Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

102 Jürgen G. Backhauspredictability of economic policy, and explains what can be deduced from this principleand what can not. In its first two decades before the accession of Britain to theEuropean Union, Ordo-liberal principles played an important role in EuropeanUnion policies. It is therefore important that François Bilger discusses both ideasand interests in the development of the European economic order.Ordo-economic principles tend to evoke the strongest controversies whenapplied to labor market and social policy. This is the topic of Part II of this book.Five quarters of a century ago, German economists started to pose the “socialquestion” in an unmistakenly different way from how other economists in France,Britain, or Italy predominantly did at the same time (Backhaus in press). BernhardKülp turns to Walter Eucken’s position with respect to the social question. UlrichWitt discusses the social market economy, Germany’s specific “answer” to thesocial question, which he is positioning between notions of rent-seeking and socialcontract respectively. Whether, from Eucken’s point of view, there can be marketorder in the labor market is the topic of Volker Rieble’s contribution. A specificexample of German labor market legislation ostensibly trying to provide for alevel playing field concerns the so-called Worker Transfer Act (Arbeitnehmer-Entsendegesetz), which basically subjects workers employed by foreign companiesoperating in Germany, such as a British construction company doing work ona Berlin construction site, to the same conditions that would apply to Germanworkers. Thus, a British electric contractor who has won a bid on a Berlin constructionsite has to subject his electricians to German working and pay conditions, thusrobbing him of an important competitive advantage. Manfred Löwisch takes thisexample and uses Eucken’s approach for a thorough criticism. This example,whether one agrees with the results of the analysis or not, shows how topicalEucken’s work can be and how usefully it can be employed in the context of law andeconomic analysis. The integration of the German health industry, public, not forprofit, and private, into the European market is the topic of an analysis by EckhardKnappe and Hans-Joachim Jubelius, who again take an Ordo-economic approach.Norbert Berthold, who can always be found in the front lines of current politicaldebate holding up the Ordo-economic flag, discusses options for social securityreform.At the heart of Ordo-economic principles is the notion that it is one of theprimary (if not the primary) purposes of a state to provide for and guarantee theinstitutions which the market requires for its proper operation. Any policy initiativeshould withstand the test of whether it is compatible with the principles of a marketeconomy. Hence, Part III of the book is devoted to the issue of the role of the statewith respect to competition. Hans Otto Lenel therefore takes up the central conceptof private economic power. Christian Watrin compares the view of the purposes ofthe state of Walter Eucken on the one hand and Friedrich von Hayek on the other.Erich Streissler deals with free financial markets from Eucken’s point of view. HansWillgerodt wonders whether state systems of control or system of self-control arethe better remedy against currency crises. Bernd Schauenberg takes up corruptionas a problem for economic organizations as such, but the economic order as awhole as well. Here we see how close Eucken’s approach can come to current issues