For an Economic Humanism. Wilhelm Ropke's "Civitas Humana" and the Social Market Economy

Civitas Humana is a thoroughly articulated work. In it, Röpke makes interact all the disciplinary spirits that inform the so-called social market economy: economics, both microanalysis as well as macro, sociology, and politics. Wanting to provide an informative introduction, rather than merely presenting a summary of all the topics covered by the book, the writer proposes a reflection on the contribution that the work of Röpke offers to the debate over global governance as opposed to global government. The reconstruction of the international order after totalitarian devastation, in the opinion of Röpke, imposes a choice between economic regimes that were incompatible: a market economy or a controlled economy. The tragic experience of the past leads our author to choose, without any hesitation, the way of the market economy, an economy of competition that develops the theory of liberalism given direction by the Freiburg School and that could be implemented in a dynamic Social Market Economy