German Neo-Liberals and the Social Market Economy: (Trade Policy Research Centre)

This volume is a collection of ten essays in which the authors assess the contribution of the German Ordo-liberals fifty years after the founders of the liberal movement in Germany stated their aims and objectives. The Ordo-liberals were a group of liberal economic and legal thinkers in the Federal Republic of Germany who came into prominence as a result of their influence on, and participation in, post-war economic policy in the Federal Republic when Ludwig Erhard was Minister for Economic Affairs and, later, Chancellor. They became known as Ordo-liberals because of their commitment to designing the appropriate economic and legal system. The essays in this volume consider not only the philosophy of the Ordo-liberals and their concept of the social market economy, but are also concerned with the contribution of the Ordo-liberals to more practical problems. The role of the public sector, the control of mergers and monopolies and the problem of sound money are among the topics considered, as well as the views of the Ordo-liberals on the international order. Many of the authors of these essays are well known internationally and they represent a wide range of contemporary liberal thought. The book will be warmly welcomed by students and scholars interested in economic philosophy and the place of liberalism in contemporary thought. The essays in this volume have been translated from the German in order to bring to the notice of a wider public the views of a group of German liberal economic and legal thinkers. This group of economists and lawyers came into prominence as a result of their influence on, and participation in, post-war economic policy in the Federal Republic of Germany when Ludwig Erhard was Minister for Economic Affairs and, later, Chancellor. Seventeen essays have been selected to express the thoughts of the group who, because of their commitment ot designing the appropriate economic and legal order system, became known as Ordo-liberals. The essays deal with a wide range of contemporary problems, such as the control of monopolies, the problem of the welfare state and the need for self-help, the role of the trade unions in industrial societies, as well as with the more philosophical question of whether capitalist and communist systems are moving closer together in their approach to economic problems to such an extent that they will eventually converge. This book will be of interest to all those who are concerned with contemporary problems both at practical and philosophical levels.

About the Author :
SIR ALAN PEACOCK is Executive Director of the David Hume Institute, Edinburgh, and Research Professor in Public Finance at the Esmée Fairbairn Research Centre, Heriot-Watt University. He has held senior academic appointments at the London School of Economics and at the Universities of Edinburgh, York and Buckingham. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of the privately-funded University of Buckingham. He has written extensively in academic journals, periodicals and volumes of essays on the economics of public policy. In addition to his academic career, Sir Alan has been Chief Economic Adviser to the Department of Trade and Industry and has acted as consultant to several international bodies. He served in the United Kingdom on the Royal Commission on the Constitution and, more recently, was Chairman of the Committee on Financing the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 1979 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He was knighted in 1987. HANS WILLGERODT is Professor of Economics and co-Director of the Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Cologne, where he taught since 1963. He studied economics at the University of Bonn and became a Reader in Economics there in 1961. He is co-editor (and formerly managing director) of the Ordo yearbook, as well as being co-editor of the Journal of Economic Policy and other publications of the Institute for Economic Policy. Professor Willgerodt has written on problems of the labour market, wealth andits distribution, trade policy, European monetary integration and many other topics. He was a member, until 1969, of the commission of experts appointed by the Federal Government in the Federal Republic of Germany to investigate the country's experience with co-determination. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and also of the Kronenberger Kreis, a group of economists and lawyers who publish suggestions for reform of the West German economy.