Renaissance of the Social Market Economy
The market economy has often been declared dead-and yet it has emerged stronger from every crisis. That will also be the case after this financial market crisis, since the social market economy is adaptable. It was the German reaction to the 1930s world economic crisis and its totalitarian results.
Walter Eucken and Ludwig Erhard drew consequences from the failure of laissez-faire capitalism by giving entrepreneurial freedom an intelligent ordering framework. Now the excesses of finance capitalism are being eliminated, and it looks as though the social market economy is experiencing a renaissance.
The current financial crisis would hardly have been so extensive if people in the US, and here as well, had followed the rules of the social market economy.