Walther Rathenau
The most prominent example of the latter is Rathenau (1867-1922) whose influential pamphlet Die neue Wirtschaft was published in early 1918. In one of his central propositions Rathenau followed the ideas of German state socialism: that it is the task of the state to take charge of the organization of production as well as of income distribution.
Similar to the concept provided by British guild socialism, Rathenau proposed the formation of associations of production establishments for all branches of the industrial sector of the economy (“Berufsverbande”) through which production and investment would be organized within a comprehensive overall national plan. However, Rathenau’s ultimate aim was not a socialist economy with state or workers’ ownership of enterprises, but rather to preserve private ownership within a “mixed economy”. The socialization concept of Rudolf Wissel (1920) who was minister of economic affairs in the first Social- Democratic government of the Weimar Republic followed Rathenau’s principal ideas. A national economic plan (“Reichswirtschaftsplan”) should have exercised control over the economy as a whole. Wissel conceived his planned economy as a state of transition during which the masses would be educated for a new way of thinking and behaving adequately in a socialist economy.Rathenau also introduced “rationalization” of the production apparatus as a key concept for the reorganization of the industrial sector and of economic activities as a whole to cope with post-war problems. A large part of the proliferous literature on socialization was concerned with elimination of “wasteful activity” of the capitalist system (unnecessary transport routes, excessive sales efforts, advertising, and so on).
The alternative between partial and total socialization was another hotly debated issue in Germany. Drawing on his experience as a member of Germany’s and Austria’s committees for socialization (“Sozialisierungskommission”) in 1919, Emil Lederer (1920) presented an economic concept for socialization of “key industries” such as coal, iron and steel, and parts of the chemical industry. Lederer acknowledged that total socialization was out of reach, while Wissel’s Reichswirtschaftsplan was ineffective in practice. In Lederer’s view, partial socialization was urgent to stop the sell-out of key German industrial enterprises to foreign companies. Socialization of enterprises should be achieved through organizing companies of the identified branches in “trusts”.