Main Elements
The main elements of the Social Market Economy in Germany are basically:
- The Social Market Economy contains the central elements of the free market economy such as private property, free foreign trade, exchange of goods, and free formation of prices.
- The government implements policies that are designed to remedy some of the problems of the free market economy. One of these policies is the establishment of a social security system that includes pension insurance, health care and unemployment insurance. Members of the labor force pay into the social security system, providing it with its main source of revenue. Other policies of the social market economy are designed to restrain the free market (antitrust laws, laws against the abuse of market power, etc.).
- Some prominent authors (Werner Abelshauser, Bernd Rüthers) also regard social partnership as a key element.
Read more about this topic: Social Market Economy
Famous quotes containing the words main and/or elements:
“Parents need to recognize that the negative behavior accompanying certain stages is just a small part of the total child. It should not become the main focus or be pushed into the limelight.”
—Saf Lerman (20th century)
“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)