[Diskussionsbeitrag über Rente und Erwerbsmöglichkeit], S. 180

Emil Lederer: Intervention on Annuity and Earning Opportunity (1921)

This brief official commission intervention, recorded on page 180, addresses the relationship between compensation and alternative earning opportunities. Lederer argues that the wording under discussion already supplies the decisive criterion: an entrepreneur receives an annuity only insofar as the loss cannot be offset through new gainful activity that can reasonably be expected of him. Eligibility therefore depends on earning opportunity, not simply on the persistence of a loss.

Lederer tests this distinction through the example of an able-bodied younger man:

Ein 40jähriger Mann, der arbeitsfähig ist, hat eine Erwerbsmöglichkeit. Daß er sie nicht realisieren kann, bildet keine Grundlage für eine Entschädigung, sondern evtl. für die Arbeitslosenunterstützung.

English translation: A 40-year-old man who is capable of working has an earning opportunity. His inability to realize it provides no basis for compensation, but possibly for unemployment assistance.

The conceptual move is to separate possessing an earning opportunity from successfully realizing it. Failure to obtain earnings belongs, potentially, to unemployment assistance rather than compensation. Lederer then contrasts this case with one in which the opportunity itself is absent:

Wenn es sich aber um einen älteren Mann handelt, der keine Erwerbsmöglichkeit hat, dann hat er einen Anspruch auf die Entschädigung.

English translation: But if the case concerns an older man who has no earning opportunity, then he is entitled to compensation.

The intervention proceeds from the eligibility rule through contrasting examples to a closing assertion that the wording is clear. Its significance lies in drawing a boundary between two forms of support while retaining reasonable expectations of alternative work as a qualification. The short recorded turn establishes this distinction without explaining how earning opportunities would be assessed in practice.