Soziale Marktwirtschaft und Dritte Wege

The social market economy as we know it in Germany today is in a major social dilemma. Political programmes suggest an institutional „third way“ as a solution: that is to say the apparent golden mean between the first way, the social market economy, and the now defunct second way, the state controlled centralised economy.The author considers the institutional variants by asking the following questions:1. How do freedom, competition and social balance correlate?2. Is the individual principle or the collective principle the basis for political, economic and social action?According to the author, both the general historical development in Germany and, in particular, institutional changes in the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1960s illustrate the fact that the correlation between freedom, competition and social balance has shifted in favour of the latter: the development of the social system in accordance with the collective principle has resulted in „creeping market socialism“, the root of the present social dilemma. It is well-known that attempts to diverge from the second way towards „constructivist market socialism“ as a third way (Czechoslovakia, Hungary) have failed miserably.This shows that institutional third ways cannot solve the current social dilemma. Actually, a return to the ordo-liberal principles of social market economy is what is required.