen, was im vorliegenden Werke unter Gemeinwirtschaft verstanden wird.

English translation: The common economy can be understood in various ways. The foreword seeks to clarify what is understood by the common economy in the present work.

Here Gemeinwirtschaft denotes a field broader than nationalization, encompassing public and mixed enterprises and, in the volume’s country studies, cooperatives. Bayer questions whether these forms constitute a coherent category. Cooperatives are private enterprises even when they are not organized for profit; their inclusion therefore sits uneasily with the editor’s definition in terms of non-private economic activity. He also challenges the suggestion that freely constituted enterprises of this kind continue a development from state-owned to mixed enterprises. His objection concerns the conceptual connection between ownership, purpose, and institutional development, rather than the usefulness of examining these organizations together.

Schumacher’s British study receives Bayer’s strongest praise for combining detailed knowledge with scientific clarification and lively presentation. Its empirical, pragmatic account emphasizes institutional adaptation through experience rather than treating nationalization simply as the implementation of socialist doctrine. Bayer develops this point through the National Coal Board. Between 1946 and 1956, higher domestic coal prices could have generated substantial profits, but the government maintained low prices to restrain inflation. The enterprise’s financial results consequently reflected an economy-wide policy choice, not merely its commercial performance.

Bayer reinforces the distinction through Schumacher’s discussion of losses. Coal imports bought at world prices and sold at lower domestic prices imposed government-requested costs; later losses also reflected the international deterioration of coal’s competitive position. These circumstances prevent balance-sheet figures from serving as a sufficient measure of the Board’s actual achievement. The relevant question is what an enterprise was required to accomplish, and under which constraints. Social and conservation objectives further complicate the assessment:

Schumacher weist ferner auf die sozialen Gesichtspunkte in der Politik des Coal Board hin. „Der National Coal Board hat sich nicht gescheut, die Halden auf ein nie zuvor gekanntes Maß anwachsen zu lassen, und hat, trotz finanzieller Bedenken, den sehr profitablen Tagebau stark vermindert, um dadurch eine drückende Einschränkung der Produktion aus Schächten vermeiden zu können. Es ist kaum denkbar, daß eine derartige konsequente Politik des Schutzes der Arbeiterschaft und der Konservierung der Naturschätze ohne Nationalisierung möglich gewesen wäre“ (S. 75).

English translation: Schumacher also points to the social considerations in the Coal Board’s policy. “The National Coal Board has not hesitated to let stockpiles grow to an unprecedented level and, despite financial reservations, has greatly reduced highly profitable opencast mining in order thereby to avoid a severe restriction of production from shafts. It is scarcely conceivable that such a consistent policy of protecting the workforce and conserving natural resources would have been possible without nationalization” (p. 75).

This example makes public ownership consequential without making it an unconditional success. Bayer also reports Schumacher’s paradoxical conclusion: nationalization had achieved little according to its initiators’ objectives, yet could be judged positively by the material performance standards associated with capitalism. Different standards thus explain why socialists might be less satisfied with the results than conservatives. The review’s central analytical move is to distinguish financial outcomes, productive performance, and the broader purposes assigned to public enterprise.

The other country studies receive shorter, differentiated assessments. Herbert Raidl’s account of France provides a sound overview, including cooperatives whose treatment Bayer again regards as inconsistent with the category of public economy. He values its descriptive solidity but finds little beyond description. Reimut Jochimsen’s Italian study confronts a more fragmented institutional landscape, where diverse public and mixed enterprises resist straightforward classification:

Die Untersuchung: „Die öffentlichen bzw. öffentlich beherrschten Wirtschaftsunternehmungen in Italien“ (R. Jochimsen) stellte den Verfasser vor schwierige, aber auch außerordentlich interessante Aufgaben; denn gerade in Italien ist die öffentliche Wirtschaft ein „nach keiner Seite hin konsolidiertes Gebiet ungemein vielfältig organisierter öffentlicher (staatlicher) und gemischtwirtschaftlicher Unternehmungen“ (S. XII—XIII). Zusammenfassend stellt Jochimsen fest: „Planung, Durchsetzung und Kontrolle wirtschaftspolitischer Entscheidungen — in bezug auf die öffentlichen Unternehmungen sowie auf andere öffentliche bzw. öffentlich wirksame Einrichtungen — geben der Regierung und dem Parlament bisher in manchen Bereichen keine wirklich effektiven Handhaben. Vielmehr arbeiten öffentliche Großkonzerne, die Spezialinstitutionen und sonstige Einrichtungen häufig in der umgekehrten Richtung, im Gegensatz zu den Absichten des Gesetzgebers“ (S. 309).

English translation: The study “Public or Publicly Controlled Economic Enterprises in Italy” (R. Jochimsen) presented its author with difficult but also extraordinarily interesting tasks; for in Italy in particular the public economy is a “field consolidated in no direction, comprising public (state) and mixed enterprises organized in extraordinarily diverse ways” (pp. XII–XIII). In summary, Jochimsen states: “The planning, implementation, and supervision of economic-policy decisions—with regard to public enterprises as well as other public institutions or institutions having a public impact—have so far given the government and parliament no truly effective means of action in some areas. Rather, large public corporations, specialized institutions, and other bodies frequently operate in the opposite direction, contrary to the legislator’s intentions” (p. 309).

The Italian case adds a governance problem to the British problem of evaluation: public ownership does not itself ensure effective political direction. Helmut von Natzmer’s account of West Germany likewise earns praise for its historical introduction, contemporary overview, and treatment of enterprise-level questions, although Bayer finds its theoretical reflections weaker than its factual exposition.

Bayer closes by measuring the volume against its declared informational purpose:

Das Studium des Werkes ergibt, daß das Ziel, das sich der Herausgeber gesteckt hat, im wesentlichen erreicht ist. „Der eindeutige Hauptzweck des ganzen Werkes ist Information, und zwar in allererster Linie über den Umfang von Gemeinwirtschaft und insbesondere Verstaatlichung, sodann über deren Organisation und Praxis“ (S. XIII).

English translation: Studying the work shows that the goal the editor set himself has essentially been achieved. “The unequivocal principal purpose of the entire work is information, first and foremost about the extent of the common economy and especially nationalization, and then about their organization and practice” (p. XIII).

His endorsement remains bounded by that purpose. The volume’s comparative relevance lies in documenting institutional diversity while exposing the limits of equating public ownership with political control, or profitability with economic success. Bayer presents it as a useful empirical foundation whose conceptual categories still require scrutiny.