Wartime Economic System

After the Vienna uprising was suppressed, Franz immediately ordered the entire city under martial law, followed by the frantic task of confiscating assets. The incident was so far-reaching that it would take quite some time to untangle.

To appease the public, Franz distributed relief grain immediately. Since it had all been seized from the confiscated estates, he felt no heartache in giving it away.

With food, coal, and other daily necessities now being distributed for free, the populace, having just been stirred to unrest, finally settled down.

For political expediency, Franz decisively defined the nature of the uprising, pinning the blame squarely on the capitalists.

The Viennese media was under his control, and the articles published at this time were all themed around "Beware the Capitalists' Conspiracy," "The Role of International Black Hands in the Vienna Uprising," and "Capitalists Fleeing with the Loot."

"Confiscation," "confiscation," and more "confiscation"—the most important task for the Austrian provisional government was now the seizure of assets. Since the industries owned by the capitalists and nobles involved in the rebellion were not all concentrated in Vienna, this work remained a long and arduous road.

Before Franz could even appoint a cabinet, news of the uprising in Lombardy reached Vienna, dealing another heavy blow to the conservative nobility.

When alarmist warnings became reality, reform became inevitable. The voices of the Reform Party within the Austrian government grew louder once more, and to prevent the collapse of the Empire, the conservatives were forced to accept this reality.

On March 18, 1848, Franz appointed Marquis Felix von Schwarzenberg as Prime Minister; Karl Ludwig von Bruck as Minister of Finance; Count Leo von Thun und Hohenstein as Minister of Education; Archduke Louis as Minister of the Interior; Count Kolowrat as Minister of State; and Klemens von Metternich as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Regarding Austria's political reforms, Franz still adopted a conservative approach, choosing not to play his trump cards right from the start, as evidenced by this list.

The political maneuvering was on full display: a Prime Minister who advocated for the forceful suppression of revolution, a Finance Minister who championed fiscal reform, an Education Minister who pushed for educational reform, and conservative Ministers of the Interior and State.

To maintain a balance of power, Franz even recalled the notorious former Prime Minister Metternich to serve as Foreign Minister.

Of course, the primary reason was that Metternich's diplomatic skills were formidable, and currently, Austria had no more suitable candidate.

The first order of business for the new government was the aftermath of the Vienna uprising.

The current model of distributing relief grain could not last, but with the capitalists mired in the revolution and having fled, the restoration of production was out of the question.

In this city, half the population was unemployed; without government-distributed relief supplies, Vienna would descend into chaos immediately.

Franz took the lead in chairing the cabinet meeting: "The Vienna uprising has ended, and post-war reconstruction must begin immediately. We have nearly forty thousand prisoners awaiting resettlement. What plans does the cabinet have?"

There was no choice; this was a critical moment, and they had to fulfill their duties immediately upon taking office—there was no time for them to familiarize themselves with the work.

Prime Minister Felix replied, "I suggest adopting a wartime economic system. The government should take over these ownerless factories to restore production and secure employment for the people. We can make micro-adjustments based on actual conditions, using market demand to calibrate production lines and avoid waste!"

As expected, historically, Austria had also adopted a wartime economic system to overcome its initial difficulties.

The situation now was better than in history because Franz had acted quickly, seizing the capitalists' weaknesses and confiscating their factories outright.

In other words, doing this now meant a state-led economic system. The lower classes would certainly not object, as state-owned enterprises could not exploit them as recklessly as private ones.

"The situation in Austria is currently dire. Uprisings have already occurred in Italy, and Hungary is also stirring. Adopting a wartime economic system is absolutely necessary. However, if the government now holds so many confiscated factories and we organize the restoration of production, labor costs must increase!" Finance Minister Karl stated.

Undoubtedly, the government had a reputation to maintain; the laws it enacted had to be followed, and the shelved Labor Protection Act could certainly not be treated as toilet paper now.

Franz shook his head and said, "Labor costs will not increase by much. We shall use the average wage level of industrial workers in Vienna before the rebellion as the base salary. For the vast majority of industries, we can adopt a piece-rate system—more work, more pay—to stimulate the workers' productivity. As labor wages increase, the products produced by the workers will increase accordingly. If we shift to a wartime economic system, the waste generated by market competition will cease to exist. As long as our management does not fail, there should be no such thing as a loss!"

With market competition eliminated and production proceeding according to plan, if they still managed to incur losses or see a sharp rise in costs, Franz would have to start executing people.

In any case, a planned economy was only meant to be a short-term measure to concentrate power as much as possible to suppress uprisings across the regions. It would last two or three years at most; surely the leadership wouldn't degenerate that quickly?

Once the Crimean War broke out, Austria could use the conflict to shift the pains of economic reform, relying on war profits to heal its wounds.

Karl's eyes lit up. As an economist, he realized that if they adopted a piece-rate system, they could perfectly circumvent the Labor Protection Act.

If ninety-nine percent of the people earned wages above that standard, did the opinions of the remaining one percent even matter?

"Your Highness's suggestion is excellent. In fact, all industries can adopt a piece-rate system. For tasks requiring multiple people, we can form groups to effectively maximize productivity!" Karl said with a smile.

"Stop right there. This suggestion has nothing to do with me; it was discovered by experts through research. You must handle the external explanation well. As long as the workers get more money, I assume there will be no problems with implementation!" Franz quickly interjected.

He did not want to be cursed as a villain in the future. No matter how it was beautified, this was essentially a more advanced form of exploitation, and given his status, it would be strange if he weren't vilified.

It was better to push it onto the experts; they were used to being the scapegoats anyway, and they wouldn't mind one more.

As long as it was needed, they could produce any conclusion; they had even "archaeologically discovered" the tomb of Sun Wukong, so a "piece-rate system" was really nothing at all.