Wilhelm Lautenbach

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Wilhelm Lautenbach (born August 26, 1891 in Zwinge ; † May 24, 1948 in Davos ) was a financial advisor in the Reich Ministry of Economics in the 1930s, where he primarily dealt with currency issues , the German banking crisis , the effects of reparations payments and the then prevailing mass unemployment busy.

Chart by Wilhelm Lautenbach on entrepreneurial profit & demand

Lautenbach was one of the leading German business theorists at the time and is still considered the most important among the forerunners of Keynesianism .

The Lautenbach plan is named after him, the Lautenbach on 16./17. September 1931 at the secret conference of the Friedrich List Society explained to the participants in more detail and which is based on a double strategy: wage reductions in order to expand employment (with constant economic wage costs) and economic policy measures that could motivate companies to invest (at the latest when the Germans broke out Banking crisis , net investments and replacement investments were largely neglected by the companies). Lautenbach was completely clear: "Only if new credit is created or idle funds are set in motion, such an action could give the economy as a whole an invigorating boost."

However, since German monetary policy was subject to restrictions due to the internationally bound Central Bank Act and due to the reparation obligations after the First World War, it was not assumed that the Lautenbach Plan would be approved internationally and was therefore initially not implemented.

Wilhelm Röpke reported on a conversation between Lautenbach and Adolf Hitler in the early summer of 1933 about the expansion of state credit : “We learned that this conversation was one of the rare ones in which it was not Hitler but the other who spoke. When Hitler objected that such a credit expansion was after all inflation, Lautenbach replied: 'Herr Hitler, you are now the most powerful man in Germany. There is only one thing you cannot do: you cannot inflate under the current circumstances, however hard you try. '"

In 1944 Lautenbach reflected: “As simple as the theoretical and practical task of achieving full employment is theoretically and in a closed system, it becomes problematic when it is not a closed economy but one that inevitably combines with other economies Maintain traffic and the exchange of goods. The smaller a country is, the fewer its own raw materials are available and the less varied its processing, the greater its dependence on other countries and their prosperity, the less it can secure employment and prosperity in its own country through its own investment policy . "

When the IMF and World Bank were founded in Bretton Woods in 1944 , Lautenbach vehemently criticized the background to the International Monetary Fund: “The fact that the Keynes Plan has gone back to the Monetary Fund seems to show that the United States is unwilling to exploit it to renounce their financial power disposition. "

Lautenbach is mostly referred to as a Keynesian or pre-Keynesian Keynesian, although Borchardt does not consider these terms appropriate, as Lautenbach dealt with solutions to far more complex issues.

The German economist Wolfgang Stützel , who developed the balance mechanics , pays tribute to Wilhelm Lautenbach for “his” credit mechanics , calling it “Lautenbach credit mechanics”.

Works (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Binder: Wilhelm Lautenbach and modern economics. ( online )
  2. ↑ Oliver Landmann: The theoretical foundations for active crisis management in Germany 1930-1933. (Ed. Gottfried Bombach) In: Der Keynesianismus III. Heidelberg 1981.
  3. ^ Hans-Hermann Hartwich: Mass unemployment and the democratic crisis - job creation and social reaction. In: trade union monthly bulletins , 4–5 / 1983 ( PDF; 107 KB )
  4. ^ AJ Nicholls: Freedom with responsibility: the social market economy in Germany, 1918–1963. Oxford University Press 2000, ISBN 0-19-820852-9 , pp. 53-55
  5. ↑ Knut Borchardt, Hans Otto Schötz (ed.): Economic policy in the crisis. The (secret) conference of the Friedrich List Society in September 1931 on the possibilities and consequences of credit expansion. Baden-Baden 1991. Memorandum by Lautenbach in the appendix: Possibilities of an economic recovery through investment and credit expansion. ("Lautenbach Plan")
  6. ↑ Knut Borchardt, Hans Otto Schötz (ed.): Economic policy in the crisis. The (secret) conference of the Friedrich List Society in September 1931 on the possibilities and consequences of credit expansion. Baden-Baden 1991. - Foreword by the editors (PDF) p. 3:
    “Against the background of the problem situation described in this way, the LAUTENBACH plan, which aimed to stimulate production, and the discussion are extremely interesting. It's about the meaning and the chances of realizing a dual strategy, about the combination of demand-theoretical and supply-theoretical arguments or, in other words, about a systematic connection between expansion and deflation policies. "
  7. ↑ Hak-Ie Kim: Industry, State and Economic Policy. The economic policy discussion in the final phase of the Weimar Republic 1930-1932 / 33. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997. ( online ) p. 126.
  8. ↑ Knut Borchardt, Hans Otto Schötz (ed.): Economic policy in the crisis. The (secret) conference of the Friedrich List Society in September 1931 on the possibilities and consequences of credit expansion. Baden-Baden 1991. p. 231 f: Lautenbach literally: "Today you have the fact that all German companies have almost stopped all replacement needs."
  9. ↑ Interest, Credit and Production. P. 162. ( PDF )
  10. ^ Willi Albers, Anton Zottmann: Concise dictionary of economics. Volume 5. Stuttgart and Tübingen 1980. p. 333. ( online )
  11. ↑ Interest, Credit and Production. ( PDF ) p. 161:
    "Of course, at a time when we have a forced currency economy and standstill agreements, we cannot even think of thawing our entire credit system and the capital market along the American lines."
  12. ↑ Albrecht Ritschl: Germany's crisis and economic situation 1924-1934. Berlin 2002. p. 160 ff. ( Online ( memento of the original from October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / books.google.at
  13. ↑ Interest, credit and production (Ed. Wolfgang Stützel), Tübingen 1952 (PDF; 1.2 MB), page X.
  14. ↑ Interest, Credit and Production. P. 167. ( PDF )
  15. ↑ Interest, Credit and Production. ( PDF ) p. 168 f .:
    “Even the first glance shows every professional assessor that the original Keynes plan far overshadows the White plan and the new compromise     plan, and indeed that it is a highly elegant one compared to these plans , represents a highly rational, technically fully thought-out constructive solution. The fact that Lord Keynes himself vigorously defended the new plan in the House of Lords and tried to prove that it met all requirements, but especially that it gave England the freedom of action and security that it needed, cannot change this fundamental assessment. He explained that, under the new plan, England had complete autonomy in its national interest, credit and investment policy, that the ability to manipulate the exchange rate reserved in the plan gave it the opportunity to give domestic price policy priority over the principle of currency stability. This general defense is not as instructive as the explanatory remarks made by the British experts on the compromise plan, which were published in the British White Paper. I would particularly like to draw your attention here to points I, 9 and II of these observations. It says in No. I: Under the “Clearing Union” (Keynes Plan), the member states should have accounts kept with the “Clearing Union”, with which they wanted to maintain credit balances or carry out overdrafts. Under the “International Monetary Fund”, the “Fund” maintains accounts with the member countries who undertake to give the “Fund” the opportunity to maintain and dispose of local assets. If, under the 'Clearing Union', a member state withdrew funds from the 'Union', this meant that its own balance would decrease and that of another member would increase. If, on the other hand, a member state withdraws funds from the 'Fund', this means that the assets of the 'Fund' increase with this member and its assets decrease with another member ... "
  16. ^ Foreword by Wilhelm Röpke in: Interest, credit and production. ( PDF )
  17. ^ Charles P. Kindleberger : The Manichaean character of economics ( Memento from July 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Challenge. September / October 1999.
  18. ↑ Knut Borchardt, Hans Otto Schötz (ed.): Economic policy in the crisis. The (secret) conference of the Friedrich List Society in September 1931 on the possibilities and consequences of credit expansion. Baden-Baden 1991. - Foreword by the editors (PDF) p. 2:
    “Its author, WILHELM LAUTENBACH, was later often referred to, including by EUCKEN, as the“ German Keynes ”. There is some evidence in favor of adding a question mark to this characterization, admittedly not in the sense that it would be denied any legitimacy. But LAUTENBACH tackled a much more complex problem than KEYNES ever had in mind in his theoretical contributions: How can in an open economy, in a highly precarious foreign exchange situation and with credit markets that are absolutely unproductive for the public purse (which forced the public sector to open on Program of balancing income and expenditure!), An employment policy be pursued that fulfills its purpose, not least because it does not unnecessarily irritate the creditors of the huge stocks of short-term loans and the rest of the public, even panic? "
  19. ^ Hermann Feifel: The applicability of the modern credit creation theory to the special kind of the savings bank business. Berlin 1959. ( online ) p. 38 f:
    “Furthermore, the advocates of the theory of the exclusively giral credit creation activity of the banks do not take into account the rules of credit mechanics developed by Lautenbach. Namely, a credit claimed such that the customer pays to another customer, the result is not a new demand deposit. A new sight deposit can only be created if the customer pays to a vendor when the loan is drawn down . "
  20. ↑ Hartmut Schmidt, Eberhart Ketzel, Stefan Prigge (eds.): Wolfgang Stützel - Modern concepts for financial markets, employment and the economic constitution. Tübingen 2001. Foreword XII. ( online )
personal data
SURNAME Lautenbach, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil servant in the Reich Ministry of Economics
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH ferrule
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1948
Place of death Davos