Walter Eucken, the "Father of the Social Market Economy" in Germany – why?

In short:
The discourse on global economic orders should be enriched by its deep philosophical dimension - which is currently not happening.

As an economist, historian and specialist in German studies, I follow with great interest and concern the developments at the political level in my home country Germany, in Europe and the world, in their approaches to questions of the global economic system. For a long time I had conversations with the Jesuit and sociologist Br. Dr. Michael Hainz SJ at the Institute for Social Policy, at the Munich School of Philosophy of the Jesuits in Germany, which unfortunately no longer exists in this form. We all look for solutions. I am convinced that with Walter Eucken's approach, as he developed it in his first work, we know a “tragendes Gehäuse” (supporting structure) (Karl Jaspers) that has proven itself and been exemplary on a national level.

When Max Weber spoke about “Gehäuse” (structure), he meant "capitalism". Walter Eucken, on the other hand, repeatedly emphasized the diversity of economic systems, that there is no ONE capitalism. His wife Edith Eucken-Erdsiek pointed out that Walter Eucken, who by the way was friends with the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and who was a member of the resistance against the totalitarian Nazi regime in Germany, created with his life's work - as he understood it - a foundation to be further developed.

However, the title "The Foundations of Economics" - and even more so the German title "Die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie" - obscures the deep philosophical content of this work, which cannot easily be understood by today's economics students without a philosophical background. Moreover, mainstream economics is far from being a "cultural economy" (Nils Goldschmidt).

In my opinion, Walter Eucken's reception history has also acquired a "neoliberal touch", for example the strong orientation towards Hayek at the Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg points in this direction. But Walter Eucken himself certainly understood himself differently - it was precisely the criticism of the potentially destructive power of the economy that drove him on. And in vain he campaigned for an economic constitution to be included in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

I dream of a gender-equitable, global, ecological-social market economy. Walter Eucken is a public asset in Germany, at least on the federal political level - but the deep philosophical content of his thinking should be incorporated into the global discourse in order to develop progressive approaches in the sense of a life-sustaining economy worldwide.

Walter Eucken would probably say that we need to make tensions fruitful: rational business and humanity, economic calculation and gender equality, profit generation and sustainability, rules and freedom.

Some people question capitalism as a whole and look elsewhere for solutions. But then we move in the realm of utopia without being grounded in the small-scale positive historical experience. Walter Eucken repeatedly pointed out the diversity of economic forms that existed at all times and that can occur in a very different composition under the primacy of politics. For this he chose strong images, such as the compositions by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, the 92 elements of chemistry, or our letter system, when he wrote: “Just as a huge variety of words of different composition and different length can be formed out of two dozen letters, similarly an almost unlimited variety of actual economic systems can be made up out of a limited number of basic pure forms.”

The saleswoman and the nurse find their place in it just like the housewife and the single mother, the female manager just like the matron of a monastery, the farmer's wife of a small business just like the female worker in a factory in Germany, in Europe, in Asia and Africa, all over the world - just like the men in their various professions.

We can shape society! We can design it in such a way that the relationship between the state and the economy does not swing from one extreme to the other. We can learn from the structural principles of the social market economy and expand them to include the categories of sustainability, gender equality and global humanity. We can operate and work in a way which sustains life and we can give our children a future. Then even a crisis as fundamental as the Corona crisis, which is essentially a care crisis, is a care opportunity - for us all.

Crises are opportunities, maybe afterwards everything will get better, the saying goes. Chain letters are currently circulating, expressing the hope that humanity will regain lost values: caring for one another, solidarity for one another, willingness to forgo for a healthier world. The youth of the world demonstrates with Fridays For Future for a sustainable lifestyle. We speak here in the feminist discourse of "care", which is borrowed from English and - interestingly - has common etymological roots with “kar”, prefix from the german term for Good Friday, „Karfreitag“... The feminine side of human beings is addressed and it seems to be a vital task for the future to develop it further.

Another world is possible. How do we want to operate in the future? A look into the past can provide new insights. In the 1970s, women in the so-called second women's movement also asked the economic system question. According to the zeitgeist, many referred to Karl Marx in order to fight for a gender-equitable social order. They could do this in Germany, for example, against the background of the social market economy. In the so-called "Freiburg Circle", intellectuals, scientists and Christians had already come together underground during the National Socialist era to work out a social and economic order for the period after the Nazi dictatorship. We should also dare to have visions.

What would be the first step? The sober, courageous view of reality by freeing ourselves from beloved beliefs and from one prejudice or another. Let us start and ask with Walter Eucken today: “How did intellectual, religious, political, social , and economic events, lead to such a profound transformation of economic reality? “ And in looking for answers let us be guided by his holistic, even Christian view of the people: “The historical aspect of the problem requires perception, intuition, synthesis, understanding, and an empathy for individual lives. The general theoretical aspect calls for reasoning, analysis, and the elaboration of analytical models.”

In the spirit of Walter Eucken, we should today overcome conflicting approaches to solutions for local and global visions, also in the spirit of the poor and of women and children, in which as many people of good will as possible find themselves.

The children and children's children and all living things on this precious earth - we have no other - will thank us.

Therefore Walter Eucken – father of the social Market in Germany. It is important for the common good to pursue this approach ...

With best regards
Rita Maria Hey