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Competition as a Basic Element of the Social Market Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Wernhard Möschel
Affiliation:
Professor of Law, University of Tuebingen, former chairman of the German Monopolies Commission.
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Extract

Competition is a value in itself. It is not directed towards specific objectives.

Market economy can be fitted into the categories of the theory of decision-making. Decision-makers are individuals, not a collective entity like the state. The objects of decision-making are arbitrary and therefore necessarily unknown. Legally speaking, the participants are making use of their personal autonomy. The procedure of decision-making is the contract, the voluntary reaching of an agreement with another party. The order achieved through such a process cannot be directed towards specific objectives. The methodological reason for this is: freedom would be abolished if one attempted to define its content in advance. Market organisation through competition is the spontaneous order that results when people coordinate their actions by way of mutual adjustment in transmitting and receiving information. Only statements about the general structures of such a system (pattern predictions) are possible. Such a systemt results in mutual advantages for the individuals involved, and in economic overall advantages, as a generic term for growth, inducement and unfolding of technological progress and efficient allocation. This general social task that is achieved by the exercise of individual freedom remains recognisable, even though it may be difficult to discern in the individual case.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press and the Authors 2001

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References

1 See also Möschel, W., Rechtsordnung zwischen Plan und Markt (Tübingen: Mohr 1975) p. 5.Google Scholar

2 Karel, van Miert, “Die Wettbewerbspolitik der neuen Kommission”, Competition Policy Newsletter, vol. 1, no. 5 (1995) p. 1.Google Scholar

3 Möschel, W., Recht der Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (Köln: Heymanns 1983) paras. 70, 79.Google Scholar

4 OJ [1999] C 132/1-33; see also Möschel, W., “Systemwechsel im Europäischen Wettbewerbsrecht?”, JZ [2000] 61.Google Scholar

5 Brussels, 27.9.2000 COM (2000) 582 final. 2000/0243 (CNS).

6 See Monopolkommission, , Sondergutachten 28, Kartellpolitische Wende in der Europäischen Union? (Baden-Baden: Nomos 1999) paras. 23 et seq.Google Scholar

7 Communication on the Application of Article 81 (3) of the Treaty to Horizontal Cooperation Agreements, OJ [2000] C 118/14.

8 Antitrust Report (April 2000) pp. 16-42.

9 See Scheidgen, A./ König, M., “Kooperationen zwischen Wettbewerbern – Ist eine Neubewertung erforderlich?”, WuW [2000] 1205.Google Scholar