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Ludwig Erhard Quotes

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician and economist affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union , and chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is known for leading the West German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery in his role as Minister of Economic Affairs under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period he promoted the concept of the social market economy , on which Germany's economic policy in the 21st century continues to be based. In his tenure as Chancellor, however, Erhard lacked support from Adenauer, who remained chairman of the party until 1966, and failed to win the public's confidence in his handling of a budget deficit and his direction of foreign policy. His popularity waned, and he resigned his chancellorship on 30 November 1966. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. February 1897 – 5. May 1977
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Ludwig Erhard: 5 quotes5 likes

Famous Ludwig Erhard Quotes

“Any liberal system must proceed from the assumption that freedom is one and indivisible and that elementary human freedom in all spheres of life must go hand in hand with political, religious, economic and spiritual freedom. The strategy of collectivist thinking has always been to split up this most essential and most universal of human values as a means of making inroads into the free system itself.”

Ludwig Erhard

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), pp. 291–292

“As I have said time and again, the focal point of our economy is the individual.”

Ludwig Erhard

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), pp. 283–284

“A collectivist-totalitarian economic system, which in the final analysis serves only to glorify and increase the power of the state, can achieve great success in the easily controllable field of the basic industries but it will always remain incapable of serving man, in other words of providing the rich abundance of goods which gives the individual consumer a free choice and which enriches and beautifies his life.”

Ludwig Erhard

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), p. 281

“In a community of free people the freedom of economic activity is an inseparable part of the whole, and only this freedom will ensure a life worth living.”

Ludwig Erhard

Message to the international industrial development conference in San Francisco, quoted in The Times (16 October 1957), p. 7

“National autonomy in economic matters should not be an obstacle to a free world economic system. But to achieve free convertibility within the European Payments Union only would lead to further upheavals. The dollar and the pound sterling should be included in any such step, if a new single world market was to be created. A free political order implied a free economic order; this would stand foremost amongst the preoccupations of the new Bundestag.”

Ludwig Erhard

Speech to the opening of the fourth German Industrial Fair in Berlin (26 September 1953), quoted in The Times (28 September 1953), p. 5

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