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The CDU and the "Social Market Economy": Düsseldorf Guidelines for Economic Policy, Agricultural Policy, Social Policy, and Housing (July 15, 1949)

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Performance-based competition and monopoly control

are the foundation of the economic and social order we seek. Together with efforts to organically influence economic development by means of monetary and capital policy, by means of a tax system that improves tax morale and capital formation, and by means of an enhanced labor and economic law and a reformed social law, performance-based competition and the control of monopolies will ensure the ongoing development of the industrial economy. They will create social peace and grant each individual the freedom and opportunity to participate in the economic process in accordance with his or her performance and ability. This is the only way to achieve and secure a political democracy by means of a social and economic democracy.



Source: Düsseldorfer Leitsätze über Wirtschaftspolitik, Landwirtschaftspolitik, Sozialpolitik, Wohnungsbau [Düsseldorf Guidelines for Economic Policy, Agricultural Policy, Social Policy, and Housing] (July 15, 1949); reprinted in Ossip Kurt Flechtheim, Die Parteien der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [The Parties of the Federal Republic of Germany]. Hamburg, 1973, pp. 162-63.

Translation: Adam Blauhut

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