Emil Lederer: Discussion contribution on coal mining (1920)

This recorded speaking turn from an official commission discussion develops two reasons why expropriation and a proposed coal council would alter the balance between producer interests and coal prices. Lederer’s argument moves from the interests represented within production to the constraints imposed by world-market prices, and finally to the difference between existing syndicates and the proposed council.

First, expropriation simplifies the problem of balancing interests by eliminating the capitalist entrepreneur’s claim while retaining those of workers and managers:

Erstens ist insofern ein wesentlicher Unterschied, als nach der Enteignung der Produktionsmittel das eine wesentliche Produzenteninteresse, das Unternehmerinteresse, das des Kapitalisten, wegfällt und nur noch das des Arbeiters und Betriebsleiters bestehen bleibt, so daß das Gleichgewicht viel leichter herzustellen ist.

English translation: First, there is a substantial difference insofar as, after the expropriation of the means of production, one substantial producer interest—the entrepreneurial interest, that of the capitalist—disappears, and only that of the worker and the manager remains, so that equilibrium is much easier to establish.

The claim is comparative, not absolute: Lederer argues that equilibrium becomes easier to achieve, not that conflicts disappear. His conceptual move is to treat ownership reform as a change in the composition of producer interests.

Second, domestic coal prices reaching world-market parity would prevent workers from imposing unlimited further increases simply by decree. Lederer expressly distinguishes this price threshold from the German currency returning to “100”: coal prices themselves are decisive. Beyond that threshold, further increases would require restricting production. He identifies this as a practice already employed by syndicates to raise prices, then contrasts their power with the proposed institution:

Ein Kohlenrat nach unserem Vorschlag kann eine Einschränkung der Produktion nicht vornehmen.

English translation: A coal council under our proposal cannot restrict production.

The intervention thus links the removal of capitalist interests to a limit on producers’ capacity to manipulate supply. Its relevance lies in this compact institutional argument: collective control need not reproduce syndicate pricing practices. The recorded turn asserts the council’s inability to restrict production, but does not explain the arrangements that would secure that constraint.