Alexander Mahr, Das Problem einer wechselseitigen Güterproduktion der Erwerbslosen (1937)

Alexander Mahr’s 1937 monograph treats unemployment after the war as a structural condition rather than a passing fluctuation. War debts, new borders, rationalization, monopoly power, wage conflict, and trade and currency controls have made joblessness a lasting threat to economic and social order. Relief prevents destitution but leaves recipients idle and impoverished; emergency works are too costly to generalize. Mahr therefore asks whether the funds already spent on support can be reorganized so that the unemployed produce necessary goods for one another.

„Eine ganze Reihe von Umständen hat in der Nachkriegszeit zusammengewirkt, um die Arbeitslosigkeit in der Mehrzahl der Industrieländer zu einer den sozialen Frieden gefährdenden und den wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Fortschritt erschwerenden Massen- und Dauererscheinung zu machen.“

English translation: "A whole series of circumstances have worked together in the post-war period to turn unemployment, in the majority of industrial countries, into a mass and permanent phenomenon that endangers social peace and impedes economic and cultural progress."

The proposal is not socialism or a substitute for the market economy. Mahr imagines a bounded Hilfswerk that links idle labour and unused productive capacity, but confines output to participants’ own consumption. Its defining principle is a reciprocal production of necessities, separated from ordinary trade so that emergency goods do not depress prices or injure existing producers.

„Diese Frage ist schon verschiedentlich aufgeworfen und bejaht worden, und zwar handelt es sich hier um den Gedanken einer wechselseitigen Güterproduktion der Erwerbslosen zwecks Deckung des Eigenbedarfes.“

English translation: "This question has already been raised and answered in the affirmative on various occasions; what is involved here is the idea of a reciprocal production of goods by the unemployed for the purpose of covering their own needs."

The critical part of the book tests earlier plans in order to isolate this viable core. Lederer’s partial natural economy appears too close to uncompensated socialization of plant. Graham’s certificates and the note schemes of Eaton, Cheadle, and Ewing threaten to create a secondary purchasing circuit that would leak into the money economy, discount auxiliary goods, and displace normal production. Bayer comes nearer by including agriculture, but Mahr doubts that wage-cost savings alone could make goods cheap enough for unemployed consumers. Nehring and Treplin see the importance of advance orders, yet their demand for immediate full employment at normal wages through public works remains fiscally and conjuncturally dangerous.

Mahr’s constructive design begins with pre-ordering. Because free markets generate uncertainty and unsold output, the Hilfswerk must not produce speculatively. Participating households would place binding orders for goods before production begins; within this emergency sphere, consumer freedom is limited in exchange for a much higher real income.

„Wäre die ganze Produktion auf Vorausbestellungen aufgebaut, gäbe es natürlich auch keine Absatzkrisen, weil eben dann nur die Waren erzeugt würden, welche schon im Vorhinein ihre Abnehmer gefunden haben.“

English translation: "If the whole of production were built on advance orders, there would of course be no sales crises either, because then only those goods would be produced which had already found their buyers in advance."

Payment likewise marks off the auxiliary economy from the normal one. Workers are not primarily paid in freely spendable money, but in restricted claims—Bezugscheine or Bezugsbücher—redeemable only for Hilfswerk goods. This prevents the scheme from becoming a rival currency or a channel through which subsidized goods are dumped on ordinary markets.

Food is indispensable to the plan. Since relief budgets are spent chiefly on rent and food, a merely industrial auxiliary economy would leave the unemployed short of necessities and tempt them to resell clothing or furniture cheaply. Mahr therefore includes farmers with marketable surpluses, exchanging milk, meat, sugar, timber, and other products for industrial goods. Where agriculture cannot supply enough, part-time settlement—gardens, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, poultry, and small livestock—reduces cash needs and strengthens the system’s material basis.

Financing is intentionally restrained. Mahr rejects both special currencies and large-scale debt-financed public works. Existing unemployment allowances supply the cash foundation, with extra funds needed chiefly for unsupported workers whose claims have expired.

„Die Realisierung des Hilfswerkes erfordert nur einen relativ mäßigen Geldaufwand.“

English translation: "The realization of the relief scheme requires only a relatively moderate expenditure of money."

The cost argument is central. Money costs fall because labour and administration are partly remunerated in claims on goods; labour-intensive methods are favoured; special emergency production may be relieved of some social charges; taxes, transport, and retail margins are reduced; and entrepreneurs receive compensation for wear, special expenses, and moderate remuneration rather than monopoly profit. The object is to cover most subsistence in kind while preserving cash for rent and unavoidable money payments.

In the Austrian applications, Mahr names milk, butter, cheese, livestock products, sugar, timber, brown coal, mills, bakeries, and suitable industrial branches as possible components, supplemented by settlement production of vegetables, fruit, eggs, and small livestock. A central office would gather orders, assign firms and workers through labour exchanges, and administer accounts. The book’s significance lies in its attempt to turn relief into production without inflation, market displacement, or unlimited state expenditure: a disciplined emergency economy designed to protect the ordinary economy while sustaining those excluded from it.