Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Planning for Reconstruction
- 2 The Future of the Ruhr: Socialization, Decartelization, Restoration, 1945–48
- 3 High Hopes and Disappointment: The SPD and the Planning Regime 1945–47
- 4 Ludwig Erhard, the CDU, and the Free Market
- 5 Free Markets, Investment, and the Ruhr: The Korean War Crisis
- 6 The Social Market Economy and Competition
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - High Hopes and Disappointment: The SPD and the Planning Regime 1945–47
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Planning for Reconstruction
- 2 The Future of the Ruhr: Socialization, Decartelization, Restoration, 1945–48
- 3 High Hopes and Disappointment: The SPD and the Planning Regime 1945–47
- 4 Ludwig Erhard, the CDU, and the Free Market
- 5 Free Markets, Investment, and the Ruhr: The Korean War Crisis
- 6 The Social Market Economy and Competition
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The alternative to Ludwig Erhard's social market economy, introduced in 1948, was the Social Democratic vision of an “economic democracy” (Wirtschaftsdemokratie). For the postwar Social Democratic Party (SPD), an economic democracy consisted of a decentralized planning system held together by the public ownership of major industries, such as heavy industry and finance, and the institutionalization of equal union influence on those corporate bodies, such as Industrie-und Handelskammern (IHKs), that had traditionally regulated the German economy in the name of self-administration (Selbstverwaltung). The concept of an economic democracy owed much to Social Democratic thought during the 1920s, from the observation of a modern “organized” capitalism (Rudolf Hilferding) that had effectively replaced the free market, to Fritz Naphtali's advocacy of greater worker influence in his 1928 pamphlet “Wirtschaftsdemokratie.” But the post-1945 SPD also felt itself part of a worldwide movement toward economic planning and social democracy involving the New Deal, the Labour government, and the Monnet Plan, legitimated by Keynesian macroeconomics. From 1945 to 1947, Social Democrats found themselves in the position to transform the German economy and German industrial culture because the British appointed Viktor Agartz, a leading SPD and trade union economist, head of the central office for economics (Zentralamt der Wirtschaft) at Minden in the British zone. From this position, and also with SPD members occupying the economics ministries in all the new Länder as they formed, the British intended the SPD to dominate the reconstruction of the economy in the crucial, industrial British zone.
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- Rebuilding GermanyThe Creation of the Social Market Economy, 1945–1957, pp. 95 - 138Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004