Social Market Economy (Soziale Marktwirtschaft)

The term “social market economy” was coined at the end of the 1940s by Alfred Müller-Armack, a German economist and social theorist of the so-called Freiburg School of Law and Economics, a neoliberal branch, often referred to as “ordoliberals.” Walter Eucken is known as the founder of “ordoliberalism,” and Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow, and Karl Böhm have been other prominent representatives of this group. The idea of a social market economy became a leading political and economic ideologem for the rebuilding of the German society after World War II, closely attached to the myth of the German Wirtschaftswunder and the name of Ludwig Erhard. Reviewing general social debates as well as studying the relevant scientific discussions, it is not easy to distinguish the definition of ...