Never before have the people in Europe been doing so well. Economic performance has almost tripled over the past 45 years. But at the same time, unemployment, precarious employment, and poverty have increased, the welfare state is weakened, and millions of people in Europe are suffering hardship and fear. The influential economist Stephan Schulmeister explains how this polarization was able to develop and he makes one thing clear: the markets aren’t fate, unlike the dominant economic theory of the past decades wanted to make us believe.

Neo-liberalism has become a religion. Its disciples, journalists, politicians, but also countless entrepreneurs have adopted this ideology like a gospel. The book The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. von Hayek, published in 1945, serves as a catechism. In it, he postulates the theory that freedom and the constitutional state can only thrive in a market economy. With his theories, he has paved the way for a rampant predatory capitalism. Its disciples ignore the fact that it only serves the interests of financial capital. Politics only fights the symptoms of this existential crisis and aggravates it in the process. The result: finding their social status diminished and themselves afraid, many people turn to new tempters. Stephan Schulmeister presents a way out of this one-way street and drafts a »New Deal« for Europe. He thinks about economics in a new way, doesn’t consider »the market« a higher being, presents precise information about economics, and offers practical solutions.