After the Vienna uprising was suppressed, Franz immediately placed the entire city under martial law. Then came the busy work of confiscating property. The affair implicated so many people that it would take quite a while to sort through.
To calm the public, Franz immediately distributed relief grain. It had all come from the confiscations anyway, so he didn't mind giving it away one bit.
Staple necessities like food and coal were now being handed out for free. The people, who had just been badly shaken, finally began to settle down.
For political reasons, Franz also decisively assigned blame for the uprising, dumping the whole mess on the capitalists.
He had taken control of Vienna's media. Every article published now warned of "the capitalists' conspiracy," discussed "the role of international shadowy forces in the Vienna uprising," or reported that "capitalists are fleeing with their money"...
"Confiscate property," "confiscate property," and more "confiscate property"—the Austrian provisional government's most important task now was confiscation. The capitalists and nobles who had taken part in the uprising owned businesses beyond Vienna, so the work of confiscating them all was still a long way from finished.
Before Franz could appoint a cabinet, news of the Lombardy uprising reached Vienna. For the conservative nobility, it was yet another heavy blow.
When dire warnings became reality, reform was unavoidable. The Reform Party within the Austrian Government once again raised its voice, and to prevent the empire from collapsing, the conservatives had no choice but to accept the situation.
On March 18, 1848, Franz appointed Felix, Marquis of Schwarzenberg, as prime minister;
appointed Karl Ludwig von Bruck as finance minister;
appointed Count Leo von Thun-Hohenstein as education minister;
appointed Archduke Louis as interior minister;
appointed Count Kolowrat as minister of state;
appointed Klemens von Metternich as foreign minister...
When it came to Austria's political reforms, Franz still took a cautious approach. He didn't unleash a drastic measure right from the start, as the list of appointments made clear.
His political maneuvering was on full display: a prime minister who favored forcefully suppressing the revolution, a finance minister who advocated fiscal reform, an education minister who advocated educational reform, and conservative interior and state ministers.
To balance power, Franz had even recalled the disgraced former prime minister, Metternich, to serve as foreign minister.
Of course, the main reason was that Metternich was skilled at diplomacy, and Austria had no better candidate at the moment.
The new government's first order of business was dealing with the aftermath of the Vienna uprising.
This method of handing out relief grain clearly couldn't continue for long. But the capitalists were caught up in the revolution and unable to extricate themselves; one after another, they had fled, leaving no way to restore production.
Half the city's population was now unemployed. Without relief supplies from the government, Vienna would soon descend into chaos.
Franz took the lead at the cabinet meeting. "The Vienna uprising is over. Postwar reconstruction must begin at once. We have nearly forty thousand prisoners to resettle. What plans does the cabinet have?"
There was no helping it. This was a critical moment, and the newly appointed ministers had to start doing their jobs immediately. There was no time for them to get acquainted with their duties.
Prime Minister Felix replied, "I propose adopting a wartime economic system. The government can take over these ownerless factories and resume production first, ensuring that the people have jobs.
"We can make adjustments according to the circumstances, adapting production lines to market demand and avoiding waste!"
Just as expected, Austria had also adopted a wartime economic system in history to overcome its initial difficulties.
Compared to the historical situation, things were better now because Franz had acted quickly and caught the capitalists red-handed, allowing him to confiscate their factories outright.
In other words, the system being put in place now would be led by the state-owned sector. The people at the bottom certainly wouldn't object, since state-owned enterprises couldn't exploit them as recklessly as private ones.
"Austria's situation is very bad right now. An uprising has already broken out in Italy, and Hungary is also stirring. Adopting a wartime economic system is absolutely necessary.
"However, if the government takes over all these factories and organizes the resumption of production, labor costs will have to rise!" Finance Minister Karl said.
There was no doubt that the government had to keep up appearances. It had to abide by the laws it had enacted, and the shelved Labor Protection Act certainly couldn't be treated like toilet paper now.
Franz shook his head. "Labor costs won't rise by much. We can use the average wages of Vienna's workers before the uprising as the base rate.
"For most industries, we can also use piecework wages: the more you do, the more you earn. That will encourage the workers to produce more. Their wages will rise, but so will the amount of goods they produce.
"If we switch to a wartime economic system, the waste caused by market competition will disappear too. As long as we manage things properly, there should be no such thing as a loss!"
With no market competition and production carried out according to plan, if losses still occurred—or costs rose sharply—Franz would have to start killing people.
Besides, the planned economy would only exist in the short term. They would concentrate all their strength on suppressing uprisings around the country. At most, it would last two or three years. Surely the leadership wouldn't decay that quickly?
Once the Crimean War broke out, Austria could use it to shift the pain of economic change onto the war, then use the profits from the conflict to heal its wounds.
Karl's eyes lit up. They understood economics. If they adopted piecework wages, they could perfectly sidestep the Labor Protection Act.
If ninety-nine percent of the workers earned more than the required minimum, would the remaining one percent's complaints really matter?
"Your Highness's suggestion is excellent. In fact, every industry could adopt piecework wages. For work requiring several people to cooperate, they could be divided into groups. That would effectively bring out their enthusiasm for production!" Karl said with a smile.
"Hold on. This suggestion has nothing to do with me. It was experts who came up with it after conducting research. We must explain it properly to the public. As long as the workers earn more, there shouldn't be any problem putting it into practice!" Franz hurriedly cut him off.
He didn't want people cursing him to high heaven in the future. No matter how much it was dressed up, this was still a more advanced form of exploitation. Given his position, he'd be bound to get vilified.
Better to pin it on the experts. They were used to taking the blame anyway, and wouldn't mind adding another charge to the list.
If needed, they could produce whatever conclusion they were asked for. They'd even managed to excavate Sun Wukong's tomb. Piecework wages were nothing by comparison.
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