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ORDOLIBERALISM AS AN IRRITATING GERMAN IDEA

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“ORDOLIBERALISM AS AN IRRITATING GERMAN IDEA”:
ARENA REPORT 1/2017

INTRODUCTION

Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

Milan, Italy & Berlin, Germany

STRUCTURING THE REPORT

The spectre of ordoliberalism is haunting Europe. The socio-economic theory, known, before
the Euro crisis, only to a handful of insiders outside of the German-speaking world, has made
1
a formidable career during the past five years. Commentators in the media and from
2
universities have identified it as a variable that could explain the position of Germany during
the European sovereign debt crisis. The discussion on the contemporary influence of
ordoliberalism follows the same geographical fault lines as the Euro-crisis. Commentators

1
Suffice it here to mention The Economist of 9 May 2015 (“German Ordoliberalism has had a big influence
on policymaking during the Euro crisis”), The Guardian of 2 March 2012 (“Let us introduce you to
‘Ordoliberalism’”), and The New York Times of 16 November 2014 ( “The wacky economics of Germany’s
parallel universe”). We could add a good number of similar statements from France and Italy. An analysis
from Helsinki has documented “the struggle between Germany’s ordoliberal orthodoxy and alternative, more
Keynesian solutions” meticulously, (Timo Harjunienu and Markus Ojala, “Mediating ‘the German
Ideology’? Ordoliberalism and its Alternatives in the Press Coverage of the Eurozone Crisis”, Paper for the
European Studies Day, University of Helsinki, 25 August 2014).
2
Cf., in particular, Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), p. 141: “Germany’s response to the crisis, and the crisis itself both spring from the same
Ordoliberal instruction sheet”; but also Volker Berghahn and Brigitte Young, “Reflections on Werner
Bonefeld’s ‘Freedom and the Strong State: On German Ordoliberalism’ and the Continuing Importance of
the Ideas of Ordoliberalism to Understand Germany’s (Contested) Role in Resolving the Eurozone Crisis”,
(2013) 18 New Political Economy, pp. 768-78; Simon Bulmer, “Germany and the Eurozone Crisis: Between
Hegemony and Domestic Politics”, (2014) 37 West European Politics, 1244-63; Simon Bulmer and William
E. Paterson, “Germany as the EU’s Reluctant Hegemon? Of Economic Strength and Political Constraints”,
(2013) 20 Journal of European Public Policy, pp. 1387-1405; Sergio Cesarotti and Antonella Stirati,
“Germany and the European and Global Crises”, (2010) 39 Journal of Political Economy, pp. 56-86; Pierre
Dardot and Christian Laval, The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society, (London: Verso Books,
2014), first published as La nouvelle raison du monde: Essai sur la la société néolibérale, 2009; Sebastian
Dullien and Ulrike Guérot, “The Long Shadow of Ordoliberalism: Germany’s Approach to the Euro Crisis”,
European Council on Foreign Relations Policy Brief 22 (2012); Hillebrand (2015); Peter Nedergard and
Holly Snaith, “‘As I Drifted on a River I Could Not Control’: The Unintended Ordoliberal Consequences of
the Eurozone Crisis”, (2015) Journal of Common Market Studies, early access.
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

from Southern European countries see ordoliberalism as an “ideational superpower” that is at

work amongst the German élites. Germans are reluctant to admit to being “remote controlled”
by ordoliberal ideas. They think that Germany’s reply to the crisis was commonsensical.

The editors of this report have worked intensively on ordoliberal theorems and
3
traditions. But we come from very different disciplinary backgrounds and their concerns and
perspectives mirror this disciplinary diversity. While Josef Hien, a historical sociologist with
a keen interest in conceptual history, explored the ideational roots of ordoliberalism,
Christian Joerges is particularly interest in the synthesis of legal concepts, economic theory
and constitutional projects in ordoliberalism’s ideational legacy. What both of us nonetheless
share is an uneasiness with the front lines in the current debates. The treatment of ordoliberal
ideas by most of the commentators seemed too superficial to both of us; and we further felt
that its influence was all too often “assumed” rather than thoroughly traced. However, we
concluded that political ideas such as ordoliberalism should be studied in their own right
before we can use them as independent variables for our explanations of political preferences
and orientations, economic policies and governance practices. This motivated us to prepare a
two-day conference at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin from the 13 and 14 of May
4
2016, co-funded by the Thyssen Foundation and the REScEU project at the University of
Milan. The title was: “Ordoliberalism as an Irritating German Idea”. The title reflects the
critical perception of ordoliberalism beyond German borders. The objective of our initiative
was to explore more thoroughly the complex facets of this tradition and the reasons for the
irritation that it provokes in so many non-German quarters, while its programmatic is
perceived as commonsensical within Germany.

To answer this question, we have organised our endeavour in three distinct, but
interrelated, parts. The first part analyses the perception of ordoliberalism outside of
Germany during the crisis. In the second part, we focus on a reconstruction of the

3
See, in particular, Josef Hien, “Competing Ideas: The Religious Foundations of the German and Italian
Welfare States”, Ph.D Thesis EUI Florence, 2012, available at:
http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/24614?show=full; Hien, Josef. 2013. The Ordo that never was,
Contemporary Political Theory 12, 349-358. Christian Joerges, “What is Left of the European Economic
Constitution? A Melancholic Eulogy”, (2005) 30 European Law Review, pp. 461-89, available at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=635402.
4
Reconciling Economic and Social Europe: the role of ideas, values and politics (REScEU) is a European
Research Council funded project at the University of Milan exploring the possibilities for a balanced social
and economic integration of Europe. Principal Investigator is Maurizio Ferrera. ERC Advanced Grant No.
340534.

2
 Introduction

development and theoretical evolution of ordoliberal thought within Germany. In the third
part, we deal with the impact of the ordoliberal tradition on institution building in Europe and
on the crisis management of Germany during the past decade.

We brought together 24 pertinent experts on ordoliberalism from both outside and

inside Germany, and we had them discuss, debate, eat, drink and argue with one another for
two days. The proceedings were rewarding, and, in the following, you will find a short
introduction to the three topics that we raised and how they are discussed in the contributions
that you find in this edited volume.

I. HOW ORDOLIBERALISM IS PERCEIVED

The first section of the conference was dedicated to the perception of ordoliberalism outside
Germany. Kenneth Dyson (Cardiff), Bruno Amable (Paris), William Callison (Berkeley) and
Stefano Solari (Padua) were all in agreement that ordoliberalism had never become
prominent in their countries simply because it was too German. Beyond this trivial statement
their fascinating accounts feature nuanced explanations of what features of ordoliberalism are
German and why they make ordoliberalism incompatible with the dominant strings of
liberalism in their countries. Nevertheless, while both the press and scholars have condemned
5
ordoliberalism as the incarnation of “German evilness” in France, Britain, Italy and the US
since the crisis hit in 2008, Dyson, Callison, Solari and Amable also show that, in their
countries too, socio-economic ideas with family resemblances to the ordoliberal tradition
(Dyson) have existed since the 1930s.

The leading representatives of the ordoliberal equivalent strands of thought can be

found in the various neo-movements that emerged in the interwar period. They found their
international exchange hub in the Colloque Walter Lippmann and in the Mont Pèlerin
Society. While similarities to German ordoliberalism exist, the French, British and Italian
counterparts are also marked by striking differences. They are “softer” versions of
ordoliberalism, less principle based, less rigid, less abstract and more pragmatic. Bruno
Amable traces this to the personal lifelines of the early French neoliberals who were either
practitioners or engineers, and not university professors. These “engineer economists”
(Amable) and businessmen were less concerned with competition at an abstract level and
more interested in how to foster efficiency and productivity to get the relative backward

5
No rule without an exception; see Angelo Bolaffi, Cuore tedesco. Il modello Germania, l’Italia e la crisi
europea, (Rome: Donzelli, 2013).

3
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

French economy going. Cartels and monopolies were, in contrast, to German ordoliberal
thought, exceptionally acceptable if they helped to enhance productivity. Moreover, Kenneth
Dyson points out that the Kantian and phenomenological philosophical imprint in early
ordoliberal thought generates an automatic cultural connection with Germany but makes it, at
the same time, less compatible with the Anglo-Saxon and Latin European countries. Stefano
Solari identifies the Kantian bent of ordoliberalism as one of the main obstacles for the
diffusion of ordoliberal ideas in Italian liberalism. Italian liberals, according to Solari, found
their philosophical backing in Aristotle, and were - willing or unwillingly - influenced by the
omnipresence of social Catholic ideas in their country. This makes the Deist, Protestant and
Kantian connotations of ordoliberalism difficult to accept for Italian liberals. Dyson
emphasises the match between ordoliberal ideological content and German culture. German
policy-makers might not go to bed with “Eucken between the sheets”, they might never have
read Eucken, but they will refer to him in their speeches for purposes of symbolic
communication with their constituencies. A good number of contributors to this volume
resort therefore to notions such as “tradition” (Dyson) or “cultural predispositions” (Hien)
when framing ordoliberalism. Renowned protagonists of the Freiburg tradition tend to
6
downplay the weight of this influence. However, Stephan Pühringer shows in his chapter
how ordoliberalism persisted in German economic policy and thought. His chapter is one of
the rare contribution mapping the infrastructure of ordoliberal thought in Germany. Through
an extensive network analysis of organisations and individuals, he also shows systematically
how ordoliberal think-tank members maintain close connections to core institutions of
German economic policy. Indeed, the following volume might open the doors to a new
research agenda dealing with the persistent impact of ordoliberalism on policy preferences
7
and in societally widespread “thinking about the economy”; see also the analyses of the
8
“Ordnungspolitik der sichtbaren Hand” (Ordering politics by the visible hand).

6
Lars P. Feld, Ekkehard A. Köhler and Daniel Nientedt, “Ordoliberalism, Pragmatism and the Eurozone
Crisis: How the German Tradition Shaped Economic Policy in Europe”, CESifo Working Paper Series No.
5368, 2015, available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2613901.
7
Sabine Frerichs, “Integration durch Recht”, in: Maurizio Bach and Barbara Hönig (eds), Europasoziologie:
Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium, (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2017, forthcoming).
8
Werner Abelhauser and Christoph Klopper, “Ordnungspolitik der sichtbaren Hand. Das
Bundeswirtschaftsministerium und die Kunst der Wirtschaftspolitik”, in: Werner Abelhauser (ed), Das
Bundeswirtschaftsministerium in der Ära der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft. Der deutsche Weg der
Wirtschaftspolitik, (Berlin-Boston MA: Springer Verlag, 2016).

4
 Introduction

This phenomenon cannot just be found in politics and public opinion but also in
German public administration. German administration endorses a rules based culture and, in
contrast to its Italian, British and French counterparts, is staffed with lawyers. Neither France,
Italy nor Great Britain had a reformed Protestant disciplinary revolution like Prussia in the
9
eighteenth century.

Amable, Callison, Solari and Dyson give us a good understanding that those who met
in and around the early neoliberal circles of the Mont Pèlerin Society and the Colloque
Walter Lippmann after WWII such as Jaques Rueff (France), Luigi Einaudi (Italy), Henry
Simmons (US) or Ralph Hawtrey (GB) share some ordoliberal features but still express
national divergences and idiosyncrasies. In his account on the stand-off between US and
German administrators and economists during the World Financial Crisis, William Callison
shows how these differences are carried on till to the present day, highlighting the clash
between US finance minister Timothy Geithner and his German counterpart Wolfgang
Schäuble. However, Solari and Dyson also point out that ordoliberalism itself and other neo-
liberal brands (such as the Bocconi School) have ever more converged towards a global script
10
over the past two decades. This opens questions on the genealogy and internal development
of German ordoliberalism to which we will turn now.

II. RE-CONSTRUCTIONS: WHAT KIND OF THEORY IS IT?

Law and ethics distinguished ordoliberals from other branches of neoliberalism and classic
laissez-faire liberalism in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. An interest in this specificity of
ordoliberalism surfaced only recently with the re-discovery and republication of Michel
Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France, which had already rigidly categorised
11
ordoliberalism in the 1970s. Is the ordoliberal triangle of institutional economics, law and
ethics that framed the original ordoliberal embedding of markets still central for
contemporary ordoliberal thinkers, or has it evaporated in recent decades under the influence
of ever greater global market integration and the dominance of Anglo-Saxon neoliberal

9
Philip Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution. Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe,
(Chicago IL: Chicago University Press, 2003).
10
Hagen Schulz-Forberg, “Die Welt und wie sie sein sollte. Versuche transnationaler Normenbildung für eine
globale Wirtschaftsordnung in den 30er Jahren”, in: Jens Steffek and Leonie Holthaus (eds), Jenseits der
Anarchie: Weltordnungsentwürfe im frühen 20. Jahrhundert, (Frankfurt aM: Campus Verlag, 2014), pp.
174-202.
11
Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France 1978-79, (Basingstoke:
Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008).

5
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

economics? Could it be that the type of synthesis between economic and legal concepts that
characterised the ordoliberal ordering of the economy through law in its foundational period
can no longer be realised after the deepening of economic integration in Europeanisation and
globalisation processes, as Christian Joerges suggests? Did these processes foster the
formation of a de facto assimilation alliance between German and non-German neo-
liberalism?

To get a better idea of what kind of theory ordoliberalism is, our re-constructions
focused on the three components of ordoliberal thought which are key to its comprehensive
understanding: (1) the ordering functions of law; (2) the normativity of “the economic”; and
(3) the ethical foundations of ordoliberalism. All of these components surface in today’s
European debate on ordoliberalism and Germany. However, they do so as anecdotes, rather
than in conceptual analyses. Our contributors provide a deeper understanding of their
theoretical foundations, their interrelated dynamics and their historical impact.

II.1. THE ORDERING FUNCTIONS OF LAW IN CHANGING CONTEXTS

The foundational literature of the ordoliberal tradition synthesised legal and economic
12
scholarship. This is particularly true for the legendary Ordo Manifesto of 1936. This
remains a truth for the leading scholars of the Freiburg School after World War II. Franz
Böhm defined the constitutive importance of law with outstanding clarity: the ordo of the
economy is a legal order (“Wirtschaftsordnungist Rechtsverfassung”); this legal order is an
order of freedom (“Freiheitsordnung”), albeit one that requires a strong state which ensures
its respect and functioning. It is an order of constitutional validity, ensuring both material
13
freedom and the equality of social chances. Ordoliberalism dominated German economic
law scholarship for some decades through such renowned exponents as Kurt Biedenkopf and
Wolfgang Fikentscher and many others. However, the ordoliberal project of an “economic
constitution” which the legislature had to respect experienced serious setbacks in seminal
constitutional controversies (Investitionshilfe judgment of 20 July 1954, BVerfGE 4, 7;
Mitbestimmungs-Urteil of 1 March 1979, BVerfGE 50, 290). A re-conceptualisation of the
ordoliberal legacy of paradigmatic dimensions occurred under the intellectual leadership of
Friedrich A. von Hayek and Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker. This renewal affected the core of the

12
Franz Böhm, Walter Eucken and Hans Großmann-Dörth, “The Ordo Manifesto of 1936”, in: Alan Peacock
and Hans Willgerodt (eds), Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution, (London: Palgrave
MacMillan, 1989), pp. 15-26.
13
Franz Böhm, Wirtschaftsordnung und Staatsverfassung, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1950).

6
 Introduction

14
theory, namely, the conceptualisation of the system of undistorted competition. But do we
have to understand this move as a retraction from the earlier definitions of the ordering
15
functions of law? We believe that Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, in their analyses of the
political meaning of the integration project, have valid reasons to characterise this re-
orientation as “neo-ordo-liberalism” and rightly underline its affinities with the Austro-
American forms of neoliberalism. Does the more recent turn to constitutional economics
16
repeat this move? We see continuity in the search for both workable and normatively
justifiable frameworks of rules and institutions which are expected to orient policy-making.
But constitutional economics seems to operate at a level of abstraction at which the formerly
close ties between the two disciplines are significantly loosened. The “conflicts-theoretical
17 18
perspective” promoted by Tim Krieger and Bernhard Neumärker remains committed to
the ordnungs-theoretical tradition, albeit without the backing of congenial allies in legal
scholarship who would translate their re-orientation into legal concepts. It may be a
confirmation of such retractions from law that many critical comments on ordoliberalism in
the current debate, such as those mentioned above (Section I), and not even those of
19
sophisticated jurists, do not explore the importance of law and legal scholarship in the
20
ordoliberal tradition. [please check these two sentences very carefully]

14
Friedrich A. von Hajek, “Wettbewerb als Entdeckungsverfahren (Kiel 1968)”, Nachdruck in Friedrich A.
von Hayek, Freiburger Studien. Gesammelte Aufsätze, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), pp. 249-265;
[=Competition as a Discovery Procedure, (2002) 5 The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, pp. 9-23].
See, for example, Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, “Wettbewerbsfreiheit und Wohlfahrt Ein ideengeschichtlicher
Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Ökonomie und Recht”, (2012) 63 ORDO, pp. 429-448.
15
Dardot and Laval, note 2 above, p. 208 et seq.
16
Initiated by Viktor Vanberg, “‘Ordnungstheorie’ as Constitutional Economics - The German Conception of a
‘Social Market Economy”, (1988) 39 ORDO, pp. 17-31, and renewed, for example, by Lars P. Feld, “Eine
Europäische Verfassung aus polit-ökonomischer Sicht”, (2003) 54 ORDO, pp. 289-317; and Lars P. Feld and
Ekkehard A. Köhler, “Ist die Ordnungsökonomik zukunftsfähig”, (2011) 12 Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und
Unternehmensethik, pp. 173-195.
17
Tim Krieger, “Any Solution in Sight to Europe’s Crisis? Some General Thoughts from a Conflict
Theoretical Perspective”, in: Tim Krieger, Bernhard Neumärker and Diana Panke (eds), Europe’s Crisis:
The Conflict-Theoretical Perspective, (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2015).
18
Bernhard Neumärker (ed), Konflikt, Macht und Gewalt aus politökonomischer Perspektive, (Marburg:
Metropolis, 2011).
19
Michael A. Wilkinson, “The Specter of Authoritarian Liberalism: Reflections on the Constitutional Crisis of
the European Union”, (2013) 14 German Law Journal, pp. 527-560.
20
But see recently Thomas Biebricher, “Neoliberalism and Law: The Case of the Constitutional Balanced-
Budget Amendment”, (2016) 17 German Law Journal, pp. 747-762.

7
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

II.2. ORDOLIBERALISM AND THE NORMATIVITY OF “THE ECONOMIC”

Both the older and the more recently widespread critique of ordoliberalism tend to equate the
21
ordoliberal advocacy for markets with the mainstream of neoliberalism, and, hence, to
downplay the differences between these liberalisms which were discerned by Foucault in his
22
legendary lectures of 1978-1979 at the Collège de France. Michelle Everson emphasises
that this equation does not do justice to leading proponents of the tradition, in particular the
lawyers. Franz Böhm’s Wettbewerbsordnung was a normative construct and the exercise of
economic freedoms was socially adequate (“just”) only in view of their embeddedness in the
ordo of “the economic” which law was to constitute. David Woodruff has re-constructed the
normative communalities between law and economics in the ordoliberal tradition:
competitive markets deserve moral recognition both if and, if so, because
“‘Leistungswettbewerb, ‘achievement’ or ‘performance competition’” will ensure that
economic success is a moral desert. It seems but logical to conclude that the moral standing
of the market should be protected by an economic constitution which derives its legitimacy
from precisely this, as normative quality must hence be insulated against democratic will
formation. The moral and religious underpinnings of the economic ordo are, as Josef Hien
underlines, inaccessible to the mainstream of contemporary economic thought. Legal
scholarship, however, is less indifferent. Even the leading exponent of the “second
23
generation”, Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, has quite emphatically distanced himself (and, by
the same token, the Hayekian “competition as a discovery procedure”) from the commitment
to economic efficiency as defended by the American economic analysis of law scholars, most
24
famously by Richard Posner. It is, of course, not by accident that law and its normative
proprium are mentioned increasingly less in the current debates of ordoliberalism. The
differences between Anglo-Saxon and ordoliberal traditions have become practically ever
less visible, submits Christian Joerges in his contribution, and it is likewise obvious that the
formerly close ties between lawyers and economist have become very loose. However we
perceive the contribution by Malte Dold and Tim Krieger as a critical renaissance of the
ordoliberal tradition. With their distinction between “performance competition”
(Leistungswettbewerb) and “hand-to-hand combat” or “prevention competition”

21
Programmatically: “Mehr Mutzum Markt”, Kronberger Kreis 1983.
22
Foucault, note 11 above, p. 77 et seq.
23
Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, A Legal Theory without Law. Posner v. Hayek on Economic Analysis of Law,
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).
24
Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 9th ed., (New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2014).

8
 Introduction

(Behinderungswettbewerb), they take up a dichotomy which has been discussed extensively

25
in legal quarters. What they capture with their notion of “conflict” is a self-destructive
potential, and what they re-discover are sound constitutional rules and effective anti-trust
legislation to set an institutional framework within which social welfare can flourish.
Maurizio Ferrera complements the re-construction of the normative legacy of ordoliberalism
with a fundamental critique which other, in particular, non-German contributors, share: there
is no, at least no explicit, toleration of alternatives to the ordoliberal visions of an economic
order and there is, in particular, no conceptual alternative to the control of states by market
mechanisms, and hence no notion of justice between different economic orders. Albert Weale
complements this argumentation with a re-construction of the societal conditions which were
favourable to ordoliberal policies in the Bonn Republic. Just because such pre-requisites can
neither be established at European level nor exported to other polities, the ordoliberal crisis
politics were bound to generate conflicts in the by-no-means “ever closer” Union. It has to be
added, however, that this conceptual diversity is accompanied and softened by the readiness
26
to agree to pragmatic compromises.

II.3. SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ORDOLIBERALISM

The “social market economy” has become a trademark of ordoliberalism in Europe. This has
plausible political reasons and rhetorical advantages. The conceptual basis of this success
27
story, however, is fragile. The German conceptual background of this notion is richer and
the debate about its post-war success in the early years of the Federal Republic remains
controversial. The understanding of the social market economy by Alfred Müller-Armack,
28
who first coined this notion, is adequately characterised as a categorically distinct vision,

25
Antonina Bakardjieva-Engelbrekt’s Ph.D thesis on “Fair Trading Law in Flux?” is the most comprehensive
treatment of the notion of unfairness as a legal concept in competition law of which we are aware;
unfortunately, she was unable to contribute to the present volume. Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, MISSING,
1984, 56 ff.; Ulmer, MISSING 1977; Antonina Bakardjieva-Engelbrekt, “Fair Trading Law in Flux?
National Legacies, Institutional Choice and the Process of Europeanisation”, Academic dissertation:
Stockholm 2003.
26
Feld, Köhler and Nientiedt, note 6 above.
27
Christian Joerges and Floran Rödl, “‘Social Market Economy’ as Europe’s Social Model?”, EUI Working
Paper Law No. 2004/8, available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=635362.
28
Alfred Müller-Armack, for example, Wirtschaftslenkung und Marktwirtschaft, (Hamburg: Verlag für
Wirtschaft und Sozialpolitik, 1947); “Die Soziale Marktwirtschaft nach einem Jahrzehnt ihrer Erprobung”,
in: Alfred Müller-Armack (ed), Wirtschaftsordnung und Wirtschaftspolitik: Studien und Konzepte zur
sozialen Marktwirtschaft und zur Europäischen Integration, (Freiburg: Rombach, 1966), pp. 251-265; and
“Die Wirtschaftsordnung sozial gesehen”, in: Wirtschaftsordnung und Wirtschaftspolitik, this note, pp. 171-
199.

9
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

which does not represent ordoliberalism, although he himself asserted the compatibility of his
29
suggestions with the concepts of the Freiburg School.

Maurice Glasman’s account of the soziale Marktwirtschaft is distinctly positive. His

30
analysis is inspired by Polanyi’s economic sociology. He underlines institutional
innovations and social accomplishments which contrast markedly with strictly neoliberal
positions.[Is this appropriate given that he isn’t in the volume?]

The comments on the theoretical framework and basis of the ordoliberal school are
much more critical. Competition, Werner Bonefeld argues, is, for ordoliberals, a “natural
human form”. Every human wants to compete. This constitutes the basic unit of the
ordoliberal metaphysics. Bonefeld shows, through a meticulous analysis of the original
ordoliberal text corpus, that the ordoliberal sociological order emerges from the premise both
to protect and to enable individuals who are striving for competition. However, he also points
out that there is a Janus-faced aspect to the ordoliberal idea of competition. Competition,
fuelled through the self-interest of the individual, is the great ordoliberal social stimulus, but
individual self-interest can also tempt the individual to distort competition in his or her
favour. As Thomas Biebricher remarks in his contribution, in contrast to classic laissez-faire
liberalism, ordoliberals never believed in the self-constitution and auto-regulation of free
markets. For the founding fathers of ordoliberalism, classic liberal positions were “paleo
liberal” concepts. Bonefeld elaborates that economic freedom and free competition were, for
early ordoliberals, not a natural propensity, but a “political event”. Ordoliberals argued that
free competition had to be guaranteed not only through an enshrining in law, but also in
ethics. “[S]ociological liberalism” should replace “sociologically blind” paleo-liberalism and
31
help to “embed” the market economy into a “higher total order”. It was based not only upon
anthropological assumptions on the nature of human behaviour, but also included
32
prescriptions for a “moralisation of economic life” (Versittlichung des Wirtschaftslebens).
Hence, ordoliberal sociology emphasises a twin strategy of the “legal curbing” of such

29
Christian L. Glossner, The Making of the German Post-War Economy: Political Communication and Public
Reception of the Social Market Economy after World War II, (London-New York: Tauris Academic Studies,
2010), pp. 31-46; Joerges and Rödl, note 27 above.
30
See, also, Maurice Glasman, Unnecessary Suffering: Managing Markets Utopia, (London-New York: Verso
Books, 1996), p. 55 et seq.
31
Wilhelm Röpke cited in Dieter Haselbach, Autoritärer Liberalismus und Soziale Marktwirtschaft:
Gesellschaft und Politik im Ordoliberalismus, (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1991), p. 172.
32
Alfred Müller-Armack, “Die Wirtschaftsordnungen sozial gesehen”, (1947) 1 ORDO, pp. 125-155, at 147.

10
 Introduction

behaviour at the aggregate level (cartels and monopolies) and the moral formation of society
that went all the way down to moral prescriptions and institutional incentives for behaviour at
individual level.

This went hand in hand with what Thomas Biebricher dubs, in his chapter, as a “de-
pluralisation” of democracy. Biebricher emphasises the importance of a “nobilitas naturalis”
in early ordoliberal contributions, one which would guide the state wisely, in line with the
common good and with no need for corrections through mass democratic mechanisms.

The moralisation of economic life also becomes obvious in the type of welfare state
that ordoliberals endorse. Ordoliberals saw the troubles of the Weimar Republic as a result of
33
a capturing and overburdening of the welfare state by the “interest mob”, who were enabled
by parliamentarism and corporatism. This led to what has been described as the “total
34
catastrophe of state and society”. Josef Hien argues, in his chapter, that the opposition to the
welfare state was rooted in the Protestant background of the early ordoliberal writers. The
ordoliberal view of the human being conceptually matched that of Protestant predestination
theology, and, hence, the ordoliberal system of undistorted competition became the best
system by which to read signs of predestination. It rewarded key Protestant - and especially
ascetic Protestant - values such as hard work, prudence and discipline. Ordoliberals had a
distaste for the Bismarckian welfare state as they identified, in its self-administration the
gateway for the capturing of Weimar through interest from capital and labour. The Beveridge
type of welfare state is, in the early ordoliberal perception, a gigantic moral hazard machine
that would erase both any and all incentive for individual action. Instead, as Glasman shows,
they espouse a romantic middle European idea of a small property-holding society.
According to Glasman ordoliberal embedding of the market was pro-active, instead of re-
active, based on the establishing of equal starting conditions, residual universal social
provisions, a strong emphasis on education and training, the promotion of house ownership,
the vision of an equally distributed small shareholder society all as a means to create equal
starting conditions and to overcome concentration of wealth and concentration of economic
35
power.

33
Wilhelm Röpke, Gesellschaftskrisis Der Gegenwart, (Erlenbach-Zürich: Eugen-Rentsch Verlag, 1948), p.
310.
34
Ibid., p. 364.
35
Wilhelm Röpke, Civitas humana : Grundfragen der Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsreform, (Bern: Paul
Haupt, 1949), pp. 257-258; Eucken, Grundsätze der Wirtschaftspolitik, (Bern: Francke, 1952), p. 334, 336.

11
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

III. ORDOLIBERALISM IN EUROPE

Upon the basis of the preceding re-constructions of the ordoliberal legacy, we turn to the
debate about our main concern, namely, the impact of ordoliberalism on the European
integration process in general, and its functions in the present financial crisis in particular.
The line drawn with this distinction can, in our view, be justified by the importance of the
Treaty of Maastricht with the establishment of the Monetary and Economic Union (EMU),
and the concomitant and present turmoil. Maastricht, we submit, should be understood as a
turning-point in the history of the integration project.

III.1. FROM ROME TO MAASTRICHT

There was, initially, hesitation on the part of ordoliberals in identifying with a merely
36
“regional” European Economic Community. This hesitation was soon replaced by a strong
commitment to the integration project. This commitment is unsurprising, in view of the
affinities between the institutional structure of the EEC and the ordoliberal agenda. This
affinity became apparent after the constitutionalisation of the EEC Treaty through the
foundational jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The principles which the
ECJ established were fully compatible with the ordoliberal reading of the four freedoms and
the Treaty provisions on competition policy as the core of a European “economic
37
constitution”. Is this compatibility indicative of an ordoliberal impact on the integration
project? A test case of exemplary importance can be found in European competition policy, a
core concern of ordoliberalism and a field in which the ordoliberal impact has, indeed, been
38
held to have been very considerable, at least in the earlier phases of the integration project.
Another institutional test case is the ordoliberal defence of non-majoritarian institutions
which were very prominently recommended long before the establishment of the ECB in the
39
realms of social regulation. What remains puzzling, in view of the present intense debates
on ordoliberalism, is the disregard of this school of thought in European law scholarship.
What reached a broader public were the controversies between France and Germany about

36
Milène Wegmann, Früher Neoliberalismus und europäische Integration: Interdependenz der nationalen,
supranationalen und internationalen Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (1932–1965), (Baden-Baden:
Nomos Verlag, 2002).
37
Joerges, note 3 above.
38
Schweitzer and Patel MISSING 2013, 210 ff.; much more sceptical is Wigger’s chapter in this volume which
departs from her earlier work; see Angela Wigger, “Competition for Competitiveness: The Politics of
Transformation of the EU Competition Regime”, Dissertation, Department of Political Science, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, 2008.
39
Giandomenico Majone, Regulating Europe, (London: Routledge, 1996).

12
 Introduction

40
planification and Ordnungspolitik. These controversies foreshadowed the current debates
about the responses to the crisis. The same holds true for the disputes about industrial policy
41
during the negotiations about the Maastricht Treaty. And yet, the course of the integration
project was much more significantly determined by two further objectives: (1) the efforts of
the Delors Commission to complete the internal market; and (2) the striving for an “ever
closer Union”, an expansion of European competences and policy-fields which were to
include moves towards a “more social Europe” and, later, to the commitment to a “highly
competitive social market economy” in Article 3 TEU. While the internal market initiative
was strongly supported by the Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry of
42
Economics, the successive adoption of the notion of a “highly competitive social market
economy” by the European Convention and the Treaty of Lisbon was more ambiguous. The
formula mirrored the tension between Böhm and Müller-Armack to which we have pointed
43
above (Section II.3). How likely is it that, under such circumstances, the proponents of
ordoliberalism would be finally able to realise their project of a European economic
constitution through the establishment of the EMU? To be sure, Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker,
in particular, had, back in 1973, predicted that, under the constraints of a common currency,
44
economic and fiscal policies would converge. But this expectation concerned a smaller and
more homogeneous Community. The perceptions and evaluations of the EMU differ very
considerably among both the opponents and the adherents of ordoliberalism. Tellingly
enough, the Maastricht Treaty and the EMU met with considerable reserves amongst
45 46
ordoliberals. Manfred E. Streit elaborated his critique on Hayekian premises, while Lars

40
Alexander Nützenadel, Stunde der Ökonomen. Wissenschaft, Expertenkultur und Politik in der
Bundesrepublik 1949-74, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 166, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2005); Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, “Towards a Concept of a Workable European Competition
Law: Revisiting the Formative Period”, in: Kiran Klaus Patel and Heike Schweitzer (eds), The Historical
Foundations of EU Competition Law, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 191-206, at 196-198.
41
Mestmäcker, note 40 above, pp. 198-200.
42
BMWi, 1986, Wissenschaftlicher Beirat beim Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Stellungnahme zum
Weißbuch der EG-Kommission über den Binnenmarkt, Schriften-Reihe 51, Bonn.[book or paper? PAPER]
43
Christian Joerges and Florian Rödl, “The ‘Social Market Economy’ as Europe’s Social Model?”, in: Lars
Magnusson and Bo Stråth (eds), A European Social Citizenship?: Preconditions for Future Policies from an
Historical Perspective, (Brussels: P. Lang, 2005), pp. 125-158.
44
Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, “Power, Law and Economic Constitution”, (1973) 11 The German Economic
Review, pp. 177-192.
45
Manfred E. Streit and Werner Mussler, “The Economic Constitution of the European Community. From
‘Rome’ to ‘Maastricht’”, (1995) 1 European Law Journal, pp. 5-30; Peter Behrens, “Die
Wirtschaftsverfassung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft”, in: Gert Brüggemeier (ed), Verfassungen für ein
ziviles Europa, (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1994), pp. 73-90; summarising Markus C. Kerber, “Den

13
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

P. Feld endorsed the understanding of the EMU as a Stability Union, which the German
47
Constitutional Court has defended in its judgment on the Treaty of Maastricht. He also
underlined that this remained a theoretical vision which was not sufficiently backed by
effective policy instruments, was unprepared for responses to economic crises, and, hence,
was overwhelmed by factual constraint and political pressures (but he also criticised this
Treaty for its failure to provide for the effective means to respond to the failures of its
48
functioning).

III.2. RESPONSES TO THE CRISIS

“With the benefit of hindsight” we see more. But, for a good number years, the common
currency seemed to be functioning quite smoothly. Only after the outbreak of the financial
crisis in 2008 did public and scholarly attention shift to the institutional configuration of the
EMU and its defects – and started with hectic rescue operations. The commitment to the
balancing of national budgets, avoiding excessive deficits and averting macroeconomic
imbalances became enshrined in the so-called Fiscal Compact signed by all but two Member
States, and a comprehensive regulatory machinery was established to ensure the
49
implementation of the new agenda. Is this new mode of European economic governance
characterised by an ordoliberal imprint? This is what so many of the commentators cited in
Section I assume. Leading proponents who are clearly committed to the ordoliberal legacy
disagree. Lars P. Feld has, on several occasions, underlined the discrepancy between the
50
concept of a stability union and the actual framing of the EMU. Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker
has rigorously objected to the transformation of states into semi-autonomous polities and
51
even of the ECB into a stakeholder with interests of its own in distributional conflicts.

Bock zum Gärtner machen? Eine ordnungspolitische Hinterfragung der Bankenunion”, (2014) 65 ORDO,
pp. 75-98.
46
Manfred E. Streit, “Zur Krise des Euro. Ein Währungspolitisches Problem und seine Ordnungsfolgen”,
(2011) 62 ORDO, pp. 517-522, at 520.
47
Judgment of 12 October 1993, BVerfGE 89, 155; Brunner v European Union Treaty, (1994) 57 CMLR, p. 1.
48
Lars P. Feld, Ein Scheitern ist nicht eingeplant. Oder: Ordnungspolitische Prinzipien der Europäischen
Währungsunion, Impulsreden zur Sozialen Marktwirtschaft, (Berlin: Wirtschaftspolitischer Club
Deutschland e.V., 2011).[book or paper? PAPER]
49
For details, see Mark Dawson, Henrik Enderlein and Christian Joerges, Beyond the Crisis: The Governance
of Europe’s Economic, Political, and Legal Transformation, edited by the Hertie School, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015).
50
Feld, note 48 above; idem, “Europa in der Welt von heute: Wilhelm Röpke und die Zukunft der
Europäischen Währungsunion”, HWWI Policy Paper 70, Hamburg: Hamburgisches Welt Wirtschafts
Institut, 2012.
51
Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, “Der Schamfleck ist die Geldverachtung”, [The Shaming Flaw is the

14
 Introduction

Another proprium of the ordoliberal legacy, which the present crisis politics disregards, is a
synthesising of law and economics, which implies that economic policy must be guided by
52
law and justiciable criteria. What we observe, instead, is a de-legalisation of policy-making
53
and its replacement by highly discretionary powers, and, in this sense, a de-legalisation of
54
the European project. Brigitte Young picks up this ball in her contribution, arguing that the
crisis management has led to a degree of discretionary influence, a breaking and stretching of
rules, something which cannot be called ordoliberal. She points out that most of the concept
and reasoning used during the crisis are rooted in Anglo-Saxon school of neoliberals
(especially in New Institutional Economics). Young identifies the German position with
pragmatism, rather than with ordoliberal rule-based approaches. After a thorough review of
the positions of contemporary ordoliberal economists, especially from Freiburg, she
concludes that “neither the distinct set-up of the EMU, nor the logic of the Eurozone
monetary union are the outcome of specifically ordoliberal principles”. Instead, she remarks
that Freiburg thinks that the rescue policies and institutional reforms after the crisis have not
been “ordoliberal enough”.

In a similar vein, Philip Manow argues, in his contribution, that the influence of
ordoliberalism has, at best, been marginal during the crisis. Manow points out that the crisis
was triggered by current account differences within the Eurozone and only later developed
into the sovereign debt crisis. He identifies wage inflation triggered by different wage-
bargaining systems and bargaining situations as the cause for the account differences. While
the collective and co-ordinated wage-bargaining systems in Northern Europe deliver wage
restraint and lead to export-led growth, political fragmentation and the polarisation of unions
led to a loss of competitiveness and wage inflation in the South. Southern European élites
wanted to put an end to this with the Euro. Here, Manow reaches an ironic conclusion that it

Disdainfulness of Money], Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 November 2011; idem, “Ordnungspolitische

Grundlagen einer politischen Union”, [Foundational Principles for the Ordering of a Political Union],
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 November 2012.
52
Mestmäcker, note 44 above.
53
Dariusz Adamski, “Europe’s (Misguided) Constitution of Economic Prosperity”, (2013) 50 Common Market
Law Review, pp. 47-86; Fritz W. Scharpf, “Monetary Union, Fiscal Crisis and the Disabling of Democratic
Accountability”, in: Wolfgang Streeck and Armin Schäfer (eds), Politics in the Age of Austerity,
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), pp. 108-142.
54
Christian Joerges, “The Overburdening of European Law through Economic and Monetary Union”, in: Tim
Krieger, Bernhard Neumärker and Diana Panke (eds), Europe’s Crisis: The Conflict-Theoretical
Perspective, (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2015), pp. 155-173.

15
Josef Hien & Christian Joerges

is not ordoliberal and austerity-obsessed Germans who block the way out of the crisis but
“French and Italian political élites that … had pinned all their hopes on rules”.

The real or assumed influence of ordoliberalism on Germany’s and Europe’s crisis

has generated the very irritations which the project sought to disentangle. Unsurprisingly, the
efforts did not end in uniform assessments. Philip Manow and Brigitte Young both
emphasised the limits of the ordoliberalism as ideational superpower thesis and favoured an
interest-based approach pointing towards the shift of Germany to an export-led growth model
during the 2000s for which the unresolved crisis and the Euro are highly beneficial.
Moreover, rather than assigning to ordoliberalism the lead in European crisis politics,
Christian Joerges submits that crisis politics has ruined not only the ordoliberal project of
economic constitutionalism, but also the very idea of law mediated legitimacy of political
rule. Jonathan White complements and radicalises this thesis: in his view, the breaking of
rules was, from the very beginning, an in-built feature of ordoliberal praxis.

III.3. AN EPILOGUE
The European Crisis has both triggered and overshadowed our project. We were never so
naïve as to expect that our debates would lead to some harmonious conclusion, let alone
generate political recipes. Southern European researchers continue to believe in the
“ordoliberalisation of Europe thesis” while Germans are much more inclined to dismiss it.
Our conflict, however, is mere peanuts when contrasted with what we have been witnessing
in the real life of Europe both around and after our conference, namely, a dramatic
aggravation of the crisis in which new unfortunate events – Brexit, refugees and asylum-
seeking, populism – all mutually re-inforce each other. And yet, we believe that our
conference was successful. It was our objective to understand the irritations caused by the
important legacy of Europe’s “reluctant hegemon”, and we have documented that a
transnational effort to explore the premises, merits and failings of this legacy is meaningful.
We even submit that efforts such as ours are badly needed if Europeans are to overcome the
many impasses in which the “all too naïve” quest for “ever more Europe” has become
ensnared.

Annex: Glaubenskriege
While putting this volume together, we became aware of a radical contribution that we
thought was worthwhile including as an Annex to our report, supplemented with the critical
replies that it triggered. Johan Van der Walt is Professor of Legal Philosophy at the
University of Luxembourg who attended the first day of our conference in Berlin. This is why

16
 Introduction

he made us aware of an essay in which he associated ordoliberalism with the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism in the French and Belgian suburbs in the light of the Paris terror attacks of 13
September 2015. In our Annex entitled Glaubenskriege, the reader will find a reprint of this
article and two critical replies to it that appeared in New Perspectives.

In a nutshell, Van der Walt argues that German ordoliberalism is the main German
instruction sheet to the European crisis politics. Ordoliberalism bears a Protestant ethic which
sees the only cure to the European crisis in thrift and austerity. Austerity has led to the
rollback of the welfare state and this has led to the sprawling of Islamic fundamentalism in
the French and Belgium suburbs. The resulting security threat from Islamic extremism cannot
be countered with classic policing measures since austerity has deprived the police forces of
resources. Terror can only be handled through the declaration of a more or less permanent
state of emergency.

In their reply, Malte Dold and Tim Krieger challenge the causal chain that Van der
Walt constructs between ordoliberalism and Islamic fundamentalism on several points.
Austerity is not a straightforward result of ordoliberalism which has a deep value fundament
with defined social provisions. Josef Hien agrees in his reply with Van der Walt’s analysis of
the Protestant roots of ordoliberal thought but has, like Dold and Krieger, doubts about the
connection between ordoliberalism and Islamic extremism. However, Hien points out that
Van der Walt makes a valid point regarding the de-hermeneuticisation of the different
branches of European economic and social thought during the crisis. De-hermeneuticisation
is not something that can only be found in the North. Instead, the monolithisation of social
and economic ideas takes place all over Europe and prominent intellectuals in the European
South that Van der Walt cites in his contribution also contribute to this. Northern European
demands have created a siege mentality and triggered a cultural resistance movement in the
European South. It is a dangerous chain reaction in which religion becomes recycled on all
sides to mark cultural otherness and superiority. The result of this is that both the élites and
the public in Southern Europe, which have traditionally been amongst the most enthusiastic
supporters of the integration project, have become increasingly sceptical and are turning
away from Europe.

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