Summary

     In the wake of World War II Austria became the scene of an unusually sweeping nationalization law, enacted by the Austrian parliament for reasons relating to the Potsdam agreement on reparations as applied to "former German assets" in Austria and Soviet expropriations, under the Potsdam agreement, in the Soviet occupation zone in Austria. At the end of the four-power occupation of Austria, the conservatives sought reprivatization of much of the affected properties, which were located in both the former Soviet and former Western occupation zones. The Socialists, however, while never in a position to cause such an extensive nationalization law, were just strong enough to block any reprivatization. The two sides of Austrian politics were thereby forced into a political compromise by which this  extensive public ownership remained in place but most of the nationalized firms, which were organized as private-law companies, have functioned largely on a market basis.

     Although Austria is a small country, this unusual situation, combined with Austria's advanced economy and Western European culture, made Austria an ideal laboratory for probing in depth the general question of "market-socialist" alternatives to private ownership of large corporate firms, with regard to both positive possibilities and genuine problems and pitfalls.

     This book contains a detailed study of nationalized industrial firms in Austria that treats Austria, not as a model, but as a laboratory for precisely such a general problem-oriented inquiry.

     It draws lessons from the Austrian experience, with intimate evidence, on behalf of a new type of market socialism for corporate firms that is radically different from the arrangements used in Austria and has been little noted by reform movements around the world.

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Author Bio

     Leland G. Stauber holds a PH.D in Political Science from Harvard University (1964). His work has focused on economic institutions, comparative social and economic policies,  governmental systems, and comparative national development. He was Associate Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, from 1971 to 1992. He is currently an independent scholar in comparative politics.