Siegmund Feilbogen, Alkoholmonopol und Spiritusexport

Siegmund Feilbogen’s Alkoholmonopol und Spiritusexport is a nine-section yearbook article preserved as a separate issue of undocumented publication date. It advocates an Austrian state monopoly over the domestic spirits trade as a joint instrument of fiscal reform and temperance. Its central move is to distinguish the protection of production from the protection of commercial intermediaries: distilleries could retain private ownership and remunerative purchase prices while the state appropriated distribution margins, reduced outlets, and financed social policy. The concluding examination of exports tests whether this domestic reorganization could coexist with international competition.

The opening sections reconstruct earlier Austrian proposals and explain why their prospects have improved. Ministerial resistance had reflected reluctance to interfere with private enterprise, temporary fiscal relief from increased spirits taxation, and an insufficient appreciation of the Swiss monopoly’s hygienic benefits. Feilbogen argues that even Plener’s carefully conservative proposal failed politically: accommodating established interests could diminish revenue without securing adoption. He then identifies four favorable conditions—changing economic doctrine, Austria’s fiscal difficulties, Russian monopoly profits, and the growing urgency of combating alcoholism.

The theoretical argument treats public monopoly as a response to concentrated private power, not simply as an exception to competitive markets. Where monopoly already threatens consumers, suppliers, and workers, public ownership may be the lesser evil because its proceeds relieve other taxation and its administration can consider general interests. This does not establish the superiority of state enterprise everywhere; it changes the comparison from state monopoly versus ideal competition to public versus private control.

Austria’s budget supplies the practical urgency. Feilbogen describes shrinking surpluses, exceptional resources already drawn upon, and necessary expenditure postponed while the state undertakes investment against economic depression. A modern state needs fiscal elasticity to meet social and cultural obligations without repeatedly burdening production. Russia provides his principal demonstration: private distilleries supply a state-controlled wholesale and retail system whose substantial profits coexist with secure producer remuneration. Nevertheless, he explicitly acknowledges that transferring Russian returns proportionately to Austria offers only a preliminary estimate.

The public-health sections reject unconditional abstinence as the sole legitimate objective. Feilbogen regards entrenched drinking habits as resistant to rapid abolition and argues that demands for universal abstinence alienate potential supporters of attainable reform. His alternative is gradual temperance, backed by pricing and institutional change:

Unter solchen Umständen muß der Staat die Abwehr der Trunksucht als eine seiner wichtigsten sozialpolitischen Aufgaben betrachten.

English translation: Under such circumstances, the state must regard combating drunkenness as one of its most important tasks of social policy.

Drawing on A. Baer’s program, he connects alcoholism with housing, nutrition, recreation, child welfare, and treatment. These interventions require resources beyond voluntary philanthropy. Monopoly revenue could support them while fewer sales outlets weakened the commercial incentive to stimulate drinking. His proposal thus joins preventive social expenditure to restructuring the market that generates the harm.

The financial calculation makes this connection concrete. Assuming consumption falls by one fifth, Feilbogen estimates gross receipts of 320 million crowns. After purchasing and rectifying spirits, administration, retail remuneration, and financing initial expenditure, he obtains 217 million crowns net. Subtracting generously estimated existing tax receipts and a further allowance for error leaves a projected additional annual yield of 120 million crowns. These remain advocacy estimates, dependent on prices, consumption, and implementation costs. Crucially, however, he refuses to make revenue maximization the ultimate criterion:

Eine Abnahme des Konsums ohne Schmuggel aber ist jedenfalls ein volkswirtschaftlicher Erfolg, auch wenn das Monopol dadurch minder einträglich wird.

English translation: A decline in consumption without smuggling, however, is in any case an economic success, even if it makes the monopoly less profitable.

The difficulty is political transition. Compensation claims, especially those attached to traditional liquor-selling rights in Galicia and Bukovina, could obstruct reform. Feilbogen proposes phased regional introduction, employment or occupational alternatives for displaced sellers, and compensation bounded by public advantage. His concise distinction captures why an attractive fiscal institution remains difficult to establish:

Aber ein neues Monopol wühlt alle Begehrlichkeiten auf und zerstört viele Existenzen.

English translation: But a new monopoly stirs up every acquisitive desire and destroys many livelihoods.

The final section confronts the strongest commercial objection without denying its premise:

Gewiß ist das Monopol ein schlechter Exporteur wie der Staat überhaupt ein schlechter Kaufmann.

English translation: Certainly, the monopoly is a poor exporter, just as the state is generally a poor merchant.

Officials accountable for losses lack the merchant’s incentives to take risks, while monopoly controls may impede exports. Yet Feilbogen’s trade analysis shows Austrian exports already declining and fluctuating sharply between destinations under existing arrangements. Foreign domestic production and the German spirits cartel threaten them independently of Austrian reform. Russia demonstrates that export spirits can remain outside the domestic monopoly and move tax-free under supervision. A monopoly administration might also support a centralized export bureau, export premiums, and agreements with Switzerland. Expanding technical, industrial, and household uses would absorb spirits displaced from foreign markets. The article’s significance lies in this qualified synthesis: public control of domestic distribution need not entail state production or direct state exporting, and fiscal gain becomes defensible through its connection with temperance and social provision.