This attributed speaking turn in an official commission discussion examines whether a coal trust linked financially to the iron industry could serve that industry’s interests as effectively as privately owned coal mines belonging to it. Lederer accepts the preceding speaker’s reasoning but questions the distinction between direct ownership and an association of interests sustained by capitalist interlocking. His intervention concerns the practical direction of enterprises, rather than ownership alone.
Das Interesse der Eisenindustrie muß von der Zentrale berücksichtigt werden.
English translation: The interests of the iron industry must be taken into account by the central management.
Central management is the decisive intermediary. Lederer does not expect each departmental head spontaneously to identify with the iron industry’s interests. Instead, the trust’s leadership can translate its financial connections into instructions for operating managers. He then identifies remuneration as a means of aligning their conduct with those wider interests:
Aber diese wird in ihren Anordnungen bei den Betriebsleitern keinen Widerstand finden, zumal wenn etwa deren Tantiemen auch auf die Rentabilität der Eisenindustrie abgestellt werden.
English translation: But it will encounter no resistance from the operating managers to its instructions, especially if, for example, their profit-related bonuses are also tied to the profitability of the iron industry.
The argument moves from financial interdependence through centralized authority to managerial incentives. Capitalist organization, Lederer observes, permits considerable flexibility in such arrangements. His concluding question therefore asks why an association of interests should fail to accommodate the iron industry’s legitimate needs, particularly once market conditions become more normal. The contribution’s significance lies in treating ownership, control, and incentives as distinct mechanisms capable of producing similar operational results. This remains a conditional challenge to the preceding argument, not a detailed institutional proposal or evidence that such coordination has already succeeded.
This work was divided into 1 sections when it entered the library's research corpus—an apparatus for search and citation, not necessarily the author's own table of contents. Each title opens its summary.
Put a question to this work; the Librarian answers from its 1 sections and cites the passage.
Ask the Librarian