Emil Lederer, Berichterstatter Professor Dr. Lederer (Berlin), Schlußwort (1932)

Emil Lederer’s closing reply to a scientific conference discussion examines whether Germany could overcome its economic difficulties by pursuing greater self-sufficiency. Originally published in 1932 and supplied here in an electronic reissue documented as 2020, the contribution proceeds through responses to individual speakers before drawing out the systemic consequences of autarky. Its central claim is that advocates of economic reconstruction must specify how production, employment, costs, and demand would actually be reorganized. Political conviction cannot substitute for this analysis. Lederer’s concluding argument is particularly pointed: consistently pursued autarky would require comprehensive planning, while surrendering the advantages of international exchange.

Lederer first distinguishes the enlargement of an economic territory from an increase in its self-sufficiency. He supports closer economic integration between Austria and Germany, especially given Austria’s economic structure, but denies that this would substantially advance German autarky. Degenfeld’s clarification that he means the whole southeast sharpens the contradiction. Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia depend on grain exports; incorporating them into a larger economic area would require admitting substantial agricultural imports. German agricultural policy, however, seeks to secure grain supplies from domestic soil. Territorial expansion and intensified national self-provision therefore need not reinforce one another.

Responding to Stucken and Brinkmann, Lederer shifts from geographical possibilities to the concrete requirements of economic reconstruction. Import restrictions must be judged partly by whether they raise domestic production costs. Expanding agriculture may do precisely that, while the speakers have not explained how workers dependent on exports would find employment elsewhere. Finished manufactures offer little obvious scope for import substitution because their imports are already extremely small. A constructive economic policy must identify productive directions capable of expansion, rather than merely arrest existing losses. For Lederer, this remains the central evidentiary gap in proposals to replace foreign markets with domestic demand.

He nevertheless accepts Brinkmann’s observation that economic positions are connected with interests:

Es gibt überhaupt keine Auffassung, hinter der keine Interessen stehen.

English translation: There is no standpoint whatsoever behind which there are no interests.

This concession does not make rational judgment impossible. Either autarky or international integration will benefit some interests and injure others; coincidence with an interest cannot itself disqualify an argument. Economists must instead examine evidence, weigh competing arguments, and defend their considered conclusions. Lederer likewise accepts the existence of internal rigidities associated with monopolies and trade unions, but denies that these establish the desirability of sharply reducing foreign trade. He maintains that restrictions on competition do not invalidate comparative-cost reasoning. His defense of rational inquiry also rejects the suggestion that romantic conviction possesses deeper roots than reasoned analysis.

The reply allows room for narrower policy possibilities. Lederer welcomes Schlesinger’s suggestion that trade policy might have beneficial short-term effects without yielding lasting gains. Yet German political conditions restrict this possibility: during prosperity, rising imports and an adverse trade balance make opposition to tariffs especially difficult. This qualified acknowledgment distinguishes a potentially useful cyclical intervention from a general case for autarky.

Against Schindler, Lederer then challenges the claim that economic self-isolation is universally desired. Russia, he argues, would welcome substantial imports if it obtained long-term credit; its isolation is imposed by financing constraints rather than freely chosen. He also suggests that a credible German declaration favoring international economic connection could still have considerable effects. The practical question is therefore how to change policy, not which country first began restricting trade.

Lederer’s criticism becomes sharper when he addresses the sacrifices acknowledged by autarky’s defenders. Such sacrifices must be stated publicly, rather than concealed behind promises to eliminate unemployment and enlarge markets. Appeals to simplicity, national purpose, or conviction cannot remove economic consequences:

Aber es ist doch notwendig, in einem wissenschaftlichen Gremium hervorzuheben, daß die Gesinnungen nicht die Marktbindungen aufheben.

English translation: But it is necessary, in a scientific body, to emphasize that convictions do not abolish market constraints.

The distinction is between political purposes and the mechanisms through which they operate. Even changes undertaken for noneconomic reasons produce a market configuration that requires analysis. Lederer illustrates this through medicine: a shift from treating an organ or disease to treating the whole person does not justify abandoning accumulated knowledge. Similarly, a new ambition to shape the economy must incorporate, rather than evade, established economic reasoning.

The conclusion exposes what Lederer regards as autarky’s unacknowledged institutional demand. Schindler proposes developing production necessary to meet needs. But within capitalism, Lederer argues, purchasing-power-backed demand is already supplied. The proposal must therefore mean developing production alongside the demand generated through production itself:

Ist das anders als durch eine totale Planwirtschaft möglich?

English translation: Is that possible other than through a total planned economy?

This question turns a program of national self-sufficiency into a problem of control over productive resources. Thoroughgoing reconstruction cannot stop at agricultural expansion; it requires coordinated decisions throughout the economy. Yet such planning would deliberately relinquish the supply advantages afforded by international exchange:

Freilich wäre das eine Planwirtschaft des Mangels, weil sie sich ja der Versorgungserleichterungen begeben würde, die im internationalen Austausch liegen.

English translation: Admittedly, this would be a planned economy of scarcity, because it would forgo the advantages in securing supplies that international exchange provides.

The reply’s significance lies in this movement from particular policy objections to systemic implications. Lederer demands that autarky’s proponents specify both the economic mechanisms and the institutional transformation their program entails—and acknowledge the deprivation that their promised reconstruction would impose.