Emil Lederer: Review of Hermann Edwin Krueger (1910)

Lederer’s brief review of Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Privatangestellten. Erster Teil assesses an empirical contribution to understanding private salaried employees as a “new middle class.” He locates the book within the Gesellschaft für soziale Reform’s inquiry into their economic and social circumstances:

Die Schrift stellt einen Teil der Ergebnisse der Enquête dar, welche die Gesellschaft für soziale Reform über die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage des »neuen Mittelstandes« veranstaltete.

English translation: The tract presents a part of the results of the enquiry which the Society for Social Reform conducted concerning the economic and social condition of the "new middle class."

The review moves from the inquiry’s organization to the book’s coverage and value. Leaders of occupational associations supplied monographs addressing income, working time, rest and leave, unemployment, housing, workplace health, security, advancement, and prospects of eventual independence. Efforts to enlist employers’ organizations in distributing questionnaires met with less success. These details establish both the breadth of the investigation and its reliance on materials furnished by interested parties.

Krueger organizes this evidence across occupations including pharmacists, editors, theatre workers, union officials, and administrative employees. Lederer explicitly notes that the presentation excludes critical or systematic treatment. His praise concerns the evidence made available, rather than a theoretical explanation:

Darin besteht der Wert des Buches, neues Material zur Beurteilung der immer wichtiger werdenden Privatbeamtenprobleme zu vermitteln.

English translation: Therein consists the value of the book: in conveying new material for the assessment of the ever more important problems of the private salaried employees.

The concluding comparison with Kulemann’s account of occupational associations clarifies the book’s relevance. It supplements an organization-centred perspective by seeking to encompass all private salaried employees within the occupations examined. Lederer thus values its wider empirical scope as a resource for judging increasingly important employee problems.