Page 57 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

30 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

Despite fundamental congruence in the classification of emerging
economic models, the prevalent academic literature provides varying
interpretations of the respective schools of thought. For instance, Helmut
Paul Becker identifies three groups, namely the Freiburg School, the social
and the extreme neo-liberalism, Rolf Wenz uses the classification neo-
3
liberalism, democratic socialism and Catholic social doctrine, and
4
according to Otto Schlecht, individuals represent and classify specific
schools of thought. Frequently, the contours are blurred and
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categorisations inadequately reflect the specific conceptions or even
neglect academic efforts, such as that of the Freiburg Circles. These
shortcomings are balanced by more recent examinations distinguishing
between various neo-liberal approaches and giving consideration to the
latter group of scholars. Referring to the conceptions of neo-liberalism,
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ordo-liberalism, and social market liberalism, and, in order to serve the
purpose of this research focused on the communication of concepts, this
section classifies three separate and coherent groups trying to influence
the post-war economic reconstruction of Germany: the Freiburg Circles,
the Freiburg School, and the social market economists.
In doing so, the principal theoretical academic approaches which all
sought to reconcile nineteenth-century liberalism with the demands of the
twentieth-century economy and politics are contrasted and differences
examined. Due to a vast amount of academic research and literature on
economic conceptions, this book will not add another interpretation of
economic theory, but instead make amendments where it deems
appropriate and necessary.