The Conception of Planned Economy in German November-revolution : O. Neurath's 'Full Socialization'

Abstract

The failure of socialization in 1918-1919 revolution in Germany had a great influence on the course of the revolution. But, with the exception of reports and activites of the committee on socialization, problems of socialization have not been made clear thorouglhy as a whole. The term 'socialization' means, in general, not only to place the private enterprises under public management, but also to realize a socialist economy. Socialization, therefore, includes the problem of the confiscation of enterprises on the one hand, and the problem of the planned economy on the other. It was with the latter aspect of socialization that Wissen-Moellendorff's 'planned economy' (Planwirtschaft) and Otto Neurath's 'full socialization' (Vollsozialisierung) were concerned. The idea of Wissen-Moellendorff's 'planned economy' intended to put an economic plan into practice, on the basis of the joint-determination system between management and labour, by means of economic selfgovernment organizations under the control of a national economic council, and to achieve the postwar economic revival and industrial rationalization. O. Neurath, however, had already published his scheme for socialization in Bavaria and Saxony before the program of the central government was presented by Wissen-Moellendorff, and he tried his best to carry out the socialization in Bavaria until the Bavarian Soviet Republic collapsed early in May 1919. Neurath's opinion was at first sharply opposed by L. Brentano who had taken a position as the chairman of Bavarian Socialization Commission under the Eisner Regime. It was under the Hoffmann administration and the Soviet Republic that Neurath was entrusted with the problem of socialization. Neurath presented a detailed outline of his scheme 'full socialization', and urged that in order to control a planned economy it was necessary to create the Central Bureau of Economics, to form the compulsory syndicates of enterprises, and to establish the cooperative associations for middle and small enterprises and farmers. It is interesting that he expressed his hope, in a political upheaval in Bavaria, for an economic union of agricultural Bavaria with industrial Saxony. Neurath criticized the SPD which had no clear program of the future socialist economy, and he was actively engaged in socialization in Bavaria. He also believed that the socialist economy was not be realized at once but that it was to work on for the time being within the framework of capitalism. Since his scheme was not very radical in this sense, he was attacked by the leftwings, above all, by the KPD. But SPD also had an anxiety about his 'full socialization', because Neurath intended to abolish money and to introduce the natural economy in the coming socialistic planned economy. Although his idea of a planned economy which had derived from the experience of the war-economy had a common origin with Wissen-Moellendorff's 'planned economy', the abolishion of the money economy is the most remarkable character of his plan.