Chapter 40: Wartime Economic System

  Chapter 40 Wartime Economic System

After the Vienna rebellion was suppressed, Franz immediately ordered the military control of the city, and then is busy copying the family, this time the implication is very wide, a moment is not clear.

In order to appease the people, Franz issued the first relief food, anyway, are copied from the family, divided also divided, he did not hurt.

Grain, coal and other necessities of life, are now being distributed free of charge, the people who have just been stimulated, finally settled down.

For the sake of political necessity, Franz also decisively characterized the rebellion and threw the black pot on the capitalists.

The media in Vienna were controlled by him, and all the articles published at this time were “Alert to the capitalists’ conspiracy”, “The role of the international black hand in the Vienna rebellion”, “Capitalists running away with the money”, and “The capitalists running away with the money”. “……

“The most important work of the Austrian Provisional Government was to carry out a copy of the capitalists and aristocrats involved in the revolt, and their properties were not all concentrated in Vienna. The capitalists and aristocrats involved in the rebellion did not have all their properties concentrated in Vienna, so this work of copying the families was still a long way to go.

Not waiting for Franz to appoint a cabinet, the news of the outbreak of the Lombardy Rebellion reached Vienna, which was another heavy blow to the conservative aristocracy.

When alarmism became reality, then reform was inevitable, the voice of the reformers in the Austrian government rose again, in order to avoid the collapse of the empire, the conservatives had to accept this reality.

On March 18, 1848, Franz appointed Margrave Felix Schwarzenberg as Chancellor;

Appointment of Karl Ludwig von Bruck as Chancellor of the Exchequer;

Appointment of Count Leo von Tuss-Hohenheim Stein as Minister of Education;

Appointment of Archduke Louis as Minister of the Interior;

Appointment of Count Koloft as Minister of State;

Appointment of Clemens Metternich as Minister of Foreign Affairs ……

For the political reforms in Austria, Franz still took conservative measures and didn’t zoom in right from the start, as you can see from this list.

Political tactics were on display, with a prime minister who favored strong suppression of the revolution, a finance minister who favored fiscal reform, an education minister who favored educational reform, and conservative interior and state ministers.

Even for the sake of power checks and balances, Franz recalled the notorious former Prime Minister Metternich as Foreign Minister.

Of course, the main reason is that Metternich is diplomatic enough and there is no more suitable candidate in Austria at the moment.

The first thing the new government did was to deal with the aftermath of the Vienna Rebellion.

Now this mode of distributing relief food is certainly not sustainable, but now that the capitalists are so deep in the revolution that they can’t extricate themselves from it, one by one, they all run away, and there is no way to talk about resuming production.

Now the city, half of the population are in a state of unemployment, if there is no government issued relief supplies, Vienna will soon be in chaos.

Franz presided over the Cabinet meeting as a matter of course: “At present, the Vienna rebellion is over, the post-war reconstruction work must begin immediately, nearly 40,000 prisoners urgently waiting for us to resettle, what is the plan of the Cabinet?”

There was no way around it, this was a critical time, they had just taken office and had to fulfill their duties, there was no time for them to familiarize themselves with the business.

Prime Minister Felix replied, “I suggest adopting a wartime economic system, with the government taking over these unowned factories, resuming production first and guaranteeing employment for the people.

For the specifics, we can fine-tune it according to the actual situation, adjusting the production lines by the market demand to avoid wastage from happening!”

As expected, historically Austria also had a wartime economic system, and survived the initial difficulties.

Now the situation, better than in history is Franz out fast enough to seize the capitalists, directly confiscated these factories.

In other words, to do so now is to have a state-owned economic system as the dominant one, and the underclass certainly won’t object, because state-owned enterprises cannot exploit them as recklessly as private enterprises.

“At present, the situation in Austria is very bad, there is already a rebellion in the Italian region, and the Hungarian region is also on the verge of stupidity, and the adoption of a wartime economic system is very necessary.

However, if so many factories are confiscated from the government’s hands now, and we organize the resumption of production, labor costs will have to increase!” Finance Minister Karl spoke up

There was no doubt that the government had a face to live up to, and the laws it had made had to be obeyed, and the Labor Protection Act that had been put on hold was certainly not going to be able to be used as toilet paper now.

Franz shook his head and said, “Labor costs can’t be increased by much, using the average wage level of Vienna’s industry workers before the rebellion as a base salary.

The vast majority of industries we can also use the piecework system, more work more pay, stimulate the workers’ enthusiasm for production, labor wages increased, the workers will produce the same increase in the product.

If we shift to a wartime economic system, the waste generated by market competition, will also cease to exist, as long as we don’t have any problems with our management, there should be no such thing as a so-called loss!”

With all the market competition gone and production on a schedule, Franz was going to kill someone if they were all able to make a loss, or if their costs increased significantly.

Anyway, the planned economy, but also only a short-term existence, as far as possible to focus on suppressing rebellions around the world, at most two or three years, the leadership’s degeneration speed is not so fast, right?

Once the Crimean War broke out, Austria happened to use this war to transfer the pain of economic change, relying on war money to heal the wounds.

Karl’s eyes lit up, they understand the economy, if they adopt the piecework system, they can perfectly avoid the Labor Protection Act.

If ninety-nine percent of the people are paid more than that, does the opinion of the remaining one percent matter?

“Your Highness’s suggestion is very good, in fact, all industries can adopt the piece-rate system, and those that require multiple people to work together can also be grouped, so that the motivation for production can be effectively utilized!” Carl said with a smile

“Stop, this suggestion has nothing to do with me, this is what the experts have discovered through their research, it is important to do a good job of explaining it to the outside world, as long as the workers are allowed to get more money, I’m sure there won’t be any problems with implementing it!” Franz hastily stopped it

He didn’t want to be scolded in the future, no matter how much it was embellished, essentially this was a more advanced way of exploitation, coupled with his identity if he wasn’t hacked it would be strange.

It was better to push it to the experts, they were used to taking the blame anyway, they didn’t care if they got one more.

As long as the need, they can come up with any kind of conclusion, even the Monkey King’s tomb has been archaeological, “piecework system” is really nothing.

(End of chapter)