Austria

In the final months of 1931, a group of young sociologists descended on the small industrial town of Marienthal, 25 km south of Vienna. Since its only factory had shut down in 1930, its 1,200 workers were now unemployed and almost three-quarters of the population were dependent on government support. Covered by a series of articles in the socialist newspaper Das Kleine Blatt, Otto Bauer, leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, suggested investigating the town to settle an ongoing debate: whether prolonged unemployment led to apathetic inactivity, or instilled a revolutionary spirit among the unemployed. After months of study, the researchers concluded that resignation and idleness experienced by the out-of-work community led to reduced political interest, particularly among men. The long-term unemployed, so they concluded, were unlikely to furnish protagonists for a socialist revolution. The published study became a classic of sociological research and the unemployed of Marienthal exemplary for the material and psychological hardship of prolonged unemployment in Austria during the 1930s. ¹