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Wilhelm Röpke (October 10, 1899, Schwarmstedt, a village near Hannover - February 12, 1966, Geneva) was one of the most important spiritual fathers of the German social market economy.
For this professor of economics, right, moral habits (Sitte), and social norms and values were decisive elements with which not the market, but the state and central bank continually need to be concerned. With a "conforming" social, economic, and financial policy, the task of which is to protect the weak "beyond the market", to equalize interests, set rules of the game, and limit market power, Röpke strove for an economic order of economic humanism, something which he also referred to as the third way. Röpke stood for a society and socal policy in which human rights are given the highest importance. He believed that individualism must be balanced by a well-thought-out principle of sociality and humanity.