4,099 works, 472 books, 3,268 articles, 356 other works, 3 awaiting classification, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
What can a coal council plan if experts judge it impossible to determine output in advance? In this brief speaking turn from the German Socialization Commission’s proceedings published in 1920, Emil Lederer explains a revision to the proposed Reich Coal Council’s powers. Instead of explicitly fixing production quantities, the council would decide on new works, closures, amalgamations, operating-unit size, prices and sales, and prepare an annual management plan. Lederer insists that the amendment makes no substantive change. The interest lies in that distinction: this compact documentary source lets readers examine how he accommodates a stated technical limit while maintaining the purpose of coordinated economic management.
In this single recorded intervention in the coal-mining deliberations of the Socialization Commission, Emil Lederer proposes moving § 5 behind §§ 6 and 7 and renumbering all three. The interest is narrowly documentary: the turn preserves a precise act of textual organization, not a substantive argument about coal mining. It allows readers to identify Lederer’s proposed sequence while leaving the provisions’ contents and his reasons for rearranging them unknown.
An annual plan for the coal industry does not yet explain who will put it into effect. In this brief recorded intervention in the German Socialization Commission’s proceedings published in 1920, Emil Lederer presses that distinction. Having secured agreement that the plan covers coal mining as a whole, he asks whether the Reich Coal Council, or its appointed directorate, must implement it by assigning tasks to individual enterprises. His question makes a concrete administrative difficulty visible: how an industry-wide plan becomes obligations for particular works. The turn offers neither a settled institutional arrangement nor an answer, but a precise demand for clarification about the authority planning requires.
Ja, aber wie ist dieser Bewirtschaftungsplan durchzuführen?
English translation: “Yes, but how is this management plan to be implemented?”
Who would control coal production if the state supplied its investment funds? In this brief intervention in the socialization commission proceedings published in 1920, Emil Lederer warns that state credit could bring nationalization by an indirect route. His concern is concrete: financial participation would give the finance ministry disproportionate influence over administration and price-setting, making bureaucratic management difficult to resist. He therefore favors raising funds for promising new installations on the capital market, as an industrial concern would, while acknowledging that the question needs further clarification. The turn offers a compact example of Lederer examining credit not simply as a source of money, but as a means by which governing power can shift without a formal change of ownership.
How can compensation for coal-mine owners leave room to finance new investment? In this brief recorded intervention in the German Socialization Commission’s 1920 deliberations, Emil Lederer distinguishes the amount owed from the financial form in which it is paid. He proposes granting part of the compensation as an annuity rather than bonds, arguing that legitimate claims could thereby be met without encumbering the enterprise’s entire value. His attention to how outstanding debt appears to investors gives the proposal its particular edge: financing capacity depends not only on legal obligations but also on their presentation to the capital market. The passage offers a compact view of a practical tension within socialization—compensating existing owners without exhausting future borrowing capacity.
What does it mean to direct an industry without authority over its wages and working conditions? In this brief speaking turn recorded in the 1920 coal-mining deliberations of the German Socialization Commission, Emil Lederer tests the broad mandate granted to the Reich Coal Council against an explicit exclusion of employment matters. The council must be informed of agreements, but notification is not the same as power to regulate. Lederer calls his objection formal rather than substantive, leaving the issue open without demanding expanded powers. The passage offers a compact example of how a seemingly comprehensive statutory mandate can be narrowed by the precise allocation of responsibilities.
A participant’s impending journey becomes a reason to reorder debate in this brief intervention from the coal-mining socialization commission’s 1920 proceedings. Emil Lederer proposes taking Werner’s amendments first so they can be discussed before Werner leaves. The turn offers a precise glimpse of practical agenda-setting, not a position on coal mining or the merits of the amendments.
When Wissell proposes limiting a provision to the ordinary relationship of hiring and dismissal in a regular enterprise, Emil Lederer interjects that this would be the capitalist arrangement. The short recorded remark pinpoints a distinction within the commission’s debate over works-council rights. It identifies his objection without developing an alternative system of employment relations.
What role remains for a works committee when a central body has already determined changes in employment? In this brief intervention recorded in the coal-mining commission proceedings published in 1920, Emil Lederer proposes a compromise between deleting and retaining a disputed paragraph of § 23. He accepts the Reich Coal Council’s authority over the nature and scale of hiring and dismissals, noting that workers are represented there, but insists that management involve the works committee in preventing hardship during implementation. The interest lies in this precise distinction: workplace participation need not reopen a binding decision to influence how it affects workers.
In this brief recorded intervention in the 1920 coal-mining deliberations of Germany’s Socialization Commission, Emil Lederer doubts that a unified vote can be reached on the point under discussion. The transcript immediately registers objections and interjections: even his assessment of the prospects for agreement meets resistance. The disputed issue and Lederer’s reasons remain unspecified. This small documentary source offers a precise glimpse of procedural friction, rather than a statement of his substantive position on coal mining.
A reserved share of council seats need not measure workers’ actual influence: this is Emil Lederer’s reason for opposing an increase in their designated 25% representation on the proposed Reich Coal Council. In this brief intervention in the 1920 Socialization Commission deliberations, he expects workers also to enter through consumer representation and parliamentary appointments. His treatment of executive powers is similarly attentive to institutional detail: budgetary and procedural oversight, he argues, already leaves the Reich Coal Directorate the independence needed to manage effectively. The contribution offers a compact example of Lederer reasoning through the difference between formal categories and practical authority, rather than treating either worker representation or administrative autonomy as a simple numerical or legal formula.
In this single-sentence intervention in the coal-mining commission proceedings, Emil Lederer adds municipalities, the association of cities, and consumer cooperatives to a category under discussion. The category itself is not preserved in this extracted speaking turn. Its interest lies in the concrete institutions Lederer names: a brief clarification that brings municipal and cooperative bodies within the discussion’s scope, without supplying a wider argument about their role.