•
Cartels = a widespread social constellation - Social actors almost never have exactly the same interests, but more or less tensions among each other. Thus, the perspective of competition and (for an organized solution) of cartel building can be applied. The author stands for a wide definition of ‹cartel› in the sense of an ‹alliance of rivals›. To him, all coalitions to pursue special interests can be analyzed as cartels. Typical for such associations, the economic as well as the non-economic ones, is their permanent management of conflicts and interests. •
IGOs = cartels - International
inter-governmental organizations can be set equal with cartels. For Leonhardt this is true for organizations like the
United Nations, the
European Union and the
NATO. •
Some NGOs = cartels - Also international
NGOs (if non-hierarchical) can be set equal with cartels. Among them the
International Federation of Association Football or the
World Council of Churches can be named as examples. •
Not all so-called „cartels“ are cartels – An inflexible scientific understanding has led to difficulties in differentiation. Subsequently, complex structures like price fixing of the second level have been simplified to a „cartel“. Similarly, state controlled formations have been named „cartels“, when they set prices and quantities, such as the „
compulsory cartels“ working for governmental targets. •
"Cartel" stands unter ideological suppression - The subject ‘cartel’ underwent a defamation process or negative ideological turn since the end of WW II: “After World War II, cartels were – according to the American
antitrust norm of ‹trade restrictions› – criminalized rather soon and then were generally declared as obsolete. The word ‹cartel› became a formula for condemnation, used for instance for ‹
drug cartels› or for the assertion,
Auschwitz had been run by a cartel, namely the ‹
I.G. Farben Industries› (which actually was no cartel, but a corporate group).›.” Because of this, an unbiased debate and scientific work on cartels is difficult to reach. •
Cartel buildings are excluded from monument protection - The rejection of the subject ‘cartel’ has gone so far that the
historical heritage is in danger: there is almost no
monument protection of former cartel buildings as a historical heritage. Leonhardt complaints that occasionally such business facilities have been torn down without much thought. The former central-selling-
syndicates for commodities may have employed hundreds of
office workers for
marketing operations and
sales administration. So, these bodies often domiciled in large and representative premises which might be historically informative now. But: “On none of those former cartel headquarters there is a commemorative plaque telling: Here, in bygone times, there had been a sales cartel for
steel,
coal,
potash ...” •
A novel cartel theory? – Has Leonhardt set up a new cartel theory? - This is not really clear from the statements of the scholarly scene. - Leonhardt himself only claimed to have made some necessary adjustments to the self-contradictory corpus of classical cartel theory. However, he did make profiled and original statements about the nature of intergovernmental organizations and international relations, but again he referred to older thinkers like
Karl Kautsky and others who had already outlined the vision of an
ultra-imperialism or a
cartel of mighty states in the early 20th century. Anyhow, interested scientists like Kleinschmidt, Roelevink, Schroeter and Berghahn actually understood Leonhardt's endeavor as a trial of a "new theory" or theoretical improvements. == The directional dispute about Cartel History Studies ==