Prof. Franz Josef Stegmann Bethlehem Social ... - Ordo Socialis

Stegmann
advertising, but this is a misuse; the true role of advertising is information. It is therefore
useful, even necessary, the advocates of the Social Market Economy say, that independent test
institutes give as much objective information to the public as possible.
Sometimes the improvement of efficiency and productivity is criticised as being materialistic.
However, according to the famous scholar of social history and economist Alexander Rüstow,
as long as "all human beings do not enjoy at least the subsistence level, the improvement of
productivity is a more than economic demand, it is a social demand, a moral demand". 41
Greater economic efficiency, finally, increases the capability of the state to correct socially
negative results of the market process and to make tolerable necessary changes to the economic
structure; ie, it helps those unable to help themselves, for example the sick, old and
handicapped. Economic efficiency is the condition for social efficiency. Economic
downswing results in social downswing, in cutting hack on the welfare state. Economic
efficiency is not everything, but without economic efficiency everything becomes nothing.
To sum up: the goal of Social Market Economy is, according to neoliberal thought, to combine
the free initiative of individuals in the marketplace with a social welfare development
that is based and safeguarded by market economy achievements. According to the programme
of the Christian Democratic Union before the first national election in 1949, two economic
systems were to be rejected:
• The so-called "free economy of 'liberalist’ character". This is the free or pure market
economy of earlier centuries known as capitalism and existing in parts of the world up to
110W, in which the weak and poor are exploited by the mighty.
• The "socialist system of a centrally planned and controlled economy" which is not able to
manage the problem of both "efficient production" and "just distribution of the products".
42
The former prime minister of Bavaria and Chairman of the Christian Social Union, Hanns
Seidel, expressed this understanding of Social Market Economy as early as 1947, stating that
we need "an effective and sound market economy" as well as "social safeguards" which
ensure that the market economy "does not degenerate into a mere profit economy". 43
2. NEOLIBERAL REFORMS COMPARED WITH CLASSICAL ECONOMIC
LIBERALISM/CAPITALISM
2.1 Neoliberalism - what is it?
I have repeatedly mentioned "neoliberal" and "neoliberalism". What do these terms mean and
how are they to be understood? It seems to me that in many countries throughout the world,
"neoliberal" and "neoliberalism" are very close, or even identical, to capitalistic" and "capitalism".
Examples of this are the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher, or
the economic theories held by the wellknown economists Milton Friedman/Chicago and
Friedrich August von Hayeck, who received the 1974 Nobel Prize for economics. Von Hayek,
who lectured in economics in the United States for many years, considered the concept of
41 Alexander Rüstow, Wirtschaft als Dienerin der Menschlichkeit. in: Was wichtiger ist als Wirt‐schaft' Vorträge
auf der fünfzehnten Tagung der Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft am 29. Juni 1960. Ludwigsburg
1960, 7‐16, 10.
42 Düsseldorfer Leitsätze der Christlich Demokratischen Union vorn 15. Juli 1949, in: Ossip K. Flechtheim (Ed.),
Dokumente zur parteipolitischen Entwicklung in Deutschland seit 1945, Vol. 2, Berlin 1963, 58‐76 60 f.
43 Hans Ferdinand Groß, Hanns Seidel 1901‐1961, Eine politische Biographie, München 1992, 70.
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