Cartel investigation
The cartel survey was a survey on the status and role of cartelization in Germany's industry, which was carried out between 1902 and 1905. It was officially canceled on November 20, 1905 because the Reich authorities were overloaded.
General
The trigger was the price policy of the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Kohlen-Syndikats in the recession of 1901, whereupon several heated debates in the Reichstag raised the question of the role of cartels in general.
The inquiry was under the direction of the State Secretary in the Reich Office of the Interior Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner , in practice it was led by Privy Councilor Richard van der Borght . It was based on preliminary work by the cartel expert Voelcker and some employees of the cartel department in the Reich Office of the Interior, which was suggested by Posadowsky.
Selected cartel representatives, politicians and scientists were invited as members, who conducted the investigation in free adversarial discussion. 20 cartels were selected as a representative cross-section and a catalog of 14 questions was drawn up.
Scientific representatives were: Gustav von Schmoller , Lujo Brentano and Johannes Conrad .
Representatives from the parties were:
- Spahn, center
- Molkenbuhr, SPD
- Count Kanitz, German Conservative
- Gothein, liberals
- Müller-Sagan, liberals
- Beumer Nationalliberal, as general secretary of the Langnam Association at the same time representative of the raw materials and heavy industry
A major point of contention was whether the cartel representatives should be required to make truthful statements. Schmoller, Brentano, Gothein and Spahn advocated it, the cartel representatives protested. Privy Councilor Borght decided against such an obligation.
The results were first published in book form in the Reichsanzeiger.
Adversarial negotiations over German cartels.
- Volume 1: Coal and Coke, 1903.
- Volume 2: Printing Paper and Book Stores, 1904.
- Volume 3: Iron and Steel 1, 1904.
- Volume 4: Iron and Steel 2, 1905.
- Volume 5: Spiritus, 1906.
- Issue 11: Associations in the Wallpaper Industry, 1906.
Rating by Fritz Blaich
According to the economic historian Friz Blaich, this inquiry served as a source for numerous works on the cartel problem, but which does not address the question of the information value of this source.
According to him, due to the market power of the cartels and the lack of will of the Reich authorities to investigate the cartels, no objective investigation was possible.
The market power of the cartels had already become so great that it was difficult to force representatives of non-cartelized industries, who were dependent on them as suppliers and buyers, to participate in the negotiations and to persuade them to make precise statements. The “German Trading Day” wrote to Posadowsky on November 11, 1902 that it had selected suitable representatives from the buyers of the wire pen syndicate to participate, but rejected them “because they - probably rightly - feared that they would be able to speak freely in one of the syndicate in the most unfavorable sense, they could be boycotted by it and thereby possibly endangered their existence ”. Brentano, who soon resigned from the study angry and disappointed, reports on a statement made by the President of the Rolling Mill Association, who told him:
"You are an independent man and you can talk safely, but I risk difficulties with obtaining coal."
According to Blaich, the negotiations were directed by the officials of the Reich Office of the Interior in decisive phases in favor of the cartels and syndicates. When, for example, Professor Brentano wanted to ask the question about the retroactive effect of the cartels on the concentration of industry, Privy Councilor Borght “literally put the emergency brake” on the grounds that “the gentlemen from the Rhineland wanted to take the two o'clock train from Berlin and before that to have lunch".
During the negotiations, Voelcker went from being a critic of the cartels to being a friend of the cartels. Blaich points out that he moved to the board of the steelworks association in 1904 , but leaves it open whether the industry "turned him around". In general, Blaich leaves the question open whether the officials were bribed by the industry or whether they became receptive to the arguments of those interested in cartels during the long and intensive occupation.
Blaich sees the real reason for breaking off the inquiry in the resignation of the Reich authorities to obtain objective information.
literature
- Fritz Blaich: Die Kartellenquete (1902–1905) - A contribution to the behavior of the ministerial bureaucracy towards economic interest groups in Wilhelmine Germany - . In: Ingomar Bog ua (ed.): Economic and social structures in change . Hanover 1974, Volume 3, p. 775 ff.