[Diskussionsbeitrag: Monopol und Zwangsverband, S. 173]

Emil Lederer: Municipal Monopoly and Compulsory Association (1921)

This recorded commission intervention explains a revised statutory provision, renumbered from § 4 to § 5. Lederer’s concern is the scope of municipal authority to prohibit the establishment and continued operation of comparable private enterprises. The proposed wording permits exclusive operation of an economic sector through the municipality itself, its agents or lessees, a compulsory association (Zwangsverband), or an enterprise in which the municipality holds more than half the capital.

The underlying controversy concerns whether municipalities must operate their intended monopolies themselves or may entrust operation to others. Lederer reports agreement on broad organizational discretion:

Es war die einstimmige Meinung, daß die weitest gehende Freiheit gegeben werden soll.

English translation: The unanimous view was that the widest possible freedom should be granted.

This freedom belongs to the municipality in choosing how to exercise its monopoly. Its reach becomes clearest in Lederer’s discussion of compulsory associations. Such an association may be loosely organized, merely posting prices or imposing general rules on its members. Even an intention to establish this arrangement can justify prohibiting comparable private enterprises. The crucial move is therefore to extend exclusionary authority beyond direct municipal operation to a comparatively limited form of compulsory coordination:

Die Sperrbefugnis der Gemeinde wird also nicht nur auf das Monopol, sondern auch auf die Bildung eines Zwangsverbandes ausgedehnt, und damit ist einer Anregung von Herrn Dr. Rathenau in weitest gehendem Maße Rechnung getragen.

English translation: The municipality’s power to bar enterprises is thus extended not only to monopoly but also to the formation of a compulsory association, thereby accommodating a suggestion by Dr. Rathenau to the fullest extent.

The intervention’s significance lies in this coupling of organizational flexibility with power over private entry. Lederer clarifies a legislative choice: municipal exclusion need not depend on the municipality itself running the sector’s enterprises.