Abstract
During the Early 1990s the Term Social Market economy has been used rather loosely; this is not surprising since the theory is derived from a specifically German tradition of political economy with little or no resonance outside the Germanspeaking area. The leading thinkers in the genre are hardly known in English-speaking circles and most of their works remain untranslated.The fundamental purpose of this article is to present this rich and diverse strand of thought to a non-German audience barely aware of its existence, to point out possibilities for developing the international aspects of such a theory, and to highlight policy issues concerning the post-cold war European and international orders which can be addressed from social market perspectives.

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