Observations on the Problem of Monopolies

Abstract

The discussion about cartels has revealed a deep rift among the liberals in Germany. It is a rift which has probably always existed but which, for lack of any concrete reason, did not become evident until the present argument about the law on cartels arose. It consists of opposition between the so-called ‘old liberals’ and the ‘neo-liberals’. The position of the former is one of laissez-faire. This group believes in having as little legislation concerning economic affairs as possible and is particularly opposed to a law on cartels. Its supporters believe themselves to be proponents of genuine classical liberalism and accuse the neo-liberals, who say it should be the task of the state to create a legal framework conducive to competition, of being anything but liberal, of being ‘étatist’ and ‘interventionist’. This position was justified by Hans Hellwig in the May 1955 issue of Monatsblätter für freiheitliche Wirtschaftspolitik when he wrote that the non-liberal content of the neo-liberals’ ideas could be demonstrated from the one fact that the ideas of Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm and Leonhard Miksch on competition had been accepted without demur for publication in the publications of the Akademie für Deutsches Recht during the National-Socialist period. The Nazis, he claimed, had unerringly recognised the non-liberal content of these ideas. Hellwig attempted further to discredit the ideas of the neo-liberals in subsequent articles for the Deutsche Zeitung; these articles display an astonishing paucity of objective argument.