[Rezension zu Emilio Cossa: La diminuzione delle ore di lavoro nei suoi rapporti con la soluzione del problema sociale]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Emilio Cossa (1892)

This short German review examines Emilio Cossa’s La diminuzione delle ore di lavoro nei suoi rapporti con la soluzione del problema sociale. Schullern situates Cossa’s inquiry against Italian scholars’ frequent resistance to socialism and state intervention. Its significance lies in examining workers’ demands for shorter hours through their feasibility, economic effects, and the legitimacy of governmental support.

According to Schullern, most of Cossa’s pamphlet presents and criticizes socialist and economists’ positions, identifying errors on both sides. Cossa then argues that shorter hours also serve employers: as production increasingly adjusts to domestic consumption, unemployed workers must gain employment to become purchasers. Given the limited supply of complementary capital, reducing working time becomes the means of extending employment. Schullern condenses the resulting claim about reform within the existing property order:

Auch ohne Abschaffung des Privateigenthums müsse also die normale Entwicklung diesem Ziele entgegenführen.

English translation: Even without the abolition of private property, then, normal development must lead toward this goal.

The argument thus connects reduced hours to employment and consumer demand, rather than making their achievement depend on abolishing private property. Its justification for state action extends beyond these economic mechanisms:

Der Umstand, dass die Beschränkung der Arbeitszeit nicht nur wirtschaftlich wichtig, sondern auch in andern, erhabeneren Richtungen bedeutungsvoll sei, rechtfertige es, wenn der Staat auf die Entwicklung der Dinge in dieser Richtung Einfluss nehme.

English translation: The circumstance that the limitation of working hours is not only economically important but also significant in other, loftier directions justifies the state's taking an influence upon the development of things in this direction.

Schullern reports this appeal to higher purposes without specifying them. His appraisal combines intellectual approval with a reservation about Cossa’s confidence in the anticipated development:

Die vorliegende Schrift ist höchst anregend und nur vielleicht von etwas zu grossem Optimismus durchweht.

English translation: The present writing is in the highest degree stimulating, and is perhaps only pervaded by a somewhat too great optimism.

The review closes by noting Riccardo Dalla Volta’s treatment of essentially the same subject and promising to return to it. Its central contribution is to register an interventionist argument within Italian economic debate while leaving its optimistic assumptions open to scrutiny.