Socialists of the chair
The economists of the German Historical School who founded the Verein fur Socialpolitik (Association for Social Policy) in 1872 were called Kathedersozialisten (socialists of the chair) by their political adversaries.
They rejected the negative attitude of the Manchester School according to which “the state was a necessary evil which should be restricted to a minimum” and advocated an active role of the state by improving the living conditions of the working class and the poor. On the other hand, they opposed “socialist experiments” and revolutionary ambitions (Schmoller 1998: 70 ff.). Most of their policy proposals contented themselves with preventing or modifying undesired social effects of industrial development by introducing compulsory accident and health insurance, pension systems, and factory laws to improve working conditions, and were thus essentially of an interventionist character. The most far reaching proposals were presented by Adolph Wagner in his “Program of State Socialism”. Wagner called for comprehensive participation of the working classes “in the material and cultural fruit to the maximum extent which is made possible by the increase of productive powers”. This implies raising the share of wages, limiting daily working hours, introducing occupational health and safety standards, workers’ insurance, and so on. Wagner also proposed to use the provision of public services for redistribution through nationalization or communalization. He also called for changes in the system of taxation to shift the burden of financing state expenditure in favour of the working class and the lower income groups (Wagner 1887 [1940]: 279 ff.). Wagner’s programme does not aim at a fundamental change of the economic order since in principle private ownership of the means of production, and market coordination are maintained. Therefore, Adolph Wagner is not a socialist in the sense of Carl Rodbertus’s long-term vision. With Rodbertus, Wagner shared the preference for the monarchist rule in the form of a “social kingship”.