The Principles of the Social Market Economy (1965)

Abstract

To many people, the Social Market Economy has appeared to be only a compromise — a practical formula for getting through a phase of reconstruction. Under the demands of the time, those who devoted themselves to this system succeeded only rarely in defining exactly its ideological basis. Misunderstandings were the result, and what had been achieved satisfied an easy conformism, while the intellectual efforts on behalf of the Social Market Economy system as a whole receded too far into the background. However, active and constructive organisations are needed for an idea, a style of social policy — which is how I would like to regard the Social Market Economy — if it is to hold its own in the changing circumstances of the times. The idea was taken as a convenient formula also by those parties which adopted the Social Market Economy as their slogan, and they made little effort themselves to understand, or to explain to others, the scope of the Social Market Economy concept. Their task will probably be to occupy themselves more profoundly, more systematically, more actively and more comprehensively with this concept of an order, applying their political will and the facilities available to them in collaboration with science. A social and economic order will only be able to hold its own in the changing circumstances of history, if it takes into account the changes in our overall situation.