Global achievements of the Christian democracy
Global experience of the Christian democracy
Christian democracy is a social and political movement which proposes solving of economic and social problems basing upon Christian principles of morality, equity, and mutual support.
The political parties and groups identifying themselves as Christian, Christian-Social, or Christian-democratic emerged in the last third of XIX century as a reaction of Christians of Italy, Germany, and France upon extremes of the main ideological movements of the epoch: liberalism, nationalism, and socialism.
In the second half of XX century, the Christian democrat’s economic policy has played a key role in development of the Western European and Latin America countries.
The Second World War left Europe in ruins. People of most of the Western European countries demonstrated tangible skepticism towards the authorities in office which could not prevent the communist influence’s dissemination. That was the time when, supported by the world community, Christian democratic parties of Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands won at the elections and formed one-party or coalition governments. The principles of Christian democracy became the , which helped people who lost faith and confidence after the war, to obtain strength and start recovering their countries. Thus Christian democrats’ coming to office marked beginning of the new era, the one of reviving of all spheres of social-economic and political life. Later, historians called the processes “economical miracle”.
Christian democrats and reviving of Europe
The concept of social market economy, successfully implemented by the Christian democrats, became the key driving force of the positive changes in Europe. First al all, it resulted in minimization of the authorities’ influence upon the economic processes and involving of all layers of population to the economic system.
However, the “economical miracle” based not only upon economic principals. The University of Freiburg has played a vyre important role in forming of the European social outlook; there, the Freiburg School or the “left wing” of liberalism emerged. The school’s reasonable views of the state’s interference to the social-economic processes formed basing upon the key principles of the Christian social teaching.
The school’s position was that the state’s key task is guaranteeing conditions for development of the market economy, providing and maintenance of the competitive environment. The principle of freedom of market was combined with the one of social compensation. The state was set a task to level negative social consequences of functioning of some market mechanisms.
The main condition, according to the Christian principles, was efficient combining of economical freedoms, social responsibility, and politic’s human orientation. Owing to introducing the above-mentioned positions by proponents of the Freiburg School, economics of European countries, drained by the totalitarian regimes and the world war, began to revive rapidly.
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