Social Market Economy Today

The artcle is devoted to the socially oriented market economy. The concept has been fully implemented by L. Erhard in the first postwar years in the Federal German Republic resulting in the prosperity for all the society. Social market economy is a concept of socio-economic order uniting personal freedom and persona! responsibility for individual financial status with democracy, economic liberalism, respect for law and executing legal demands as well as state responsibility for the welfare of citizens unable to function in the market economy. This model is right for modern times of globalisation and aging societies in the developed countries. Modern market economy has to take social questions into account, as is the case in the socially oriented market economy concept, so as not to allow economic discrepancies and social tensions