MILOEK

Militärökonomische Forschung und Lehre
Research and Courses in Economics of Defense

Economics and the Economics of Defense III

What design features of an economy are responsible to justify its labeling as a Social Market Economy (SoME)? First, a SoME is based on two principles → Baltes (1986 / 2002). The conception of “equal rights” (not to be confused with equality), logically derived by Kant (1786) as the Categorical Imperative. This principle can make its appearance in several variants ─ for example, one of these is the “golden rule” formulated in the “sermon of the mount” ─ but the principle’s content / recommendation always remains constant: Only those actions should be considered legitimate that are allowed to all human beings.

But only relying on the principle of equal rights can result in the problem of getting the priorities right in the case of conflicting universal rights. Kant himself involuntarily illustrates this issue in his famous example of a killer coming to town and asking a person about where to find his victim. When analyzing the conflict between telling the killer the truth and lying to protect the potential victim, Kant comes up with the grotesque recommendation to tell the murderer the truth. Thus, a fundamental priority has to be established as a complementary principle, the approximate guarantee to individual existence.

How these two principles are applied in politics to achieve a satisficing, not a universal consensus in a democratic society can be illustrated by two recent incidents of global relevance.

• The sad events in Libya, Pakistan or Sudan following the publishing of a disturbing “Mohammed video” via the Internet. Based on the Categorical Imperative the freedom of speech can be derived as a universal law. Thus, criticizing or even making fun of religions are to be tolerated in general ─ as long as it does not deviate into personal defamations. However, as the German chancellor Merkel points out, the protection of lives has a higher priority, because radical Islamic groups have reacted to the video’s provocation in a completely inadequate way by storming embassies and killing people.
• An attempt to legitimate a preemptive strike by declaring it a case of equal rights: “`Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.´ Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, arguing that because the U.S. won’t set criteria for attacking Iran’s nuclear program, it has no right to stop Israel from striking.”
  ─ quote found in Time (Magazine), September 24 2012, p. 5