The Formation and Implementation of the Social Market Economy by Alfred Müller-Armack and Ludwig Erhard

In view of Germany’s coping with the current international financial and economic crises, once again the Social Market Economy as the Germany’s distinctive model of coordinated social and economic policy has received both considerable attention and general praise. In order to explain the relative robustness and associated continuing attractiveness of this variant of a neo-liberal socio-political and economic concept, it is important to recall the formation and definition of the Social Market Economy, which was developed and implemented in times of economic, political and societal crises.