- Yg. 1922, No. 30 -

Since Marxists have proved incapable of giving us socialism (probably because we were not "ripe"), we can not blame ourselves if we turn our backs on preoccupation with "scientific" socialism. and other doctrines: those that are not so learned and do not think so "historically," but seek to form a picture of what the socialist society of the future would look like and how it would lead. These socialists, to whom reality is more than doctrine, and the future more important than the past, are regarded by the socialist representatives since Marx under the name of the "utopians" over the shoulders, because they are a "subdued" stage and scientific not perfect. But we laymen, who we also consider ourselves socialists, may be able to do more with them than with the high scholars and their followers, who have shown that they can disassemble but not put together.

Such a utopian is the Austrian engineer Josef Popper with the writer's name Lynkeus, who in old age at 21. December 1921 died. As a result of a life work Popper Lynkeus has his book in the year 1912 "The universal obligation of nutrition as a solution to the social question" published by Carl Reißner in Dresden. During the lifetime of the author, the work has received little publicity; now that he's dead - that's how it usually works - you'll "discover" him and maybe even set a memorial for him.

Popper-Lynkeus does not go in his thoughts from capitalism, but from the need. He wants to eliminate that; He does not care how capitalism is affected. Distress is the concomitant or consequence of the existential uncertainty that is the hallmark of our economic constitution. There are in her, seen correctly, only two classes: the small of the secured and the very large, not just the workers comprehensive, the unsecured existences. They are under constant threat, not so much and consistently from the general economic crises, as from the purely personal random "private crises", as Popper calls them. A painter who becomes blind; a doctor who becomes deaf; a saver whose papers are stolen or lose their value; a farmer who has a bad name; an accountant who is dismissed for differences with the boss; a young widow who loses the breadwinner; a family afflicted with illness; the gardener in bad weather, the summer theater director with good: they all can go to the bottom of "private crises" against which no social program helps because they are unpredictable. There is only one single remedy: the guarantee of the subsistence level of food, clothing, housing and medical help for every citizen without distinction. To grant this, but no more, is the duty and duty of society; and is possible for the society. What goes beyond that is a matter for the individual and must be left to him. Popper believes that the full elimination of the private profit-making, the private free economy, such as radical socialization (eg of the "scientific" socialists) thinks impossible. utopian!) and not desirable.

The condition of the delivery of the subsistence minimum to each individual, not in money, but in nature, and at the same time the return of the individual to the whole, is the introduction of a general duty of service, the establishment of a "Nährpflichtarmee"In which all male and female citizens have a certain time to serve; and the establishment of the necessary number of large-scale agricultural and industrial enterprises. The service time in the Nursing Army would take after Poppers calculation in Germany for men 13 years and for women 8 years (from the 18 to 30., Or from the 18 to 25. with a daily working time from 7 to 7½ hours.

Popper separates the necessities of life from the superfluous. For this he wants to preserve the free economy with money as a means of exchange and free competition, ie "capitalism". He wants to "socialize" this: it is to be procured by the universal obligation to feed and distributed "free of charge", avoiding any kind of money economy, to every citizen from birth to death.

His program is accordingly:

"The social question (as a question of the secure standard of life of all) can be solved by the institution of a minimum or nutritional army, which helps produce or bring about all that is necessary to man according to the principles of physiology and hygiene; and if it can be procured, something beyond that, that is, what is desirable for the sake of a more comfortable way of life.

The supply of this subsistence or subsistence level happens in nature, not in money form, without exception and unconditionally for all people belonging to the state; only those who are fit to behave among them through a general obligation of compulsory nursing to work for a certain number of years in the minimum institution, which is subordinate to a ministry of life.

The minimum institution ensures everyone: food, home and home furnishings, clothing, medical care and nursing. Everything that does not belong to this minimum is considered a luxury and is reserved for the hitherto free money economy, with private property and contractual freedom, which, since the existence of all is secured, may possibly be operated even more freely than today.

In addition to the subsistence minimum distributed in nature, a secondary or cultural minimum is also distributed unconditionally, but in money form, which should make it possible to satisfy luxury needs by purchasing from the private sector. "

The reader is the relationship Poppers with Wichard v. Moellendorff (also a Ingeniör!) noticed. This, too, is based on the distinction between subsistence minimum and luxury. He wishes to satisfy that socialist and division of labor; He wants to release this, albeit with the elimination of division-labor, in which employers and employees arise. Perhaps Popper-Lynkeus would reply to Moellendorff that the prohibition of labor-based production would not be necessary for the free economy in his state, since after the cessation of the hunger whip the worker would automatically put the employer in a different position of power, because then ( around with Oppenheimer no longer two workers a businessman, but two entrepreneurs would run after a worker.

1922, 30 ─Sh.