Emil Lederer · 1921
This recorded intervention in an official commission discussion, published on pages 29–30, addresses two questions: whether municipalities should be compelled to take over economic activities, and whether competition between neighbouring municipalities is an argument against socializing the food trade. Lederer agrees with von Batocki but distinguishes the conditions for municipal action from the underlying causes of food-supply inequalities. His position combines local discretion with a defence of municipal provision against an objection he considers misdirected.
Recalling the previous year’s deliberations, Lederer asks whether municipalization should proceed like socialization in coal mining. Differences between municipalities rule out a universally binding prescription:
Wir kamen sofort zum Resultat, daß von einer zwingenden Vorschrift nicht die Rede sein kann, weil die Voraussetzungen in den verschiedenen Gemeinden so verschieden sind.
English translation: We immediately reached the conclusion that there could be no question of a mandatory requirement, because the conditions in the various municipalities differ so greatly.
Each municipality must therefore decide case by case whether to act. Lederer doubts that opposition from particular commercial groups, such as cigar or vegetable dealers, necessarily determines the outcome where economic conditions otherwise favour municipalization. Yet if such opposition were decisive, imposing action from outside would be questionable. His defence of socialization thus does not entail administrative compulsion irrespective of local circumstances.
The intervention then turns from institutional choice to economic causation. Competition over food supplies exists under private trade as well as municipal ownership: private milk dealers also compete. Frankfurt’s advantage does not originate in the public organization of its purchases:
Es war einfach auf dem Markt die größere Kaufkraft Frankfurts, die den Nachbargemeinden den Bezug von Milch erschwerte.
English translation: It was simply Frankfurt’s greater purchasing power in the market that made it harder for neighbouring municipalities to obtain milk.
Lederer reinforces this distinction historically. Long before municipalization was discussed, communities near large cities struggled to obtain food because supplies flowed toward reliable sales and stronger purchasing power. Municipalization neither intensifies nor eliminates the inequalities between these economic territories. Systematic provision for Frankfurt will still cut across neighbouring interests, but Lederer distinguishes that conflict from the unregulated competitive struggle that municipal organization could bring to an end.
His conclusion identifies the error in attributing a structural disadvantage to socialization:
Das ist ein Nachteil, der in der wirtschaftlichen Lage und nicht in der Sozialisierung begründet liegt und kein Argument gegen die Sozialisierung abgeben kann.
English translation: This is a disadvantage rooted in the economic situation, not in socialization, and cannot furnish an argument against socialization.
The intervention’s significance lies in this separation of ownership arrangements from unequal market power. Lederer offers neither a detailed administrative scheme nor a promise that public provision will reconcile every territorial interest. Instead, he defends locally chosen municipal action while insisting that its assessment distinguish inherited economic conflicts from effects actually caused by socialization.
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