Eugen Peter Schwiedland: Review of Anton Menger’s Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag in geschichtlicher Darstellung (1888)

Schwiedland’s 1888 review of Menger’s 1886 book welcomes the translation of socialist aspirations into legal concepts while questioning the identification of the whole product with labour’s contribution. It moves from the causes of inequality through a classification of economic rights to the historical and institutional conditions of reform. Legal clarification matters because it may enable peaceful adaptation of the existing order to changing social relations.

The opening locates inequality in ownership and inheritance, distinguishing those sustained by property from those compelled to work for subsistence. Between them stands a group whose capital increases the returns on its labour. Schwiedland emphasizes the contingent distribution of advantages:

Durch die Institution des Eigenthums und des Erbrechts sind die Menschen ebenso zufällig in den Besitz von Capital gesetzt, wie sie ohne ihr Zuthun mehr geistige Fähigkeiten erhalten haben oder vom Zufall mit mehr — Glück bedacht werden.

English translation: Through the institution of property and of the right of inheritance men are placed in possession of capital just as fortuitously as they have received greater intellectual capacities without any doing of their own, or are endowed by chance with more — luck.

This account does not treat property income simply as a forcible deduction from wages. Capital and natural forces contribute to production, while labour is distinguished by personal effort. Yet labour’s productive importance does not free the propertyless from dependence on owners:

Deshalb darbt er, der Besitzlose, wenn er nicht die Arbeitskraft liefert, die zur Productivgestaltung von Grund und Boden und der sonstigen Capitalien nothwendig ist.

English translation: Therefore he, the propertyless man, goes wanting if he does not furnish the labour power which is necessary for rendering land and soil and the other capital goods productive.

Against this background, socialist aspirations take two principal forms: security of existence and entitlement to the product. Menger supplies these demands with a juridical framework. The review presents his own description of the book’s place within that undertaking:

Sie ist ein Fragment aus einem grösseren Werk, in welchem ich den Socialismus als Rechtssystem darzustellen versuche.

English translation: It is a fragment from a larger work in which I attempt to present socialism as a system of law.

The right to existence gives necessary wants priority over less urgent consumption and requires able-bodied recipients to work. The right to work modifies that principle within the existing order by making the state responsible when private employment is unavailable. The right to the full proceeds of labour instead assigns the entire product to producers, excluding claims founded on ownership of land or capital.

Schwiedland’s approval of this taxonomy remains qualified. He argues that the last demand should be called a right to the whole yield or product: calling it the full proceeds of labour already assumes that labour alone produces value. His discussion of William Thompson challenges this premise as an error shared by orthodox political economy. He also questions the moral contrast between supposedly egoistic product-based socialism and fraternal provision for existence, observing that allowing others to work for one’s benefit also involves egoism.

The historical discussion follows Godwin’s distributive principles, Charles Hall’s criticism of rent and capital profit, and Thompson’s theory of value. Schwiedland praises Menger’s reconstruction from sources and reports his claim that Marx and Rodbertus adopted fundamental ideas from earlier English and French socialists without adequate acknowledgment. His request for a political-historical supplement nevertheless marks the limits of a genealogy concentrated on doctrines.

The review then connects legal claims with effective power. Political attacks on unearned income frequently target opponents’ revenues while preserving comparable advantages for allies. Differences between German criticism of interest and English challenges to landed property reflect different configurations of ownership and political influence. Estates managed through intermediaries, and especially ownership represented by securities, depend heavily on legal recognition rather than immediate practical control.

Institutional comparison further tempers expectations. Individual ownership permits unearned income; corporate ownership might suppress it internally while recreating inequalities between associations with unequal resources and market power. A private letter concerning the Russian Mir supplies evidence of exhausted soil and weak investment incentives under communal ownership with separate use. Common ownership and common use make the full-product demand more conceivable, but allocation difficulties favour provision for existence, despite the subjective judgments it requires.

Schwiedland ultimately distinguishes assistance to the poor from redistribution that would impoverish former owners. Durable transformation requires historical development, not simply possession of state power. He values Menger’s contribution to legal philosophy and legislation, endorsing warnings against artificially enlarging unearned income through public debt or protective tariffs, or shifting it between classes through publicly funded mortgage relief. Reform should address social dependence without reinforcing privileged interests or undermining the legal order on which gradual reconstruction depends.