Rudolf Sieghart · 1898
Rudolf Sieghart’s 1898 review presents Steinbach’s theory of economic contracts as a development of his earlier distinction between acquisition (Erwerb) and vocation (Beruf). Reviewing the book published in 1897, Sieghart traces its conceptual framework and legislative applications before assessing the social conditions necessary for stronger reciprocal obligations. His opening appreciation emphasizes the coherence of Steinbach’s project:
Man könnte auch sagen, dass, während die Schrift: Erwerb und Beruf gleichsam die Punctationen enthält, nun das ganze Instrument vollendet vorliegt.
English translation: One might also say that, whereas the treatise "Acquisition and Occupation" contains, as it were, the preliminary heads of agreement (Punctationen), the entire instrument now lies before us completed.
The central distinction concerns the purposes of contractual relationships rather than whether performance carries a price. Sieghart explains the departure from inherited legal categories:
Die überlieferte Eintheilung dieser Verträge in entgeltliche und unentgeltliche verwirft Steinbach, da sie wenig erschöpfend und rein äusserlich ist.
English translation: Steinbach rejects the traditional division of these contracts into onerous and gratuitous, since it is little exhaustive and purely external.
Contracts transferring economic goods bring parties together as competitors pursuing their respective advantages. Organizational transactions instead establish or supplement the economic subject through coordinated activity. Sieghart captures this contrast in describing the second category:
Das friedliche Gegenstück dazu sind die Verträge, welche die Schaffung oder Ergänzung des Subjectes der Wirthschaft bezwecken.
English translation: The peaceful counterpart to this consists of those contracts which aim at the creation or the completion of the subject of the economy.
Organizational relationships include partnership, representation, guardianship, and, especially, the official’s employment relationship (Beamtenvertrag). Their characteristic obligations are reciprocal: restrictions on pursuing personal advantage accompany protection against expenses and losses, while liability is measured by diligentia in concreto. Association among equals, representation, and subordinate service thus receive a common conceptual basis without becoming identical legal arrangements.
Ordinary wage and service contracts, by contrast, remain exchange relationships; employing someone does not by itself create an organizational bond. This distinction supports the review’s recurring objection to arrangements that demand an official’s loyalty and obedience while granting only the protections of an ordinary wage contract. Private employment can adopt an organizational form, but its heightened duties must correspond to continuing protection and maintenance.
Sieghart follows the book’s application of this framework to commission trading, breach of employment contracts, business secrecy, noncompetition clauses, and cartels. A commission agent’s ability to become the counterparty introduces competitive exchange into a relationship otherwise grounded in service. Criminal penalties for breach of employment cannot simply restore weakened reciprocal obligations. Requirements of enduring business secrecy likewise become problematic when they impose organizational duties on employees without imposing corresponding responsibilities on employers.
For noncompetition clauses, Steinbach favors judicial moderation over a rigid choice between complete validity and nullity. Courts should balance commercial protection against the restricted party’s prospects for economic development. Cartels pose a broader institutional problem because they suppress competition internally while operating within a competitive economy. Steinbach’s proposed response is administrative supervision through a tribunal-like authority, adversarial proceedings, and representation of the public interest, rather than exclusive reliance on criminal or civil law.
Sieghart’s concluding judgment distinguishes the theory’s analytical and legislative value from the prospects for its wider realization. He welcomes its articulation of solidarity and mutual duty, associating these aspirations with Proudhon’s mutualism. Yet stronger obligations require material security. Those exposed to competitive struggle cannot be expected to renounce self-interest on the same terms as occupational groups whose existence is protected. Without institutions securing adequate work for those able and willing to work, and subsistence for those unable to do so, exchange contracts are likely to retain their predominance.
The review therefore offers a qualified endorsement. Steinbach’s framework may not establish that economic life will develop toward solidarity, but it provides a standard for judging legislation: heightened fidelity must be matched by reciprocal protection. Sieghart locates its practical importance in exposing contractual hybrids that combine one party’s binding duties with the other’s competitive freedom, thereby threatening both legal coherence and confidence in enacted law.
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