Emil Lederer, Randglossen zu den neuesten Schriften Walther Rathenaus (1920/21)

Lederer’s critical essay examines Rathenau’s Autonome Wirtschaft, Die neue Gesellschaft, and Was wird werden?. It moves from qualified approval of economic reconstruction through self-government to criticism of cultural pessimism and political retreat. Its central contention is that productive organization, distribution, and social responsibility cannot be transformed independently: socialism requires institutions connecting individual experience with collective purposes.

Discussing Autonome Wirtschaft, Lederer asks how far Rathenau advances beyond established socialist arguments. Marx and Lassalle did not expect redistribution alone to produce prosperity; socialist theory already connected emancipation with the development of productive forces. Lederer distinguishes this theoretical position from the simplifications through which socialism gained popular support. His scrutiny of originality serves a substantive purpose:

Nicht im Sinne kleinlicher Prioritätssucherei, sondern weil es wichtig ist, was an Neuem und Richtigem im Gedankenkreis Rathenaus zu finden ist, sei zunächst gefragt: Was ist an diesen Thesen neu und was ist an ihnen zuzugeben?

English translation: Not in the spirit of a petty hunt for priority, but because it matters what is new and correct in Rathenau's circle of ideas, let it first be asked: what is new in these theses and what in them is to be conceded?

Lederer nevertheless recognizes a decisive change in Rathenau’s position. Acceptance of expropriation moves beyond the attempt to preserve capitalist enterprise within an elaborate regulatory framework.

Nachdrücklich jedoch sei hervorgehoben, daß hier Rathenau durch die Aufhebung des Unternehmertums, durch die radikale Forderung der Enteignung sein früheres gekünsteltes System einer regulierten kapitalistischen Wirtschaft entschlossen aufgegeben hat.

English translation: It must, however, be emphatically stressed that here Rathenau, through the abolition of entrepreneurship, through the radical demand for expropriation, has resolutely abandoned his earlier artificial system of a regulated capitalist economy.

This advance does not settle the problem of motivation. Abolishing the employer removes a particular antagonist but does not automatically reconcile workers with representatives of the public in self-governing economic bodies. Lederer distinguishes eliminating exploitation’s familiar appearance from creating a positive social bond:

Er wird nicht gerade die Form des Gegensatzes von Lohn und Profit annehmen, der Arbeiter wird sich nicht einem Unternehmer gegenüber sehen, der sich »von seinen Groschen mästet« — aber das ist bloß das Wegfallen eines Negativen, nicht ein neues Positives.

English translation: It will not take precisely the form of the antagonism between wages and profit; the worker will not find himself confronting an entrepreneur who "fattens himself on his pennies" — but that is merely the falling away of a negative, not a new positive.

Solidarity must become an ordinary institutional experience, rather than depend on exceptional ethical commitment. Participation in productive administration, municipal affairs, and communal housing can make collective membership tangible. Distribution also influences pressure for rationalization, while responsibility affects productivity. Rathenau’s distinction between raising prosperity and distributing it remains analytically useful, but cannot establish separate practical spheres.

In Die neue Gesellschaft, Lederer challenges the attempt to predict the spiritual character of a radically transformed society. Rathenau’s projected future too often resembles an impoverished capitalist society: wartime deprivation becomes the model for socialism itself. Predictions of declining culture, weakened technical initiative, and artistic dependence on popularity fail to distinguish the consequences of defeat from the possibilities of a new social order. Lederer also detects tension between explanations grounded in national character and those derived from material arrangements.

The cultural critique turns on Rathenau’s privileging of wealthy consumers over creative initiative and differentiated audiences. Purchasing power does not exhaust the conditions of artistic recognition, and wider access need not enforce uniform taste. Lederer offers no symmetrical prophecy of socialist cultural flourishing. His narrower argument is that economic equality does not logically entail cultural leveling. Likewise, alternating manual and administrative work cannot alone give labor meaning; secure participation in production and society matters more. Socialism can thus become a stabilizing force, grounding authority in social membership rather than inherited privilege.

The discussion of Was wird werden? finds Rathenau retreating from transformative agency. Proposals for trade regulation, reduced consumption, and restored transport remain insufficiently connected to the social forces that could implement them. Lederer disputes the fear of domestic world-market prices, stressing costs and productive performance and warning that price disparities can facilitate foreign acquisition of German assets. He agrees that monetary reform cannot repair an imbalance between production and consumption, while treating an international recovery loan as politically uncertain.

Rathenau’s anticipation of catastrophe, external economic control, and possible dictatorship leaves reconstruction without an effective collective subject. Lederer’s concluding emphasis on working-class action and international solidarity brings the argument together: socialization must reshape participation, motivation, and authority, not merely ownership or administrative machinery.