Abstract
Throughout its history, the trading position in international markets has been a central economic parameter for the Federal Republic of Germany. From the very beginning, West German economic policy has been internationally orientated. One of the guiding ideas was that the country is poorly endowed with raw materials and has to earn the foreign exchange which is needed to buy them abroad with the export of manufactures. This orientation actually can be traced back to the early years of the German Reich in the 19th century. The other guiding idea behind West Germany’s determined world-market orientation was the neo-liberal conviction that a free, unrestricted market renders the best results in terms of national prosperity.
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© 1991 Alfred Pfaller, Ian Gough and Göran Therborn
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Krüger, M., Pfaller, A. (1991). The Federal Republic of Germany. In: Pfaller, A., Gough, I., Therborn, G. (eds) Can the Welfare State Compete?. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10716-2_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10716-2_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-10718-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10716-2
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