Social Benefits at the Expense of Our Future Security

Abstract

In terms of the overall structure of the political system one can differentiate in the Federal Republic of Germany between two large system complexes: the market economy and the social welfare state. The market economy arose after the war in conscious opposition to the centrally administered economy of the Third Reich, as the economic equivalent to the newly won freedom. For lack of funds the social welfare state as such had not yet come into its own as an autonomous force; the concept of a “social market economy” (seen in connection with names such as Alexander Rustow, Friedrich August von Hayek, Wilhelm Ropke, Walter Eucken, Franz Bohm, Alfred Muller-Armack and Ludwig Erhard), functioning as a counterweight between the interests of the individual and society, certainly did exist, however. Additional factors led to the establishment of a “democratic welfare state,” embedded in constitutional law and following the pattern of a general system of social security as practiced since the time of Bismarck’s reform movement.