The expansion of West German capital and the founding of Euratom

In the mid 1950s, West German industry changed from being oriented primarily towards internal and West European reconstruction needs and the supply of coal and steel, to being more oriented towards the international market of finished goods. Whereas prewar and war-time technology had dominated production processes and products up until then, U.S. competition started to force advanced technologies like computers and atomic energy upon industry.Along with increased instability in the general political and economic situation of West Germany these changes contributed greatly to progressive differentiation within what had been a more homogenous industry structure and within the West German state apparatus.One important result of these new trends was the genesis of a foreign atomic policy, resulting in the founding of Euratom. Global versus European orientation, traditional versus “modern†industries, traditional liberal versus new interventionalist policies were joined in the issue and produced a highly ambivalent result. In the attempt to explain and interpret the case of Euratom in this context, theories of integration and of state are tested. The greatest explanatory power is conceded to modern Marxist theories which combine the concept of international dependency with a differentiated concept of relations between state and industry.