Abstract
In 1977 a group of European and British economists held a small round-table conference sponsored by the Trade Policy Research Centre, London, to discuss the place in recent economic thinking of the German liberals who had markedly influenced the post-war economic policy of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was no accident that this event occurred in that particular year. It had been touch and go whether or not the British Labour Government would move from being supporters of a ‘mixed economy’ to becoming wholehearted supporters of collectivism, a step which some writers whose work is reviewed in this volume might have regarded as inevitable.
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Notes and References
For a comparison between selective aid policies in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany see, for example, Alan Peacock et al. Structural Economic Policies in West Germany and the United Kingdom (London: Anglo-German Foundation, 1980).
While still paying lip-service to the principles of the Soziale Marktwirtschaft many leading Christian Democrats in power pursue a policy of mercantilism as reflected in government support for new technology, subsidies and other forms of government intervention to support agriculture, the transport sector and others. A significant example is Lothar Späth, Prime Minister of Baden Württemberg, in his book, Wende in die Zukunft (Hamburg: Spiegel-Rowohlt, 1985).
Socialists have latterly veered towards more economic planning whereas previously some of their most influential leaders supported Ordo ideas, at least in part. See, for example, ‘Die Wirtschaft ökologisch und sozial erneuern’, Entwurf der Kommission Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik beim Parteivorstand (Langfassung) (Bonn: Vorstand der SPD, 1985); Willi Görlach, Peter von Oertzen, Henning Scherf and Werner Vitt (eds), Anpassung oder Reform. Zur neuen Wirtschaftskonzeption, der SPD (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1985);
and Hans Willgerodt, ‘Thesen zum demokratischen Sozialismus’, in Anton Rauscher (ed.), Selbstinteresse und Gemeinwohl (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985).
For a list of the ‘dramatis personae’ of the Ordo-Kreis, see the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution (London: Macmillan for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1989).
See the foreword by Sir Keith Joseph in Why Britain Needs a Social Market Economy (London: Centre for Policy Studies, 1975).
Mention must be made, however, of the attention paid to Ordo thinking by Konrad Zweig, The Origins of the German Social Market Economy (London and Virginia: Adam Smith Institure, 1980)
and Terence W. Hutchison, The Politics and Philosophy of Economics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981) especially ch. 5.
James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1962).
See the essay by Alfred Müller-Armack, ‘The Meaning of the Social Market Economy’, in the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution op. cit.
See Wilhelm Röpke, Mass und Mitte (Zürich: Eugen Rentsch, 1950);
International Order and Economic Integration (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1959);
and A Humane Economy. The Social Framework of the Free Market (Chicago: Wolf and Henry Regnery, 1960);
Hans Willgerodt, ‘Die Krisis der sozialen Sicherheit und das Lohnproblem’, in Ordo, Vol. 7, 1955,
‘Der Familienlastenausgleich im Rahmen der Sozialreform’, Ordo, Vol. 8, 1956;
‘Das Sparen auf der Anklagebank der Sozialreformer’, Ordo, Vol. 9, 1957;
Heddy Neumeister, ‘Autoritäre Sozialpolitik’, Ordo, Vol. 12, 1960–61;
and Walter Hamm, ‘The Weifare State at its Limit’, in the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution, op. cit.
James E. Meade, Planning and the Price Mechanism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948).
Müller-Armack, ‘Thesen zur Konjunkturpolitik’, in Wirtschaftspolitische Chronik (Cologne: Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik an der Universität zu Köln, 1975) pp. 7–16.
A. G. B. Fisher, Economic Progress and Social Security (London: Macmillan, 1945).
Walter Eucken died in London before he had completed his lecture course. The English edition of the work was translated and introduced by the prominent British liberal, John Jewkes. See Eucken, This Unsuccessful Age (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1951).
Ludvig von Mises, Human Action (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1949).
See Lutz, ‘Observations on the Problems of Monopolies’, in the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution, op. cit.
from which the following passages are taken and Röpke, Crises and Cycles (Edinburgh: William Hodge, 1936).
See in particular, Eucken, op. cit.
See the essay by Friedrich Lutz on ‘The Functioning of the Gold Standard’, in the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution, op. cit. from which the following passages are taken.
On this point see Peter Bernholz’s essay in ch. 10 of this volume and the largely sympathetic account by Wolfgang Stolper and Karl W. Roskamp, ‘Planning a Free Economy: Germany 1945–60’, in Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft, Tübingen, Vol. 135, 1979.
See the essay by Franz Böhm, ‘The Rule of Law in a Market Economy’, in the companion volume of translations, Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution, op. cit. See also the earlier contribution by Böhm, Eucken and Hans Grossman-Doerth in ch. 2 of the same volume.
For a representative sample of such work see Francesco Forte and Alan Peacock (eds), Public Expenditure and Government Growth (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).
Böhm, Reden und Schriften (Karlsruhe: C. F. Müller, 1960).
There is some indication that much more thought than hitherto is now being devoted to the position of education in the social market economy. See Michael Zöller, Bildung als öffentliches Gut? (Stuttgart: Poller, 1983);
and Ulrich van Lith, Der Marktals Ordnungsprinzip des Bildungsbereichs (München: Oldenburg, 1985). For further discussion see the essay by Jack Wiseman, in ch. 8 of this volume.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972).
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Peacock, A., Willgerodt, H. (1989). Overall View of the German Liberal Movement. In: Peacock, A., Willgerodt, H. (eds) German Neo-Liberals and the Social Market Economy. Trade Policy Research Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20148-8_1
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