The German November-Revolution and the scheme of the collective economy (Gemeinwirtschaft)

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Other Title
  • ドイツ11月革命と共同経済構想
  • ドイツ 11ガツ カクメイ ト キョウドウ ケイザイ コウソウ

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Abstract

The German Revolution of 1918-19 can be regarded as a battle-field, in which three different conceptions of economic policy, i.e. the socialization, the economic liberalism and the collective economy, contended for a new social and economic order of the Weimar Republic. In this paper I have sought to clarify the essential features of the scheme of the collective economy by analyzing the confrontation of these three economic policies in the German Revolution. The scheme of the collective economy, devised by W. Rathenau and W. v. Mollendorff during the First World War and carried out vainly by the Imperial Minister of Economy R. Wissell in the period of the German Revolution, was a comprehensive programme concerning the reorganization of a highly industrialized and organised capitalist economy. The idea of this scheme originated in the German war economy of 1914-18 which accelerated the organising tendencies of the German capitalism and at the same time completed the integration of the German workers into the state through the trade unions. Insted of the market mechanism, the scheme of the collective economy aimed at constructing a planned economy under the control of the state, based on the joint management of the employers and the trade unions in the self-governing organs (die wirtschaftlichen Selbstverwaltungskorper). So it is obvious that the keystone of this scheme was laid on the well-functioning co-operation between the employers and the workers.

Journal

  • The Journal of Agrarian History

    The Journal of Agrarian History 19 (4), 36-47, 1977

    The Agrarian History Society (Renamed as The Political Economy and Economic History Society)

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