Following the political, social, economic and human catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century and the liberation from fascism in 1945, there was broad consensus in Germany that the socio-economic reconstruction should move toward securing economic prosperity...
"The Model of the Social Market Economy is a productive compromise between economic freedom and social balance. It is considered "social" because its goal is a system of socially just compensation, with everyone participating and sharing according to their ability in social, cultural and economic life, whether they be in paid work or not... It is essential to an understanding of the social market economy to realize that economic success and social balance are goals of equal rank and that each has to be seen as a precondition for the other."
to read Gerhard Wegner's 18-page pdf article published in October 2009, click on
http://www.ekd.de/si-download/Wegner_-_28_Jan.pdf
Original: The future of the welfare state in the context of globalization - the German example