This recorded commission speaking turn presents Lederer’s response to Dr. Rathenau on economic calculation and remuneration in a socialized coal industry. Its central claim is that socialization does not turn economic activity into a merely technical process. Enterprises still have calculable operating results, which can provide a basis for determining bonuses for general directors, workers, and salaried employees. Lederer distinguishes the possibility of using this criterion from the separate question of whether doing so is expedient.
The argument proceeds through an accounting example. Coal receives a transfer price of 50 for one category of mines and 70 for another operating under less favorable conditions. Even ten mines assigned the same price would produce different operating results. Accounting therefore cannot consist solely of recording physical quantities. When Rathenau interjects that these differences should be called savings, Lederer replies that savings also influence results under private capitalism. Excluding price increases does not eliminate economic performance as a meaningful category:
Eine sozialisierte Wirtschaft, die nicht rechnen könnte und kein Ergebnis hätte, wäre keine Wirtschaft, wenn sie bloß das technische Problem wäre!
English translation: A socialized economy that could not calculate and had no result would not be an economy if it were merely a technical problem!
This forceful formulation makes calculation constitutive of economic organization, rather than a practice peculiar to private ownership. Material savings achieved through organizational changes remain economically relevant under socialization. Lederer thus contests Rathenau’s terminology without claiming that every existing incentive arrangement should be retained.
His concluding move distinguishes technical improvement from economic improvement. A technical equation alone cannot settle the economic question, because values change between economic periods:
Die grundlegende Differenz zwischen der technisch besseren Organisation und der wirtschaftlich besseren Organisation, zwischen technischer und wirtschaftlicher Mehrleistung bleibt bestehen.
English translation: The fundamental difference between technically better organization and economically better organization, between greater technical performance and greater economic performance, remains.
The contribution’s relevance lies in this distinction: socialized production still requires evaluation in terms of economic returns, not technical efficiency alone. Linking remuneration to returns addresses that distinction, although Lederer leaves the practical desirability of such bonuses open.
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