Third way

This article looks at alternatives to established options. For the party in Palestine see Third Way (Palestine) , for other terms see The Third Way .

The term third way is used with different meanings. It is generally used to indicate an alternative - an alleged or actual new path - in addition to two options that have so far been considered unsuccessful.

Application of the term

The third way is:

• Certain economic policy concepts:
  • Alternative concepts to communism and capitalism , for example free economy , social threefolding , competitive socialism or personalism
  • Ordoliberalism and the social market economy are described by some authors and in the annual economic report of the German government from 1990 as the “third way between capitalism and socialism”, other authors expressly differentiate them from so-called “third ways”.
  • The economic reform of the GDR New economic system of planning and management 1962–1967
  • The economic reforms of the Prague Spring 1968
  • British sociologist Anthony Giddens' search for a middle ground between laissez-faire liberalism and socialism . In his book The Third Way , published in 1998, Giddens presents his theory.
  • Tony Blair , British Prime Minister from May 1997 to June 2007, pursued a policy of the free market and the demarcation from collectivism under the slogans of New Labor , "modern social democracy" and "third way".
• Attempts to mediate between communism and reformism , for example communitarianism or Austromarxism and other left socialist currents ( see also: centrism )
• An idea of ​​right-wing Catholic political circles in the post-war years up to around the end of the 1970s, largely isolated from public discourse, which wanted to counter the then bipolar world of Western liberalism versus Soviet communism with a third way "to save Christian-Western culture". This should take place in the form of a new Holy Roman Empire and / or in the form of a "South Atlantic Military Alliance" to which, in addition to clearly Christian-oriented European states, South American and (white) African dictatorships should also belong. Even Konrad Adenauer and Franz Josef Strauss were among the at least temporarily active supporters of this approach.
• The way in which employment relationships are regulated in the Catholic and Protestant Church in Germany :
  • "First way" is the unilateral determination of the employment contract by the employer .
  • The “second way” is the conclusion of collective agreements between employers and employees.
  • The “third way” is the amicable drafting of the employment contract guidelines and remuneration in committees with equal representation . The third way results from the constitutionally guaranteed right of the churches to self-determination (Article 140 of the Basic Law in conjunction with Article 137, Paragraph 3 of the Weimar Constitution). In fact, this constitutional norm is subject to the “law applicable to all”. Since the Collective Agreement Act (TVG) does not exclude the churches, this law also applies to the churches. (Generally binding) collective agreements can therefore only be created in accordance with the provisions of the TVG. According to the established case law of the BAG, the regulations of the church commissions only have the legal quality of "general terms and conditions".
• In England, France, Austria and Italy, the third position also includes radical national- revolutionary cross-front ideologies ( see also: Third Camp ).

Proponents of third paths tend to present their ideas in a positive light, locate themselves as the ' political center ' and place the positions of others or the past in an ideological twilight in order to make room for their own point of view.

criticism

The libertarian intellectual Ludwig von Mises criticized efforts to find a third way between capitalism and socialism. He considered attempts of this kind to limit a state to be theoretically futile, since every intervention in the market system entails a distortion of supply and demand, which in turn must be corrected by new interventions until a state with fully developed interventionism emerges. Von Mises judged in his 1929 Critique of Interventionism: “There is no other choice than this: either to refrain from interfering with the game of the market, or to transfer the entire management of production and distribution to the authorities. There is no such thing as either capitalism or socialism, something in between. "

See also

• Democratic socialism
• Arab socialism
• Left nationalism
• Prague spring
• Third educational path

literature

• Ota Šik : The third way. 1972.
• Wilfried Heidt : The third way. 1974.
• Steffen Kachel : The USPD - Attempting a Third Way? In: Yearbook for research on the history of the labor movement . Issue III / 2007.

Web links

• Alexander Gallus , Eckhard Jesse : What are Third Ways? A comparative inventory. In: From Politics and Contemporary History , B 16–17 / 2001. PDF, 82 kB.
• Roland Sturm : The Third Way - The royal road between all ideologies or even under suspicion of ideology? In: From Politics and Contemporary History, B 16–17 / 2001. PDF, 30 kB.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andreas Schulze, Small parties in Germany , Vs Verlag; 1st edition, 2004, ISBN 978-3824445585 , page 67
2. ↑ Gabler Verlag (editor), Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, keyword: models of competition policy ( online version )
3. ↑ Gerd Becher, Elmar Treptow: The just order of society. Campus Verlag, 2000, ISBN 9783593361574 .
4. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz: Small Lexicon of Politics. 5th edition. Beck, 2011, ISBN 978-3406604119 , page 108
5. ^ For example, Alfred Schüller , who contrasts the free market economy and social market economy as forms of the first way with the centrally planned social administration economy as the second way and with market socialism (which Schüller also includes the welfare state ) as the third way. Schüller refers to Wilhelm Röpke , who at times spoke of a Third Way, but later emphatically distanced himself from this designation. Alfred Schüller: Social Market Economy and Third Ways. In: ORDO - Yearbook for the Order of Economy and Society . Volume 51. Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2000, pp. 169-202.
6. ↑ See Steffen Kachel : The USPD - Attempting a Third Way ?, in: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2007.
7. ↑ DLF broadcast essay and discourse from February 12, 2012, The Other West
8. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court, 2nd Senate: Federal Constitutional Court - Decisions - Constitutional complaint against “Third Way” in church labor law inadmissible. July 15, 2015, accessed June 20, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Alexander Gallus, Eckhard Jesse: What are Third Ways? From politics and contemporary history . B 16-17 / 2001. p. 14.
10. ↑ Roland Sturm: The Third Way - The royal road between all ideologies or even under suspicion of ideology? From politics and contemporary history. B 16-17 / 2001. p. 3.
11. ↑ Hubertus Bardt: “Work” versus “Capital” - on the transformation of a classic conflict: a study of order economics. Volume 73 of writings on regulatory issues in the economy . Lucius & Lucius DE, 2003. p. 26.