The Making of a ‘58er 39
19 47.^45 The social-market economy and “social partnership ideal,”
expressed in the law on worker “codetermination” of workplace con-
ditions (the Betriebsverfassungsgesetz), were “illusions” that masked
the contradiction of class interests.^46
After 1957, however, there were only a few Marxists who still
held influence in the SPD. A reform of the party’s economic doc-
trines had begun around 1951, when its leading economist, Karl
Schiller (1911–94), promoted a Keynesian program combining com-
petitive markets with increased purchasing power.^47 Schiller called
this idea the “market economy of the left”; only a minimum of state
planning would be incorporated.^48 “The freedom-loving socialist
solution... tries to find the ‘solution of the third way,’ ” he wrote.^49
The rightward trend in the SPD was a response to the actions of
Adenauer’s finance minister, Ludwig Erhard, whose brain trust was
the Freiburg “neoliberal” school of economists.^50
Had the neoliberals not shifted the terms of debate, Schiller’s
reformist program would not have been taken as seriously as it was
within the SPD.^51 Schiller coined the phrase, “As much competi-
tion as possible, as much planning as necessary”; from 1953 to 1959,
this was the SPD’s consistent message.^52 Schiller wanted a funda-
mentally liberal economic system modified by steering mechanisms
and full-employment strategies of a Keynesian type.^53 Nevertheless,
Schiller was far from being accepted by the whole of the SPD.^54
Viktor Agartz (1897–1964), Erik Nölting, and Hermann Veit rep-
resented the side of the party that still believed in the socialization
of major industry. Schiller’s ideas disturbed the middle ranks of the
party and the German trade union federation founded in 1949, the
Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB).^55 At the DGB conference in
(^45) Ibid., 246
(^46) Ibid.
(^47) Nicholls, Social Market Economy, 253, 365.
(^48) Ibid., 372, 374.
(^49) Ibid., 307. Schiller would later serve as Economics Minister from 1966–71
and Finance Minister from 1971–2.
(^50) Walter Eucken (1891–1950), Franz Böhm (1895–1977), Wilhelm Röpke
(1899–1966), and Alfred Müller-Armack (1901–78) were the most impor-
tant. For background, see F. X. Kaufmann, Sozialpolitische Denken: Die
Deutsche Tradition (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2003 ).
(^51) Nicholls, Social Market Economy, 308.
(^52) Ibid., 319.
(^53) Ibid.
(^54) Ibid., 308.
(^55) Ibid., 308–9.