Emil Lederer · 1920
This recorded commission speaking turn (vol. II, pp. 591–592, no. 58) defends the majority report of the first Socialization Commission against objections advanced in connection with Rathenau’s proposals. Lederer first specifies that the preceding discussion concerned their initial version. Taking their rejection as the starting point, he turns to two questions: whether the proposed coal administration could exercise competent initiative, and whether conflicting interests would undermine its pricing policy.
The institutional objection likens the Reich Coal Council to a municipal assembly, its elected directorate to a collective mayor, and its profit-sharing general directors to municipal utility managers. On this analogy, the directorate would become dependent on extraneous influences and incapable of effective initiative. Lederer challenges the analogy’s explanatory force:
Dieser Vergleich ist mehr ein schiefes Bild als eine sachliche Widerlegung; denn es handelt sich ja beim Reichskohlenrat um lauter Sachverständige, welche naturgemäß mehr Eignung für die und außerdem auch mehr Interesse an der Regelung der Kohlenwirtschaft mitbringen.
English translation: This comparison is more a misleading image than a substantive refutation; for the Reich Coal Council consists entirely of experts, who naturally bring greater aptitude for, and also greater interest in, regulating the coal economy.
His defense rests on the council’s composition: expertise and a direct interest in coal regulation distinguish it from the municipal body invoked by its critics. He does not deny conflicting interests. Instead, he acknowledges the opposition between workers and consumers over coal prices, then limits its possible effects by reference to the world-market price:
Ist dieser einmal erreicht, so ist die Möglichkeit der Arbeiter, beliebige Erhöhungen ihrer Löhne durchzusetzen, nicht gegeben, und der Reichskohlenrat würde im Gegensatz zu den früheren Syndikaten natürlich niemals imstande sein, bloß um höhere Löhne bewilligen zu können, eine Einschränkung der Produktion durchzusetzen.
English translation: Once this has been reached, workers no longer have the possibility of securing arbitrary increases in their wages, and the Reich Coal Council, unlike the former syndicates, would naturally never be able to impose a restriction of production merely in order to grant higher wages.
The intervention thus combines a defense of expert governance with an argument about market constraints. Its significance lies in this qualified response to the problem of sectional interests: Lederer locates protection against their effects in both the world-market price and the council’s asserted inability to restrict output solely to finance wage increases. The brief turn states these safeguards rather than elaborating their institutional enforcement.
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