Half of Germans Think Reality Does Not Match the Basic Ideas of the Social Market Economy
Around one-half of Germans feel that the reality in Germany no longer matches the basic ideas underpinning the social market economy. This is the result of a survey conducted by the ifo Institute. The survey examined whether or not respondents’ attitudes toward the social market economy changed after receiving information about the basic ideas behind it. “Among those who felt our information correctly represented reality, acceptance of the social market economy increased slightly. Among those who disagreed with our description of the economic order, the already low level of approval declined. Overall, support for the social market economy remained virtually unchanged,” says Prof. Sarah Necker, Director of the Ludwig Erhard ifo Center for Social Market Economy and Institutional Economics.
Three out of every four people who vote AfD or the Left were of the opinion that the current economic order did not represent the basic ideas of a social market economy. More than 50 percent of Green Party voters said that the information provided did not accurately describe the current reality. The voter groups for all other parties judged the information as largely accurate.
This analysis is based on an online survey of German citizens between the ages of 18 and 70 that was conducted in August 2022. A total of 2,000 people participated in the survey; they are representative of the German population in terms of gender, geography, age, and income. The information presented to the respondents in the survey experiment was based on written and spoken statements by the founding fathers of the social market economy (Ludwig Erhard, Alfred Müller-Armack, and Wilhelm Röpke).
Die Soziale Marktwirtschaft aus Bevölkerungsperspektive III/III: Beeinflussen Informationen über die Soziale Marktwirtschaft die Zustimmung der Bevölkerung zur Wirtschaftsordnung?
ifo Institut, München, 2023
ifo Schnelldienst, 2023, 76, Nr. 1, 49-53
