Emil Lederer: Discussion Contribution on the Potash Industry (1921)

This recorded commission speaking turn examines the economic organization of the potash industry. Lederer explicitly sets aside general political arguments and asks whether the proposed arrangements can achieve a concentration of production adequate to the industry’s needs. His intervention moves from the limitations of private industrial groups, through the conduct of state-owned works, to proposals associated with Lindemann and Hilferding for enlarging the publicly organized share of production. Its central distinction is between concentration that serves particular firms and concentration that benefits the economy as a whole.

Nach meinem Urteil ist die Frage der Konzentration der Produktion hier ausschlaggebend. Diese Konzentration ist, wie auch Dr. Vogelstein in einem gewissen Sinne zugeben wird, durch die bisherigen Bestimmungen des Entwurfs des Kalirats nicht garantiert.

English translation: In my judgment, the question of concentrating production is decisive here. This concentration, as Dr. Vogelstein too will concede in a certain sense, is not guaranteed by the existing provisions of the Potash Council’s draft.

Lederer’s objection concerns incentives, not merely the absence of formal guarantees. Industrial groups can be expected to consolidate production where doing so benefits their own businesses. They are unlikely to close their works for the benefit of another group. The differing sizes of the groups also suggest that private interests have not produced an economic optimum. Against this background, expert estimates that only 10–12 percent of works or shafts could be closed appear to Lederer too small to make a decisive difference. The draft therefore offers no convincing mechanism for overcoming the gap between private advantage and economy-wide rationalization.

The state-owned works introduce a second problem. According to Lederer, they have accommodated private industry by refraining from operational changes that would have increased their production quotas. As other works expanded capacity and received new participation figures, the state works’ relative share declined. Their favorable deposits nevertheless kept them profitable. Lederer thus separates the profitability of individual public enterprises from the adequacy of their operating policy: satisfactory returns do not establish that the state has used its productive position effectively. He expressly presents the objection as financial, without requiring a socialist standpoint.

An dieses Moment knüpft Herr Lindemann an, indem er vorschlägt, alle Beteiligungen, die auf Grund der Novelle frei werden, auf den Staat zu übertragen und damit ein Versäumnis gutzumachen, das die Staatswerke selbst, wenn sie etwas weniger selbstlos oder nicht so kulant gewesen wären, schon früher hätten erreichen können.

English translation: Mr. Lindemann takes up this point by proposing that all participation shares becoming available under the amendment be transferred to the state, thereby making good an omission that the state works themselves could have remedied earlier had they been somewhat less selfless or less accommodating.

Lindemann’s proposal would recover opportunities that the state works had previously forgone. Lederer then asks whether the argument can be carried further. In presenting Hilferding’s proposal, he treats existing state production and unused productive possibilities as the basis for a larger collective-economic share. He tentatively recalls a figure of 297/1000, explicitly requests correction, and accepts Vogelstein’s clarification that the figure concerns all state works, not only the Prussian ones. The number is therefore a qualified recollection within the discussion, not an independently established finding.

The conceptual move is from enlarging the state’s holdings to constructing them as a share belonging to the Gemeinwirtschaft, or collectively organized economy. This would leave private works in existence as private interests. Lederer does not supply a finished institutional design: he says that the arrangement needs further discussion, particularly over valuation.

Man müßte entscheiden, ob eventuell die Quote oder der heutige Kurswert in Anrechnung gebracht werden soll. Das ist aber eine innerkapitalistische Frage, welche die Kaliindustrie von sich aus lösen kann.

English translation: One would have to decide whether the quota or the current market value should be taken into account. But that is an intra-capitalist question which the potash industry can resolve on its own.

The closing distinction places valuation within the industry’s own negotiations rather than treating it as a decisive objection to reorganization. The contribution’s significance lies in this separation of questions: private consolidation need not achieve the economic optimum, profitable public works may still follow an inadequate policy, and unresolved valuation need not invalidate a larger collective-economic role. Lederer supports that direction while leaving its precise construction open.