Public utility company

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Gemeinwirtschaftliche Anstalt (gwA) was a public company form in the First Republic of Austria (1919–1934), which was designed by the social democratic politician Otto Bauer .

These were designed on the lines of stock corporations , with a democratically elected body taking the place of the general meeting and thus representing the affairs of the interest groups associated with the company, including in particular those of the employees there.

The introduction of the legal form gwA was connected with the attempt to establish an economic system which is known today as " competitive socialism " and which was based on the synthesis between the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and Marxism . In this, the public service institutions should serve as the basic units.

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Institution meeting (decision-making body)

The general assembly appointed the members of the management. It approved the annual financial statements, decided on the appropriation of profits and decided on changes to the articles of association. Capital measures in particular had to be resolved by the general meeting.

The general assembly consisted of representatives of the founding local authority, the management and the works council. Furthermore, the articles of association stipulated that other public corporations, consumer organizations, other private interested parties and, in the case of the acceptance of partial bonds, the bank that issued them could send representatives to the general meeting. The number of representatives of the works council had to amount to at least a quarter of the positions - whereas the number of representatives of the management, the private interested parties and a bank that issued partial bonds of the establishment could not together reach half of the positions.

The duration of the activity of the general meeting comprised three business years; it expired with the resolution on the third annual balance sheet of the respective term of office.

Management (governing body)

The management of a public service institution had the management, which usually consisted of several people - it corresponded to the board of directors of a stock corporation. It was not bound by instructions, but the general direction of its work was controlled by the prison assembly.

The management was employed by a service contract. It represented the gwA externally (in and out of court); it was responsible for overall management authority and overall power of representation (e.g. bookkeeping, annual financial statements). She called the ordinary and extraordinary general meetings.

Supervisory committee (supervisory body)

The supervisory committee was appointed exclusively by the respective regional authority and controlled both the activities of the prison assembly and the management for the purpose of legal and statutory execution. If there were significant violations of these, the Supervisory Committee could demand the dissolution and replacement of both bodies.

Furthermore, the monitoring committee was obliged to inform the general meeting of management activities that could cause economic damage to the company.

The powers granted by law to the monitoring committee were significantly higher than those of the supervisory board of a corporation: the committee was able to dismiss the management against the will of the general meeting and, under certain conditions, also dissolve the general meeting.

Legal status

The establishment of a public utility was based on a law issued by the respective regional authority, in which the company was commissioned to offer a service or the manufacture of a product and which laid down its statutes - in particular the composition of the institutional assembly.

The company was officially owned by the local authority, but was only liable with the company's capital. In terms of tax and finance law, the public service institutions were treated equally with private companies.

history

see also economic calculation in socialism

The SDAP , or more precisely, the head of its left wing, Otto Bauer, developed an elaborate transformation model in the phase of Austromarxism , with which the transition from capitalism to a socialist form of society was to be achieved. In this, the public service institutions should serve as the basic units.

According to Bauer's concept, it was intended that Austria's industry should be reorganized as part of comprehensive socialization measures in the form of public service institutions and consolidated in state-controlled trusts .

Unlike in the case of the central administrative economy of the USSR and other countries of the Eastern Bloc , the market economy should not be overcome, but industry should be transferred to social ownership and administered democratically while maintaining the framework of the market economy.

Given the Austrian post-war reality - the country was a starving small state dependent on food deliveries from abroad - fundamental changes to the economic system could not be implemented. As long as the Hungarian and Munich Soviet republics held out, the Austrian parliament negotiated socialization in the spirit of Bauer. With the disintegration of these states, the willingness of the bourgeoisie to continue negotiating in this direction was no longer given. The victorious Entente powers also made it clear that they did not want any nationalization or collectivization of private companies. In the end, only a few state-owned companies in the war economy remained as public service institutions, many of which were struggling with major conversion problems for peace production, such as the Austrian Arsenal Works , which had to be liquidated. As a public service institution, the medicinal products works were particularly successful.

In the course of the establishment of the “ corporate state ” dictatorship, also known as Austrofascism , under Engelbert Dollfuss , all companies created with the legal form gwA were liquidated for ideological reasons.

Scientific evaluation

The Keynesian Austrian economist Wilhelm Weber saw a contradiction between the original idea of ​​self-administration by the prison assembly and the actually very strong position of the representatives of the state anchored in the law:

“The main weight of the decision-making authority over the management of the public service institutions was apparently no longer with the“ democratic ”body of the institution's assembly, but with the“ monitoring committee ”appointed by the local authorities. Undoubtedly, the legal structure of the public service institution would have allowed the establishment of a centralized management of the entire public service far more than the originally intended balancing of interests at company level. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Weber: Nationalization in Austria . Dunckerl & Humblot Verlag, Berlin 1964 p. 40
  2. ^ Wilhelm Weber: Nationalization in Austria . Dunckerl & Humblot Verlag, Berlin 1964 p. 40

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  • State Law Gazette for the State of German Austria of August 5, 1919: “Law of July 29, 1919 on Public Sector Enterprises” - text version of the Austrian Parliamentary Library, PDF version
  • Otto Bauer: The socialization campaign in the first year of the republic. Brand, Vienna 1919.

literature

  • Rudolf Gerlich: The failed alternative. Socialization in Austria after the First World War. Braumüller, Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-7003-0242-8 , p. 317 ff., (At the same time: Vienna, University, dissertation, 1980).
  • Erwin Weissel: The impotence of victory. Workers and socialization in Austria after the First World War. Europaverlag, Vienna 1976, ISBN 3-203-50598-3 .