On June 20, 1948, Ludwig Erhard abolished price controls and introduced the Deutsche Mark in a single weekend. He did not consult the Allied authorities. The American military governor told him it was a terrible idea. Erhard replied that his own advisors agreed, which is why he had ignored them too.
The architecture, not the amount
Within months, empty shelves filled. The German economic miracle began — not from deregulation but from a constitutional act: new currency, competitive order, and institutional framework simultaneously. The American debate between social democrats and Chicago school — how much government — skips the dimension that mattered. The question is what kind.
An Ordnung — the German word for order,
the foundational rules of the game — is not regulation. It is constitutional architecture within which both market and state operate. The market needs rules the way football needs a referee: not to direct play but to ensure no player becomes so dominant the match stops being a contest.
Where both sides get it half right
The Chicago school locates the danger in government intervention. We locate it in both directions. Unregulated markets produce monopoly. Regulatory capture produces protected monopoly. Both destroy competition. The Chicago prescription — remove regulation — solves one and worsens the other.
Google controls 90 percent of global search. The price is not zero. The price is your attention, your data, and the competitive landscape of every industry that depends on search visibility. A monopoly charging in a currency the consumer does not recognize is still a monopoly.
The post-capitalists ask whether any framework can hold. Glass-Steagall lasted sixty-six years. Constitutional frameworks last longer than legislative ones. The German Basic Law survived seventy-five years and the absorption of a failed state. Durability is the most any institutional designer can honestly promise.
Where we concede ground: Germany’s Wirecard scandal — $2 billion fraud under the regulator’s nose. Our tools were built for steel. The world moved.
What would change our mind: The EU Digital Markets Act failing to reduce platform concentration after ten years of enforcement.
Read the full synthesis: Is capitalism broken?