Proinflacyjny charakter zachodnioniemieckiego systemu zabezpieczenia społecznego

Abstract

The article contains an attempt at providing an answer to the question whether, and if so - in what way and to what extent, the state system of social security may participate in stimulation or consolidation of the inflationary process in the contemporary capitalism. The analysis is performed within the framework of two most common theories of inflation causes today, and namely of the demand and the costs theories with the object of research being the West-German social security system. This analysis reveals that this system may, theoretically speaking, develop in an proinflationary way and that both through its influence on the demand and supply (costs) factors of the economic process. The fact that the security system restricts its activity mainly to the transfer of the purohasing power from those remaining in the production process to those excluded temporarily or penamently from the professional life as well as propensity to generating changes in the distribution of the national income in favour of the non-possessing classes being characteristic for the system, provide an excuse for stating that it created a bigger inflationary threat through its influence on the supply (costs) rather than the demand side of the economic process. It seems, however that the strenght of the proinflationary influence of the West-German social security system should not be estimated too highly duo to the fact that costs foraally incurred by companies for social securing of the employed (fees) although growing and ąuite substantial in their absolute figures, represent a relatively insignificant portion of their aggregate production costs; insignificant in comparison with wage or materiał production costs.