Emil Lederer · 1912
Emil Lederer’s short review of Walter Fischer’s Das Problem der Wirtschaftskrisen im Lichte der nationalökonomischen Forschung assesses a survey of crisis theories and its concluding synthesis. Its organizing premise, attributed to Fischer, is that economic normality is historically specific: under capitalism, cyclical fluctuation itself is normal. Crisis consequently appears as a necessary, periodic phase of economic life, not simply a departure from equilibrium.
Lederer follows Fischer’s progression from classical explanations based on the disproportionate allocation of capital through underconsumption, newer socialist theories, Tugan Baranowsky, and Pohle’s capital-shortage theory, to Spiethoff, Aftalion, and Bouniatian. His principal praise concerns the exposition:
Der Wert des Buches liegt im wesentlichen in der knappen, klaren Darstellung der Hauptgedanken, die den Krisentheorien zugrunde liegen.
English translation: The value of the book lies essentially in the concise, clear presentation of the principal ideas which underlie the theories of crises.
The review nevertheless makes a substantive judgment about the explanatory strength of the theories surveyed:
Die wertvollsten und leistungsfähigsten Gedanken sucht der Verfasser mit Recht in den Theorien von Aftalion und Bouniatian, deren Gedankensystem er im wesentlichen anerkennt.
English translation: The author rightly seeks the most valuable and most fruitful ideas in the theories of Aftalion and Bouniatian, whose system of thought he essentially accepts.
The phrase “mit Recht” marks Lederer’s endorsement rather than mere reporting. Fischer’s synthesis connects Bouniatian’s overcapitalization with Aftalion’s account of a mismatch between rapidly expanding output and prices that no longer correspond to the goods’ diminished marginal utility. Workers’ limited consumption power supplies a further element: underconsumption becomes the correlate of overcapitalization, linking productive expansion to constrained demand.
Die Krise selbst bricht aus in der der Ueberkapitalisation am meisten ausgesetzten Sphäre des reproduktiven Konsums.
English translation: The crisis itself breaks out in that sphere of reproductive consumption which is most exposed to over-capitalization.
This locates the outbreak within the cycle’s own investment dynamics. Depression then functions as a process of self-healing through decapitalization, restoring equilibrium at a lower level of consumption and living standards. As depressive psychological tendencies recede and capital accumulates, the conditions for another boom return.
The review closes by reporting Fischer’s expectation that producer organization, bank concentration, and the deliberate timing of public investment during depressions could moderate crises until they ceased to threaten the economic order. Its significance lies in the conjunction of two claims: crises are structurally normal within capitalism, yet their severity may be institutionally reduced. Lederer presents this position sympathetically, while offering a compressed assessment rather than an independent demonstration of its mechanisms.
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