Leonhard Miksch

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Leonhard Miksch (born May 20, 1901 in Teplitz-Schönau , Bohemia ; † September 19, 1950 in Freiburg im Breisgau , Baden-Württemberg ) was a German economist and university professor .

He was one of the rather unknown representatives of the ordoliberal Freiburg school. Its considerable importance arises from his function as close advisor to Ludwig Erhard , his scientific contributions to the further development of ordoliberalism and his participation in scientific advisory boards. In addition, he was very close to the group of people around Walter Eucken , Franz Böhm , Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow and belonged to the core of the Freiburg teaching community.

Life

Leonhard Miksch only became an economist in the last phase of his life. From 1923 until his resignation in 1925, Miksch was briefly a member of the NSDAP , which is why Miksch is assigned to the nationally-minded wing of the Frankfurter Zeitung , which (at that time) was close to the left-wing liberals and the DDP . Miksch worked there from 1929 to 1943 as a business journalist. This explains Miksch's political position and the associated obstacles for Miksch's academic career. During this time, his 80 articles for the journal Die Wirtschaftskurve were important .

His moderate left-wing liberal political stance prevented Miksch from starting his university career during the Nazi era . Miksch began his habilitation with the habilitation thesis "Competition as a task" submitted to Walter Eucken in 1937 and was subsequently awarded the academic degree of Dr. habil., but did not apply for admission as a lecturer. The habilitation thesis was praised by Eucken as the first reviewer as an "unusual achievement", which in "very rare measure [..] combines knowledge of details of the economy with fundamental thinking".

Miksch then worked at the " Ergonomics Institute " AWI of the DAF .

After the war, Miksch joined the SPD, unusual for ordoliberals, and was initially deputy head of the food office in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . From 1946 he was deputy head of the Central Office for Economic Affairs of the British Zone in Minden . Miksch was later transferred to the "bizonal administrative office" in Minden and to the forerunner of the Federal Ministry of Economics , the "Administration for Economy", where he took over the management of Section IB 1 "Basic pricing issues and business administration". In doing so, he became a close associate of Ludwig Erhard, who in turn had been director of the “Administration for Economy” since March 1948.

In September 1949 he was appointed full professor of economics and finance at the University of Freiburg, and after the death of Walter Eucken in March 1950, Miksch was appointed successor as director of the “Economics Seminar” in the Economics Faculty of the University of Freiburg at the end of April 1950 . On September 19, 1950, Leonhard Miksch died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 49 .

Miksch's contribution to the political birth of the social market economy

Miksch drafted the "Guideline Law" (officially "Law on Principles for Management and Price Policy after the Monetary Reform "), which was passed on June 18, 1948, two days before the currency reform , by the "Administrative Council of the United Economic Area", with which the prices were released. The allied Bipartite Board in Berlin, as the higher legal authority of the military governors, confirmed the “Leitsatzegesetz” on June 25, 1948, and Ludwig Erhard released the prices of almost all commercially produced goods on the same day with the “Order on pricing and price monitoring after the currency reform” .

For Hans Tietmeyer , the political birth of the social market economy in West Germany lies in the approval of prices and management ("Guiding Principle Act"), in the preparation of which Leonhard Miksch played a decisive role.

Miksch also used the term social market economy in his texts long before Erhard took it up, as early as the end of 1947 in the specialist journal Der Wirtschaftsspiegel and in January 1948 in an internal memorandum.

Economic Beliefs

The currency reform of the young Federal Republic was largely due to Miksch, who served as Erhard's ideas and adviser during this time. "The prices must be real equilibrium prices and reflect the relationship between supply and demand in each market," was Miksch's credo. He was convinced that welfare state tasks and actions of the state were necessary, without these the release of the prices would be "pointless" in the opinion of Miksch.

Like the rest of the members of the Freiburg School, Miksch was convinced that a pure laissez faire economy would automatically destroy competition and develop to the detriment of consumers and employees. In addition to competition policy and social policy, the element of the “ordo”, which was intended to prevent degeneration of economic processes, was used as a counterweight to this development, which was perceived as socially harmful .

For Miksch and the other ordoliberals, the competition was “a state event” and could only be secured through a strong state (Miksch 1937). Essential for Miksch's thinking was his doctrine of market forms , refined with "partial monopolies" and "partial oligopolies" , which was derived from precise and exclusively reality-oriented observation of actual market conditions. The ideal form of the perfect market cannot be found in economic reality.

"It is the task of competition policy to give every market a suitable market constitution", whereby the actual market constitution should be linked here, but in such a way that market access for potential competitors, the diversity of providers and fair competition are promoted. The control of the market should primarily be based on the interests of the consumers, and the state that sets the ordinance should compensate for serious power imbalances between suppliers and buyers, if necessary even by entering into competition through its own operations - but only for the purpose of balancing existing imbalances.

If possible, markets should be transformed into the market constitution of free competition, but with strict observance of state legislation, e.g. B. in questions of employee protection rights.

"In the markets ... that are organized in free competition despite incomplete competition, there is usually market disruption" (Miksch 1937)

According to Miksch, monopolies in private hands are absolutely to be prevented and, if they cannot be dissolved and transferred to free competition, the state control of monopolies is the only adequate form of organization, since only then “will the interests of the community be protected stay ”(Miksch 1937).

With this demand for intervention, Miksch and the other ordoliberals opposed the previous representatives of liberalism, which they not only accused of being “socially blind”, but also of pursuing economic policy out of an exaggerated expectation of harmony, which idealized real economic processes in an unsuitable way so that actual problems remained unsolved.

The required state intervention should, however, primarily be aimed at creating well-functioning competition that is satisfactory for both consumers and employees. “To organize means… by no means to steer and regulate centrally. The free, self-responsible decision of those involved in the economic process is the strongest source of strength for progress. On the other hand, central regulation of all economic processes is hardly feasible. It would burden the state with unheard-of, sterile and highly speculative work. The complicated process of the economic apparatus must, as far as possible, be shaped freely. To organize means to organize in freedom ”(Miksch 1937).

The political-legal as well as the direct regulatory framework, which is given from the outside by the market constitution, should have the effect that the economic process "then takes place by itself in the desired direction" (Miksch 1937).

Depending on how the economic framework data and actual economic and social problems are presented, there is a relationship between “external order” or “external coordination” (e.g. state ordinance) and “internal coordination” in the respective markets different optima, which then, according to Miksch, means that this search for the respective economic and political optimum would remain “set as an eternal task” (Miksch 1950).

A large number of suppliers and buyers, as well as the “powerlessness” of these (e.g. with regard to the conditions or with regard to the market) are, according to Miksch, characteristics of well-functioning markets in which “external coordination” can be largely dispensed with. According to Miksch, markets cannot achieve a state of equilibrium without a sufficient variety of suppliers and buyers, but instead leave the equilibrium, usually to the detriment of the weaker market participants or to the detriment of the common good.

According to Miksch, market forms of incomplete competition come very close to the rigid forms of command economy, which are often designed to the detriment of individuals and individual economies.

“So everything in it depends on the will and ability of the central management. Their freedom of disposition excludes any automatic coordination, ”which, according to Miksch, also means that the optimum in the sense of the common good would regularly be missed. The decisive factor is that the “multitude of individual needs” is reflected in the economy and, as a result of perfect competition and freedom of privileges, an optimally balancing control of the economy results from the interests of the individual.

Fonts (selection)

  • The serious Bible Students . Lorch, Rohm 1925
  • Competition as a task: the principles of a competition regime . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1937. Zugl. Habil.schr.
    • 2nd "extended edition". Küpper, Godesberg 1947
  • Do we still need entrepreneurs? In the economic curve. Vol. 20th ed. Frankfurter Zeitung. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 1941, pp. 5-14
  • The big business on the advance . In the economic curve. Vol. 20. Frankfurt 1941, pp. 175-187
  • Free trade in Europe? In the economic curve. 20, Frankfurt 1941, pp. 256-266
  • The outlook of the trade. In the economic curve. Volume 21, 1942, pp. 21-34
  • Possibilities and limits of tied competition. In: Die Wirtschaftskurve 21, 1942, pp. 99-106
  • From the comparison time to the demand plan: On the reform of the war economy , In The Economic Curve . 21, 1943, pp. 83-101
  • The forms of merchandise management: an unexplored country , reprint of the Frankfurter Zeitung, 1942
  • The price release: economic policy and law . Industrie Verlag Gehlsen, Siegburg 1948
  • Thoughts on the economic order. Doeblin, Wiesbaden 1948
  • Money creation in equilibrium theory. In Ordo , vol. 2. Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 1949, pp. 308-328
  • The moral meaning of inner coordination , In Ordo , vol. 3, Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 1950, pp. 29–73
  • Die Wirtschaftsppolitik des Als-Ob , In Zeitschrift für die Staatswissenschaft Tübingen 1949, pp. 310–338
  • The nationalization of the means of production in the morphology of economic systems , in studies of the social structure of the economic system. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1950, pp. 85-142
  • The protection of competition in the social market economy . Institute for the Promotion of Public Affairs, Frankfurt 1950
  • Illusions of economics , In Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv Tübingen 1951, pp. 1–6
  • On the theory of spatial equilibrium , In Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Tübingen 1951, pp. 5-50

literature

  • Gerhard Mauch:  Miksch, Leonhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 495 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Lars P. Feld (ed.), Ekkehard A. Köhler (ed.): Competition and the fight against monopoly: In memory of Leonhard Miksch (1901-1950) , Mohr Siebeck , 2013, ISBN 9783161510458
  • Arnold Berndt, Nils Goldschmidt: Competition as a task. Leonhard Miksch's contribution to the theory and politics of order , in: ORDO. Yearbook for the Order of Economy and Society, 51, 2000; Pp. 33-74 PDF
  • Sylvain Broyer: Retour à l'économie de marché: les débats du conseil scientifique attaché à l'administration économique de la Bizone ; in: Patricia Commun (dir.): L'ordolibéralisme allemand. Aux sources de l'économie sociale de marché . Cergy-Pontoise, 2003; Pp. 201-221

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ Nils Goldschmidt, Michael Wohlgemuth, Basic Texts on the Freiburg Tradition of Ordnungsökonomik , Mohr Siebeck, 2008, p. 156.
  2. ^ Walter Eucken: Ordo: Yearbook for the Order of Economy and Society , 52, pp. 35-36. Miksch's font was "expanded" in 1947 (from 139 to 225 pages) by another publisher. Further research must show to what extent it has been "cleaned up" in the process.
  3. ^ Karl Heinz Roth : Intelligence and Social Policy in the "Third Reich". A methodological-historical study using the example of the Ergonomic Institute of the German Labor Front. Saur, Munich 1993 ISBN 3-11-199988-2 , p. 36
  4. ^ Arnold Berndt, Nils Goldschmidt: Ordo: Yearbook for the Order of Economy and Society, Volume 52 , p. 40.
  5. ^ Walter Vogel, Wolfram Werner, Günter Plum, Christoph Weisz, Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, ​​Federal Archives (Koblenz), files on the prehistory of the Federal Republic of Germany: 1945-1949. January - June 1947, Volume 2 , 1989, Oldenbourg Verlag, p. 28.
  6. ↑ , Deutsche Bundesbank, Fifty Years of Deutsche Mark , 1998, p. 133.
  7. ↑ [1]
  8. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: The emergence of the "social market economy" 1948/49. A historical dispositive analysis. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Konstanz and Munich 2017, p. 145 and 246.
  9. ↑ shows the influence of Miksch and Eucken on the Scientific Advisory Board 1947–1948
personal data
SURNAME Miksch, Leonhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Teplitz-Schönau , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1950
Place of death Freiburg im Breisgau , Baden-Wuerttemberg