Page 101 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

74 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

experiments, this amounted to a fundamental attack on Ludwig Erhard’s
economic policy. Erhard’s position came under increasing strain within his
own party; in addition, he was confronted by a commission of enquiry of
the Bavarian Landtag that reprimanded him for his administrative and
political conduct as former Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs. The
98
SPD therefore aimed to capitalise on the dissent within the coalition of
conservative parties by publicising it. Supported by leading
99
conservatives, Erhard resolutely responded and warned the SPD against
disrupting the relationships within the bourgeois coalition and employing
100
the public for cynical political purposes. Eventually, however, the SPD
did not succeed in challenging the coalition over this topic, nor was the
debate made public, though the populace had once more played a decisive,
albeit indirect, role in influencing the political debate.
For the time being, it remained difficult for the Social Democrats to
form political alliances and publicly to criticise Erhard and his concept of
a Social Market Economy without providing a viable alternative. Despite
the scepticism and the declared political resistance on the part of the SPD,
as expressed by its economic spokesman, Gerhard Kreyssig, surprisingly
101
no further discussion of Erhard’s theses followed within the Social
Democrat parliamentary group. Ironically, however, it was the Social
Democrat and then Director of the Central Department for Pricing and
Wages within the Administration for Economics, Leonhard Miksch, who
in cooperation with Ludwig Erhard conceptualised the gradual
liberalisation of the economy. Their co-authored Gesetz über Leitsätze für die
Bewirtschaftung und Preispolitik nach der Geldreform marked the principles for
102
the rationing and price policy after currency reform. This law – aimed at
initiating economic liberalisation for a gradual transition to the Social
Market Economy – provided the Director of the Administration for
Economics, Ludwig Erhard, with such extensive political powers that
some termed these principles ‘the authorisation to the greatest possible
extent ever issued in Germany, apart from the [...] Enabling Act of
1933.’ Nevertheless, the draft law was not only adopted by the
103
Administrative Council and the Economic Committee of the Economic
Council as expected but also widely approved by the Economic
Committee of the Länderrat and even by the Social Democrat Ministers of
Economic Affairs. In order to become legally effective, however, the
104
so-called ‘Leitsätze-Gesetz’ ultimately required the parliamentary assent.
During the first reading of the law in the eighteenth plenary meeting of
the Economic Council on 17 June 1948, Erhard used the debate to
present his overall economic ideology and to reaffirm his determination to
pursue it. Thereupon, the economic spokesman of the SPD, Gerhard
105
Kreyssig, criticised Erhard’s intention to liberalise rationing and pricing by