Concept for a policy to overcome weak growth and fight unemployment

The concept for a policy to overcome the weak growth and to fight unemployment (also: Lambsdorff paper ) is an economic policy program, which in the final phase of the social-liberal coalition in 1982 in the Federal Ministry of Economics under the direction of Economics Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff (FDP) and the With the collaboration of his State Secretary Otto Schlecht and the then head of the economic policy department Hans Tietmeyer and presented in a letter to Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt on September 9, 1982.

content

The concept, which took up the economic policy change in England and the USA under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and contained neoliberal positions on labor market reform, essentially comprised the following objectives:

• Budget consolidation,
• Creation of incentives for investments that promote jobs,
• Curbing the exploding welfare state costs and
• Internal and external deregulation,

To achieve this, a bundle of measures were proposed, which were then initially tackled by the new Christian-liberal coalition under Helmut Kohl , and later by the red-green coalition as part of " Agenda 2010 " under Gerhard Schröder . But initially the concept presented by the FDP was considered incompatible with the SPD positions and exacerbated the already tense relationship between the SPD and its coalition partner in view of the controversial discussions within the SPD about the NATO double decision . The subsequent conflict over the federal budget in 1983 led to the breakup of the social-liberal coalition that had ruled since 1969 , which was expressed in the 1982 vote of no confidence.

“The paper went down in history as a 'letter of divorce' because its publication on September 9, 1982 triggered the break of the governing coalition between the SPD and FDP. Its content is representative of the economic policy reorientation from the Keynesian demand management to the liberal supply policy that had begun during the 1970s. Since the new economic policy model was only implemented very incompletely in the following period, the Lambsdorff paper is also a key document for the persistence of the West German social model. "

- Sabine Dworog, i. A. d. Bavarian State Library

documentation

• Concept for a policy to overcome weak growth and fight unemployment . September 9, 1982. In: 100 (0) key documents to German history in the 20th century . Bavarian State Library (ed.). Retrieved January 12, 2019.
• Gérard Bölenlamp, Detmar Doehring, Jürgen Frölich, Ewald Grothe, Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and Archive of Liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (ed.) .: 30 years of "Lambsdorff Paper". Texts and documents on the “Concept for a policy to overcome weak growth and combat unemployment” (September 9, 1982) . 3rd edition, Berlin 2013.

Web links

• 30 years of Lambsdorff paper: a decisive turning point in economic and social policy - blog post by the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, 2012
• 30 years of Lambsdorff paper - blog post by NachDenkSeiten , 2012
• Feld, Lars P. (2013): On the importance of the manifesto of the market economy or: The Lambsdorff paper in the 31st year, Freiburg discussion papers on the economics of order, No. 13/9, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institute for General Economic Research, Department for Economic Policy, Freiburg i. Br. Https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/88112/1/772166285.pdf

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gérard Bökenkamp, ​​Jürgen Frölich: 30 Years of the Lambsdorff Paper: A decisive turning point in economic and social policy , In: Thinking for Freedom, Liberales Institut, September 11, 2012, accessed on September 26, 2013.
2. ↑ Hans-Peter Schütz: Otto Graf Lambsdorff - Ein echter Liberaler , in: Der Stern, December 6, 2009, accessed on September 26, 2013.
3. ^ Die Zeit, Michael Jungblut, September 17, 1982, A general without troops - even representatives of their own party make a front against the Minister of Economic Affairs , accessed on September 26, 2013.
4. ^ Der Spiegel, Heiko Martens, September 20, 1982, One location right from the Union , accessed on September 26, 2013.
5. ↑ Die Welt, Thorsten Jungholt and Daniel Friedrich Sturm, September 2, 2012, Red-Yellow - Two foreign cultures can no longer come together , accessed on September 26, 2013.
6. ↑ 100 (0) key documents on German history in the 20th century , ed. from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , accessed on September 26, 2013.