The volume at hand publishes the proceedings of the conference "Social Market Economy. Theory and Ethics of the Economic Order in Russia and Germany", held at St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 16-18th, 1996, to- gether with four basic texts. The conference was organized by the Centrum fur Ethische Okonomie und Wirtschaftskultur des Forschungsinstituts fur Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, in collaboration with Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, st. Petersburg, Russia, and with the support of EAST I WEST I PHILOSOPHY. A Project of the Forschungsinstitut fur Philosophie Hannover. Three of the four older texts have been translated from the German lan- guage for this volume. They are published here for the first time in English. The editor wishes to thank Professor Larisa A. Gromova and Professor Victoria A. Pogosian, both of Herzen State Pedagogical University of Rus- sia, St. Petersburg, for their assistance in organizing the conference meetings at St. Petersburg and Professor Victoria A. Pogosian and Professor Vladimir S. Avtonomov, Moscow, for thei~ assistance in preparing the manuscript.