Goetz Briefs’ Socially Tempered Capitalism

Daniel Eissrich
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Daniel Eissrich: Deutsche Bundesbank

A chapter in Origins and Change of the Social Market Economy, 2023, pp 137-155 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Goetz Briefs (1889–1974) has sometimes been named along with Walter Eucken, Alfred Müller-Armack, Alexander Rüstow and Wilhelm Röpke as the father of the social market economy. Nevertheless, his work nowadays seems to be almost forgotten. Briefs was an important exponent of Catholic social doctrine and was seen as a bridge-builder between Catholic social doctrine on the one hand and ordoliberalism and the social market economy on the other. As early as the 1920s, Briefs developed his idea of “socially tempered capitalism”, which is strongly reminiscent of elements of the social market economy. Even then, but especially in the post-war period, Briefs analysed and criticised the widespread “laissez-faire pluralism”; his ideas in this regard were incorporated into the conception of Ludwig Erhard’s “Formed Society”. In the following paper, central elements from the work of Goetz Briefs will be highlighted that have influenced the development of the social market economy.

Keywords: Social market economy; Marginal ethics; Socially tempered capitalism; Formed society; Laissez-faire pluralism; Goetz Briefs; B25; B31; D70; E02; P10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:euhchp:978-3-031-39210-8_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-39210-8_8

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