ABSTRACT
The Cold War seemed to split the political world into two competing systems of actually existing socialism in the Soviet way, and actually existing democracy in the western capitalist way, yet a Third Way was nevertheless always present. This Third Way was framed as an alternative to both dictatorial state socialism and free market capitalism –ergo, by its very definition it appeared to present some alternative. The anti-capitalist critique posed by intellectuals seems both unrealistic and beyond social justification given the status of victorious capitalist systems. The contemporary status of left critiques and what has come to be referred to as the Third Way demands a re-evaluation of the basic philosophy of anti-capitalism by scholars and intellectuals. The concept 'Third Way' during the 20th century also has been used by liberal and procapitalist authors, most prominently by Franz Oppenheimer, Wilhelm Ropke and Alexander Rustow.
