Emil Lederer: Discussion contribution on coal mining (1920)

This recorded commission speaking turn addresses the institutional oversight and economic limits of coal socialization. Responding to Wissell, Lederer first distinguishes the Reich Coal Council from the Reich Economic Council; he then turns to the constraints on coal pricing. His central argument joins specialist self-administration to democratic authority without treating either as a power to override economic conditions.

The Coal Council’s hundred members would be selected specifically for their knowledge of and interest in coal. Lederer therefore questions having its proposals examined by the less expert Economic Council instead of the representation of the people as a whole. Such an arrangement would make the nominally superior body less competent in the matter under review. Yet his defense of expertise does not separate economic administration from government:

Ich fasse die Regierung als Spitze der Selbstverwaltung auf. Wir müssen doch von dieser Ansicht ausgehen; sonst wäre dieses ganze Gesetz nicht möglich. Die politische Verwaltung ist eine Selbstverwaltung des Volkes und nicht eine dem Volk von oben gesetzte Obrigkeit.

English translation: I regard the government as the apex of self-administration. We must surely proceed from this view; otherwise this entire law would not be possible. Political administration is the self-administration of the people and not an authority imposed upon the people from above.

This conception makes democratic government continuous with self-administration, rather than its external antagonist. Lederer’s institutional objection concerns the appropriate route of scrutiny, not an exemption of specialists from political accountability.

The second paragraph limits what this institutional arrangement could accomplish economically:

Die Preise sind ja nicht etwas, was diktatorisch festgesetzt werden kann. Es kann sich nicht darum handeln, ungezählte Milliarden aus der Kohle herauszuholen; auch nicht darum, den Kohlenbau mit Verlust zu betreiben.

English translation: Prices are not, after all, something that can be set dictatorially. The aim cannot be to extract untold billions from coal; nor can it be to operate coal mining at a loss.

Lederer rejects both unlimited fiscal extraction and loss-making operation. Socialization leaves coal mining subject to general constraints; approaching world-market price levels further reduces discretionary pricing power. The finance minister’s revenue needs cannot justify prices that destroy export competitiveness:

Auch das noch so starke Geldbedürfnis des Reichsfinanzministers könnte nicht dazu führen, die Kohlenpreise so hoch zu bestimmen, daß die Exportindustrie nicht konkurrenzfähig wäre mit der ausländischen Industrie.

English translation: Even the Reich Finance Minister’s most pressing need for money could not justify setting coal prices so high that the export industry would be unable to compete with foreign industry.

The closing forecast anticipates that, when the law takes effect, movements in basic industrial prices will largely remove the latitude associated with the present gap from world-market prices. The intervention’s significance lies in this double qualification: democratic self-administration requires an appropriate relation between expertise and public authority, while socialized production remains constrained by costs, prices, and international competition.