The social market economy. Relevance in a globalized economy

The Soziale Marktwirtschaft has represented the backbone of the economic policy of the Federal Republic of Germany since the immediate post-war years. Indeed, the economic policies implemented by politicians such as Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard were explicitly guided by the ideas developed by a group of eminent economists and social thinkers, including Alfred Mueller-Armack, Wilhelm Roepke, Vera Lutz, Walter Eucken, and Erhard himself. This fact in itself is quite remarkable, because it is an example of the truth of what two thinkers like John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek (of different and almost opposite beliefs) felt.