Raphael Ernst May

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Mural in Hamburg-Ottensen - Founders of the consumer, building and savings association Produktion 1899: Helma Steinbach , Adolph von Elm and Raphael Ernst May. Financed by the Heinrich Stegemann Art Foundation.

Raphael Ernst May (born February 21, 1858 in London ; † July 7, 1933 in Hamburg ) was a German business journalist and co-founder of the consumer, construction and savings association "Produktion"

Life

After his father, the textile wholesaler Simon May (1816–1866), died, Raphael Ernst May came to live with relatives in Frankfurt am Main , where he completed an apprenticeship in metal trading after completing secondary school. He worked as a businessman at home and abroad and married Blanche Adler in London. The family business Simon May & Co. , which has had a branch in Manchester since 1813 and one in Nottingham since 1849, was continued by the businessman Philipp Simon.

In 1889 he returned to Hamburg and became a partner and later sole owner of the sugar wholesaler Alexander Jahn & Co. In his high-risk commodity futures transactions , comprehensive consideration of information was important to him.

He published summaries of such information on a weekly basis in the trading sections of Hamburg and Berlin newspapers. From 1895 he published annual reports on general economic development. He observed that mass consumption grew, so the Marxist prediction of the slow impoverishment of the workers did not come true. He provided Eduard Bernstein with statistically well-founded arguments for criticizing Marx.

During the dock workers' strike in 1896/97 he sought contact with Adolph von Elm and union officials and became a mentor for the 1898 founding of the consumer, construction and savings association "Produktion" . The fact that Elm diminished his contribution to the founding history offended him all his life.

From 1900 he only devoted himself to his publications, which appeared as articles in renowned specialist journals such as Schmoller's Yearbook, Prussian Yearbooks, Archive for Social Science and Social Policy, Finance Archive, and reported on national income, consumption, taxes and demographic issues.

During the First World War he worked on a voluntary basis in the Hamburg news office of the Prussian General Staff on foreign trade and nutrition.

Publications

  • The cannon as an industrial lever according to the National Socialist recipe ; 1897
  • Economic and commercial policy review for the year 1898
  • The economy in the past, present and future: with 130 tables and comparative overviews: at the turn of the century ; 1901
  • The basic law of economic crises and their preventive means in the age of monopoly ; 1902
  • On the Hamburg suffrage bill: material to criticize its justification ; 1905
  • On the question of a wealth tax in Hamburg ; 1911
  • Cost of living and development of income relationships in Hamburg since 1890 ; 1915
  • Denominational military statistics ; 1917
  • The surplus of women according to denominations ; 1919
  • Mixed marriages and divorces ; 1929

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kirsten Haake: Helma Steinbach 1847–1918 - A pioneer for trade unions, cooperatives and parties, biography, publisher: Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2018, p. 41, ISBN 978-3-7528-2318-9
personal data
SURNAME May, Raphael Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German business journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1933
Place of death Hamburg