Page 69 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

42 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

only as an economic one but also as indispensable for a social order
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opposed to totalitarianism. In view of the fact that the Freiburg School
aimed to address the general public, his explanation is hardly satisfactory.
Nevertheless, there were numerous attempts by members of the Freiburg
School and supporters of ordo-liberalism to describe their concept and
bring it closer to the people. For example, Franz Böhm characterised it as
a ‘synthesis between socialism and liberalism’. Similarly, the liberal
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economist Alexander Rüstow located it as lying between capitalism and
communism. Finally and decisively, it was Wilhelm Röpke who
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introduced the notion ‘Third Way’ or ‘Economic Humanism’. However,
besides these efforts to argue for the implementation of complex
economic ideas, there were obstacles impeding the communication to the
public.
Due to their theoretical and conceptual works, the Freiburg School and
ordo-liberalism are viewed as the intellectual precursors and Walter
Eucken as the progenitor of the emerging Social Market Economy. Such
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paternity, however, is debatable, as Walter Eucken dissociated himself
both from that notion and from the idea of the Social Market Economy,
which he considered a drifting policy of Sichtreibenlassen. In contrast,
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Eucken favoured a strictly procedural or rule-oriented liberalism in which
the state solely sets the institutional framework and abstains generally
from interference in the market. Wilhelm Röpke, who labelled this
Rahmenpolitik (framework policy) as opposed to Marktpolitik (market
policy), however, preferred a slightly more interventionist economic
policy, as did Alexander Rüstow. These different positions between the
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liberal economists who had previously involved themselves in the Deutscher
Bund für freie Wirtschaftspolitik (German League for the Free Market), a
group of businessmen and economists supporting the free market system
in the early 1930s, led to an irreconcilable conflict which recurrently
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revealed itself, and thereby prevented a coordinated effort in the
communication of an ordo-liberal economic concept. Moreover, even
within the Freiburg School frictions are identifiable and the notion
‘school’ suggests a unity, which had already disappeared in 1943 when
Eucken ended cooperation with Großmann-Doerth, who had placed his
work in the service of the National Socialist regime; Hans Großmann-
Doerth was killed in action in Russia 1944. Consequently, these
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discrepancies produced individual and uncoordinated efforts in
communicating a common economic and socio-political concept.
Immediately after the war, the most prominent member of the Freiburg
School, Walter Eucken, sought contact with the occupying powers in
order to promote his economic ideas. Due to the efforts of Adolf Lampe
and the AGEvB, to which he too belonged, Eucken co-authored a study on