Social Market Economy and neoliberalism: Gross incompatibilities
August 3, 2015, 7:46 pm
Champika Ranawaka appears to have borrowed the concept of social market economy (SME) from Dr. Harsha de Silva and used it as if it were his own invention for the purpose of portraying the economic policy framework of the future UNFGG government for the next five years. As far as I know, the concept of social market economy has never been discussed in serious manner in Sri Lanka. In the early 1990s, a seminar was held at Colombo Hilton where a German professor outlined the concept SME as it had been practised in Germany especially in the post World War II period. What is social market economy? What are the main characteristics of the SME? How does it differ from Anglo-American notion of market economy? What is the exact role the state plays in the SME? These are the sort of issues I intend to address in this article.
