Page 175 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

CONCLUSION

Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.
Can socialism work? Of course it can. 1
(Joseph Alois Schumpeter, 1943)

As this study about the economic and political reorganisation of post-war
West Germany has sought to demonstrate, neither the political decisions
regarding the economic reconstruction of post-war West Germany nor the
academic discussion on reinvigorating the philosophical and economic
standing of liberalism in post-war Europe were confined to the political
strategy units and schools of economic thought in Paris, London and
Washington. Quite the contrary: several German think tanks, political
parties and individuals gave impulse to and then shaped academic, political
and economic developments in occupied Germany, whether they were
based there or abroad. While the Allies, indeed, set the political, economic
and institutional framework in times of occupation, Germans were
throughout formative actors rather than passive recipients in both
reorganising the post-war economy and in redefining political and
economic liberalism – and indeed socialism. United in one front,
conservatives and socialists alike aimed to develop a viable socio-political
and economic order between the extremes of unbridled capitalism and
collectivist central planning. The lessons gained from the historical
experiences of both failed economic liberalism in the early 1930s and the
inhumane totalitarianism of National Socialism, and, in addition,
Germany’s preoccupation with the social question since the late
nineteenth century led to the eventual development of a so-called ‘Third’
or ‘Middle Way’ not as a compromise but as a combination of greater state
provision for social security with the preservation of individual freedom.
Despite common starting points, the various interpretations differed
significantly, mainly regarding the importance attached to the state and to