Emil Lederer: Review of Ludwig Nieder’s study of Saar miners’ work performance (1910)

Emil Lederer’s review examines Ludwig Nieder’s study of work performance in the royal Prussian coal mines near Saarbrücken since 1888. Its central issue is whether output per worker can legitimately measure miners’ diligence. Lederer endorses Nieder’s criticism of mining inspector E. Müller, who associated falling output with higher wages and shorter hours, and rising output with the suppression of a strike.

The review first reconstructs Nieder’s methodological objection: dividing coal production by workforce size obscures changes in the organization of mining. The balance between workers directly extracting coal and those maintaining safety or developing machinery shifts with economic conditions. Seam thickness, pressure, temperature, extraction techniques, and safety requirements also affect output. These material determinants undermine Müller’s reliance on workers’ supposed willingness to work:

Müller jedoch übersehe all diese sachlichen Gründe, welche zweifellos die Förderquote mit-, wenn nicht hauptsächlich beeinflußten, und ziehe bloß Faktoren in Rechnung, deren Tragweite und Effekt wissenschaftlich nicht geprüft werden könne, wie Arbeitswilligkeit usw.

English translation: Müller, however, overlooks all these objective grounds, which undoubtedly co-determined, if they did not chiefly determine, the output quota, and takes into account merely factors whose scope and effect cannot be examined scientifically, such as willingness to work, etc.

Lederer then explains why Nieder’s specialized investigation matters for broader disputes over wages, working hours, and productivity. Its force lies in counterexamples to selective causal claims. Müller neglects periods when wages and output rose together; even during the downturn of 1898–1901, output among directly productive workers increased. Likewise, a decline attributed to Christian trade-union activity did not occur in the mines with the greatest union membership, where output instead rose. Lederer thus presents Nieder’s evidence as a challenge both to aggregate measurement and to the political attribution of production changes.

The closing comparison further unsettles nostalgia for an allegedly more industrious workforce: the output low of 1902 still exceeded the earlier peak of 1892 and the starting level of 1888, before shorter shifts, stronger worker organization, and regulated piece rates with higher wages. Yet Lederer does not replace Müller’s explanation with an equally simple claim that labor reforms caused productivity growth:

Die Steigerung der Leistung wurde gewiß mit verursacht durch Begünstigung der Leistungsmöglichkeit, aber ebenso wieder gehemmt durch Erschwerungen im Betriebe.

English translation: The increase in output was certainly caused in part by a favouring of the possibility of performance, but was just as much impeded again by aggravations in the working of the mines.

The review’s core conceptual move is to distinguish observed performance from the conditions that make performance possible. Technical improvements and operational obstacles must enter the explanation before output figures can support judgments about labor conduct. Its final methodological warning also states its broader social-scientific relevance:

Diese Faktoren sind mit in Betracht zu ziehen — eine einseitige Berücksichtigung der wissenschaftlich nicht faßbaren psychischen Beschaffenheit der Arbeiter aber muß zu falschen Schlüssen führen.

English translation: These factors are to be taken into account as well — but a one-sided consideration of the scientifically ungraspable psychic constitution of the workers must lead to false conclusions.