DOCSLIB.ORG

Ordoliberalism, Polanyi, and the Theodicy of Markets

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ordoliberalism, Polanyi, and the Theodicy of Markets David M. Woodruff Ordoliberalism, Polanyi, and the theodicy of markets Book section Original citation: Originally published in Hien, J; Joerges, C, Ordoliberalism, law and the rule of economics. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2017. © 2017 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87464/ Available in LSE Research Online: April 2018 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Section IV The Moral and Normative Dimension of ‘ the Economic ’ and the Ordoliberal Tradition 13 Ordoliberalism, Polanyi, and the Theodicy of Markets DAVID M. WOODRUFF ABSTRACT Though they are seldom paired, there are important points of contact between the thought of ordoliberals like Eucken and B ö hm and that of the idiosyncratic social democratic theorist Karl Polanyi. Like Polanyi, the ordoliberals recognised the crucial historical and contemporary role of the state in creating and sustaining market economies, and the consequent emptiness of the laissez-faire slogan. Some of Polanyi ’ s inter-war analyses of the political use of state power to create monopolies show signifi cant parallels with ordoliberal diagnoses. There were points of contact in moral perspectives as well: both Polanyi and the ordoliberals emphasised that inter-war markets were producing manifestly unjust outcomes, incompatible with any notion of desert. Their reactions, of course, were very different. To put it in Polanyi ’ s terms, ordoliberals accepted that laissez-faire was planned, and argued it needed to be re-planned: more consistently, with the state mobilised to structure markets in ways that ensured market earnings refl ected desert. Polanyi, for his part, felt that the state structures underpinning any market order made the very idea of individual desert unintelligible and a barrier to clear thought about how society ought to be organised. This chapter will analyse these parallels and distinctions, and discuss the ways in which Polanyi offers signifi cant resources for analysing ordoliberal positions. I. INTRODUCTION TARTING IN THE interwar period, ordoliberals sought both to diagnose the failings of classical market liberalism and draw conclusions about what should Sfollow. At the same time, very similar issues preoccupied the idiosyncratic social democratic theorist Karl Polanyi. Both Polanyi and the ordoliberals recog- nised the crucial historical and contemporary role of the state in creating and sus- taining market economies, and the consequent emptiness of the laissez-faire slogan. Their analyses of the political and economic origins of interwar upheavals likewise prove to have signifi cant parallels. In moral perspectives, too, there were points of 216 David M. Woodruff contact: both Polanyi and the ordoliberals emphasised that interwar markets were producing manifestly unjust outcomes. They agreed, in particular, that these out- comes were incompatible with any notion of desert (understood here and through- out as what people deserve as a matter of morality). Their reactions to this morally unacceptable circumstance, however, were very different. Ordoliberals shared the ideas encapsulated in Polanyi ’ s famous assertion that ‘ [l]aissez-faire was planned ’ . Indeed, the burden of their programme was that laissez-faire needed to be re-planned: more consistently, with the state mobilised (and constrained) to structure markets in ways that ensured market earnings refl ected desert. This sort of morally appropriate market order, I argue below, was the cen- tral aim of the reforms in society, economy, and polity that ordoliberals proposed. Polanyi, by contrast, rejected the notion of desert as a barrier to clear thought about how societies and economies ought to be organised. He argued that because state structures underpin any market order, the very idea of individually deserved distri- butional outcomes under such an order is unintelligible. This chapter seeks to use the contrast between the two projects to bring into sharp relief both the enduring moralism of ordoliberalism, and the function of this moral- ism in the ordoliberal project of replanning laissez-faire. (The reader will already have noted that I permit myself to speak of ‘ ordoliberalism ’ as a coherent whole. I believe that there was enough overlap and consistency in ordoliberal thought in the period that I discuss, running from the 1930s to the 1950s, that such a collec- tive reference is justifi ed. In what follows, I draw particularly on Walter Eucken but also refer to Alexander R ü stow, Franz B ö hm, and Wilhelm R ö pke). The chapter is divided into two sections. In the fi rst, I discuss how Polanyi and the ordoliberals analysed the rise and fall of laissez-faire. The second focuses on the ordoliberals’ efforts to replan laissez-faire and how a ‘ theodicy of markets ’ — an account of how the outcomes of properly structured market competition have moral signifi cance — became crucial to this effort. II. STATE AND MARKET: TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE ‘ DOUBLE MOVEMENT ’ The degree to which Polanyi and the ordoliberals can be seen as in implicit dialogue with one another is perhaps unsurprising. After all, Polanyi emphasises that his account of the rise and fall of what he terms the ‘ self-regulating market ’ differs from that of liberal writers more in interpretation than in historical content. 1 Polanyi defi nes the self-regulating market as one in which ‘ order in the production and distri- bution of goods is ensured by prices alone ’ , which marked a radical departure from prior ways of organising the economy. 2 This price-governed market was not the 1 Among liberals, he mentions, inter alia, Ludwig von Mises, whom Walter Eucken also cites in a simi- lar context. Karl Polanyi , The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time , ( Boston MA : Beacon Press , [ 1944 ] 2001 ), p 148 ; Walter Eucken , Grunds ä tze der Wirtschaftspolitik , ( T ü bingen : J.C.B. Mohr , 2004 ), p 28 n 1. 2 Polanyi, n 1 above, p 147 and 71. Ordoliberalism, Polanyi, and the Theodicy of Markets 217 end-point of an evolutionary process of de-centralised exchange, Polanyi contends, but rather the product of a conscious design: an effort to mould an economy operating with the same sort of de-centralised, spontaneous mechanisms that balance popula- tions of predators and prey. Polanyi sees Joseph Townsend ’ s (1786) Dissertation on the Poor Laws as the crucial programmatic document of this transformation. Townsend ’ s deployment of blood-drenched naturalistic metaphors to claim the pres- tige of science enabled indifference to the massive suffering involved in the move to a self-regulating market. 3 The origins of this suffering lay in the irreversible damage that market price fl uc- tuations could do to the ‘ human and natural components of the social fabric ’ , com- prising labourers and productive organisations on the human side and land on the natural one. The predictable result was ‘ an urge on the part of a great variety of peo- ple to press for some sort of protection ’ from the indiscriminate destruction wreaked by markets. 4 These protective efforts, he argued, arose spontaneously, in multiple contexts and under multiple political banners, prompted by the manifest arbitrari- ness with which the market economy gouged at the social fabric. Polanyi draws on liberal writers for his descriptions of the wave of restrictions on the operation of the price mechanism dating from the latter third of the nineteenth century. But whereas liberals, he suggests, saw these measures as deriving from the ‘ sinister interests of agrarians, manufacturers, and trade unionists ’ , or a ‘ collectivist conspiracy ’ , Polanyi insisted that they instead represented the ‘ realistic self-protection of society ’ . 5 By re- purposing von Hayek ’ s absurdly polemical equation of all efforts to shape or tame markets with ‘ planning ’ , Polanyi is able to sum up his distinctive interpretation in epigrammatic form: ‘ laissez-faire was planned; planning was not ’ . 6 Liberals ’ analytical failures, in Polanyi’ s view, were not limited to misunderstand- ing the motives underpinning the ‘ protective countermovement ’ . 7 Polanyi also zeroes in on what he sees as liberal hypocrisy regarding the role of the state. As a blueprint for constructing a new form of society, one comprehensively subordinated to the price mechanism, laissez-faire implied not ‘ legislative quietism ’ , but state activity along a broad front. 8 A paradigm of such state activity was the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, which did not simply abolish the Speenhamland system of locally administered wage support, but created a new system of workhouses under ‘ dictato- rial central supervision ’ . 9 Moreover, state activism in the era of the ‘ self-regulating market ’ did not cease with its inception. Polanyi suggests that ‘ the introduction of free markets, far from doing away with the need for control, regulation, and inter- vention, enormously increased their range. Administrators had to be constantly on the watch to ensure the free working of the system ’ . 10 To deny that this watchful 3 ibid, pp 117 – 118 and 132. 4 ibid, p 156 and 136 – 137. 5 ibid, p 148 and 158. 6 ibid, p 147. 7 ibid, p 148 and 151. 8 ibid, p 126 and 146 – 147.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • German Political and Economic Ideology in the Twentieth Century
    EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CULTURAL AND POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY https://doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2018.1559745 German political and economic ideology in the twentieth century and its theological problems: The Lutheran genealogy of ordoliberalism Troels Krarup Department of Sociology, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark ABSTRACT Ordoliberalism is widely considered to be the dominant ideology of the German political elite today and consequently responsible at least in part for its hard ‘austerity’ line during the recent Eurozone crisis. This article presents a genealogy of the main concerns, concepts and problems around which early German ordoliberalism was formed and structured as a political and economic ideology. Early ordoliberalism is shown to be rooted in an interwar Germanophone Lutheran Evangelical tradition of anti-humanist ‘political ethics’. Its specific conceptions of the market, the state, the individual, freedom and duty were developed on a Lutheran Evangelical basis. Analytically, the article considers ideological influences of theology on political and economic theory not so much in terms of consensus and ideational overlap, but rather in terms of shared concerns, concepts and problems across different positions. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 18 March 2018; Accepted 10 December 2018 KEYWORDS Ordoliberalism; ideology; Europe; economic thought; religion; genealogy JEL Classification A12 relation of economics to other disciplines; A13 relation of economics to social values; B29 history of economic thought since 1925: other 1. Introduction: unity and variety in neoliberalism In Colombel’s(1994, p. 128) accurate rephrasing of Foucault’s(1993, p. 35) ‘history of the present’, genealogy is ‘the history of a problem of which the present relevance must be assessed’. One such problem, one that is of major political, cultural and sociological interest in Europe today, relates to the particular German tradition of economic and political thinking termed ordoliberalism.
    [Show full text]
  • The „Consumer Choice“ Paradigm in German Ordoliberalism and Its Impact Upon EU Competition Law
    Discussion Paper No 1/14 The „Consumer Choice“ Paradigm in German Ordoliberalism and its Impact upon EU Competition Law Peter Behrens March 2014 Discussion Paper No 1/14 Europa-Kolleg Hamburg Institute for European Integration The Europa-Kolleg Hamburg is a private law foundation. The foundation has the objective of furthering research and academic teachings in the area of European integration and inter- national cooperation. The Institute for European Integration, an academic institution at the University of Hamburg, constitutes the organisational framework for the academic activities of the Europa-Kolleg. The Discussion Papers are designed to make results of research activities pursued at the Institute for European Integration accessible for the public. The views expressed in these papers are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect positions shared by the Institute for European Integration. Please address any comments that you may want to make directly to the author. Editor: Europa-Kolleg Hamburg Institute for European Integration Prof. Dr. Markus Kotzur, LL.M. (Duke) (managing director), Dr. Konrad Lammers (research director) Windmühlenweg 27 22607 Hamburg, Germany http://www.europa-kolleg-hamburg.de Please quote as follows: Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Institute for European Integration, Discussion Paper No 1/14, http://www.europa-kolleg-hamburg.de 2 Discussion Paper No 1/14 The „Consumer Choice“ Paradigm in German Ordoliberalism and its Impact upon EU Competition Law Peter Behrens* Abstract This paper explores the origin and development of the "consumer choice" paradigm as the core concept of German ordoliberal thought which has had a strong impact on EU competition policy and law.
    [Show full text]
  • From Liberalisms to Enlightenment's Wake
    JOURNAL OF IBERTARIAN TUDIES S L S JL VOLUME 21, NO. 3 (FALL 2007): 79–114 GRAY’S PROGRESS: FROM LIBERALISMS TO ENLIGHTENMENT’S WAKE JEREMY SHEARMUR The progress of that darkness . from its first approach to the period of greatest obscuration. William Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth I HAVE KNOWN JOHN Gray for quite a few years, and have long admired his work. We were among the (very few) political theorists in the U.K. who, in the early 1970s, had an interest in the work of Hayek, and more generally in issues relating to classical liberalism. During the 1980s, he emerged as the most powerful and effective theorist of classical liberalism in the U.K., notably through his re- interpretations of John Stuart Mill in Mill on Liberty (1983a), his Hayek and Liberty (1984), and his overview and critical assessment of the lib- eral tradition, Liberalism (1986). We had, over the years, various dis- cussions about Hayek and liberalism—as Gray mentions in his Hayek on Liberty—and in that connection we shared many intellectual con- cerns; notably, with problems about how classical liberalism related to particular traditional cultures, and about the value of lives that did not involve autonomy in any significant sense. Our discussions about these and related matters were occasional, and typically by telephone or at Liberty Fund conferences. In the course of one of these conversations, I suggested to Gray that he might consider col- lecting some of his essays on liberalism into a volume, as he kindly JEREMY SHEARMUR is Reader in Philosophy at the Australian National University.
    [Show full text]
  • Mill's "Very Simple Principle": Liberty, Utilitarianism And
    MILL'S "VERY SIMPLE PRINCIPLE": LIBERTY, UTILITARIANISM AND SOCIALISM MICHAEL GRENFELL submitted for degree of Ph.D. London School of Economics and Political Science UMI Number: U048607 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U048607 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I H^S £ S F 6SI6 ABSTRACT OF THESIS MILL'S "VERY SIMPLE PRINCIPLE'*: LIBERTY. UTILITARIANISM AND SOCIALISM 1 The thesis aims to examine the political consequences of applying J.S. Mill's "very simple principle" of liberty in practice: whether the result would be free-market liberalism or socialism, and to what extent a society governed in accordance with the principle would be free. 2 Contrary to Mill's claims for the principle, it fails to provide a clear or coherent answer to this "practical question". This is largely because of three essential ambiguities in Mill's formulation of the principle, examined in turn in the three chapters of the thesis. 3 First, Mill is ambivalent about whether liberty is to be promoted for its intrinsic value, or because it is instrumental to the achievement of other objectives, principally the utilitarian objective of "general welfare".
    [Show full text]
  • POEC 301 Syllabus
    Jon Bakija Jim Mahon Schapiro 330 Schapiro 337 office: x2325 office: x2236 Office hours: Office hours: Tu 1:30-3:30 W 10-noon and by app’t. and by app’t [email protected] [email protected] POLITICAL ECONOMY 250 ECONOMIC LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS Fall 2015 Economic liberalism holds that society is better off if people enjoy economic freedom. Its critics point to what they believe this position ignores or what it wrongly assumes, and hence, how it would make bad policy. This course explores the relationship between politics and economics by surveying influential works of political economy. Its first part examines major thinkers in relation to the historical development of capitalism in Western Europe and the United States: the classical liberalism of Adam Smith, Karl Marx's revolutionary socialism, and the reformist ideas of John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes. The second part considers mid-20th-century writers who revise and critique economic liberalism from a variety of perspectives, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Arthur Okun, and Albert O. Hirschman. The third part surveys significant recent contributions relevant to the themes of the course, with applications to current public policy issues, including topics such as: power relations and autonomy in the workplace; asymmetric information and social insurance; economic inequality and distributive justice; equality of opportunity; the economics of health care; positional goods and the moral foundations of capitalism; intergenerational equity and climate change; economic nationalism and new trade theory; behavioral economics; finance and financial crises; and rent-seeking. The combination of the historical focus of the early part of the course with discussion of modern policy issues and debates in the latter part of the course permits you to appreciate the ongoing dialogue between classical and contemporary views of political economy.
    [Show full text]
  • Crisis, Free Economy and Strong State : on Ordoliberalism
    This is a repository copy of Crisis, Free Economy and Strong State : On Ordoliberalism. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/95200/ Version: Submitted Version Article: Bonefeld, Werner orcid.org/0000-0001-6709-5313 (2015) Crisis, Free Economy and Strong State : On Ordoliberalism. European Review of International Studies. pp. 5-14. ISSN 2196-7415 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ CRISIS, FREE ECONOMY AND STRONG STATE: ON ORDOLIBERALISM Werner Bonefeld1 University of York Abstract: The ordoliberal conception that the strong but limited state is the fundamental precondition of a free society entails a negative judgement about the character of market competition. In opposition to the laissez-faire idea of market self-regulation, it rejects as dangerous to the constitution of liberty the idea that markets always know best. Competition does not unite society. Instead, it manifests freedom in the form of unsocial relationships between economic agents and social classes.
    [Show full text]
  • What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging
    What’s Left of the Left What’s Left of the Left Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times Edited by James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Duke University Press Durham and London 2011 © 2011 Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ♾ Typeset in Charis by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The New World of the Center-Left 1 James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Part I: Ideas, Projects, and Electoral Realities Social Democracy’s Past and Potential Future 29 Sheri Berman Historical Decline or Change of Scale? 50 The Electoral Dynamics of European Social Democratic Parties, 1950–2009 Gerassimos Moschonas Part II: Varieties of Social Democracy and Liberalism Once Again a Model: 89 Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalized World Jonas Pontusson Embracing Markets, Bonding with America, Trying to Do Good: 116 The Ironies of New Labour James Cronin Reluctantly Center- Left? 141 The French Case Arthur Goldhammer and George Ross The Evolving Democratic Coalition: 162 Prospects and Problems Ruy Teixeira Party Politics and the American Welfare State 188 Christopher Howard Grappling with Globalization: 210 The Democratic Party’s Struggles over International Market Integration James Shoch Part III: New Risks, New Challenges, New Possibilities European Center- Left Parties and New Social Risks: 241 Facing Up to New Policy Challenges Jane Jenson Immigration and the European Left 265 Sofía A. Pérez The Central and Eastern European Left: 290 A Political Family under Construction Jean- Michel De Waele and Sorina Soare European Center- Lefts and the Mazes of European Integration 319 George Ross Conclusion: Progressive Politics in Tough Times 343 James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Bibliography 363 About the Contributors 395 Index 399 Acknowledgments The editors of this book have a long and interconnected history, and the book itself has been long in the making.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Parties and the Market
    POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE MARKET - Towards a Comparable Assessment of Market Liberalism Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln 2018 Dipl. Pol. Leonce Röth aus Hennef/Sieg - 0 - Referent: Prof. Dr. André Kaiser Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Ingo Rohlfing Tag der Promotion: 13.07.2018 - 1 - Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... v Collaboration with co-authors ........................................................................................................ ix Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 PART I | THE CONCEPT OF MARKET LIBERALISM ................................................... 15 1. The conceptual foundation........................................................................................... 15 1.1 The core elements of market liberalism ...................................................................... 19 1.2 Adjacent elements of market liberalism ...................................................................... 21 1.3 Party families and market liberalism ............................................................................ 24 1.4 Intervention without states ........................................................................................... 32 1.5 The peripheral elements ...............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Socialist Individualism
    Socialist individualism Magnus Marsdal Neoliberalist society just isn’t individualistic enough, is it? November 30th, 1999. On that morning, I dared to dream. «In Seattle, the authorities have declared a state of emergency. Police have used tear gas against thousands of demonstrators outside the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial meeting». In was the 7 o’clock news. But it felt like a spark, flying all the way across the Atlantic and down through my alarm clock radio. It hit me. I was instantly awake. And I had this dream of a world wide awakening from the American dream. The American dream is that of the individual. The United States never had a strong nobility, no powerful papacy, there never was an “ancien régime” with rigid distinctions of class and estate. The judgements of The market do not distinguish the finest of family names from the most common of John Smiths. The market recognises only plus and minus. Surplus and deficit. Under neoliberalism, the American dream has generously descended upon men and women in nations all over the world. In it, we are all individuals, and nothing but individuals. It speaks nothing of groups. It knows not of classes in struggle. Each person is just a person, neither more nor less – such is the symbolic source of this universalism’s social idyll. Enchanting as it may be, the painting of American liberty and equality cannot fill the whole canvas. There are other visions. Like the one printed in The Montgomery Advertiser on February 11th, 1956: «We hold these truths to be self evident that all whites are created equal with certain human rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of niggers».
    [Show full text]
  • Liberalism Without Humanism: Michel Foucault and the Free-Market Creed, 1976–1979∗ Michael C
    Modern Intellectual History, 6, 3 (2009), pp. 539–568 C Cambridge University Press 2009 doi:10.1017/S1479244309990175 liberalism without humanism: michel foucault and the free-market creed, 1976–1979∗ michael c. behrent Department of History, Appalachian State University E-mail: [email protected] This article challenges conventional readings of Michel Foucault by examining his fascination with neoliberalism in the late 1970s. Foucault did not critique neoliberalism during this period; rather, he strategically endorsed it. The necessary cause for this approval lies in the broader rehabilitation of economic liberalism in France during the 1970s. The sufficient cause lies in Foucault’s own intellectual development: drawing on his long-standing critique of the state as a model for conceptualizing power, Foucault concluded, during the 1970s, that economic liberalism, rather than “discipline,” was modernity’s paradigmatic power form. Moreover, this article seeks to clarify the relationship between Foucault’s philosophical antihumanism and his assessment of liberalism. Rather than arguing (as others have) that Foucault’s antihumanism precluded a positive appraisal of liberalism, or that the apparent reorientation of his politics in a more liberal direction in the late 1970s entailed a partial retreat from antihumanism, this article contends that Foucault’s brief, strategic, and contingent endorsement of liberalism was possible precisely because he saw no incompatibility between antihumanism and liberalism—but only liberalism of the economic variety. Economic liberalism alone, and not its political iteration, was compatible with the philosophical antihumanism that is the hallmark of Foucault’s thought. For some time now, Michel Foucault has been a familiar figure in American academic life.
    [Show full text]
  • Justificatory Fables of Ordoliberalism: Laissez-Faire and the “Third Way”
    CRS0010.1177/0896920519832638Critical SociologyDale 832638research-article2019 SYMPOSIUM: Neo-Liberalism and Ordoliberalism: One or Two Critiques? Critical Sociology 2019, Vol. 45(7-8) 1047 –1060 Justificatory Fables of © The Author(s) 2019 Ordoliberalism: Laissez-faire Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions and the “Third Way” https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920519832638DOI: 10.1177/0896920519832638 journals.sagepub.com/home/crs Gareth Dale Brunel University, UK Abstract This article critically examines two conceptualisations of ordoliberalism. In one, it is defined, together with neoliberalism, against 19th-century liberalism (in its social liberal and laissez-faire variants). This reading was common among ordoliberals themselves, and early neoliberals such as Friedrich von Hayek, as well as among critics, notably Michel Foucault. In another, ordoliberalism is contrasted to neoliberalism, with the latter presumed to be a species of laissez-faire economics. This reading is commonly accompanied by the supposition that ordoliberalism represents a “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism, or between laissez-faire liberalism and state planning. The main body of this contribution presents a critical analysis of both positions, by way of analysis of ordoliberal texts and a history of the discourse of laissez-faire. Keywords Austrian School, laissez-faire, neoliberalism, ordoliberalism, Third Way Introduction Despite having lost status and definition as a current of economic thought since its heyday in the 1950s, the ordoliberal spirit has retained its presence within the German establishment and receives ritual obeisance still today, with ordoliberal incantations serving to signpost an assortment of lib- eral-conservative positions and mentalities (Hien and Joerges, 2018).1 Its fortress has long been the Bundesbank.
    [Show full text]
  • Cartas Exilio. Ingles.Imprenta.Pdf
    AAFF_CARTA(S) 01 produccion.qxp_Maquetación 1 12/12/18 14:46 Página 1 Manuel Borja-Villel The Long Time of History Nearly a century ago, the economist Nikolai Kondratieff completed an exhaustive study of historical cycles. He concluded that they had an approximate duration of fifty years and that they passed like waves through phases of growth followed by others of deflation. Kondratieff also considered that the crisis of capitalism did not mean its demise, since it lives in a permanent state of change, mutating and adapting unceasingly to new circumstances. The end of one cycle means the beginning of another, but it does not guarantee the end of the system. His research was repudiated by the Soviet nomenklatura. As Paul Mason reminds us, it constituted a threat to a state that imagined itself to have overcome the capitalist phase of history.1 Kondratieff was imprisoned, and eight years later, on the day his sentence expired, he was tried and condemned once more. A firing squad executed him in his cell on September 17, 1938. Kondratieff’s tragic biography illustrates the extreme intolerance with which the Soviet state repressed any position that questioned its conceptual foundations. We know full well that political intransigence was a constant throughout the twentieth century. It occurs in régimes of varying ideological shades and is accentuated at moments of acute crisis—that is, in the closing stages of those long waves of which the Russian economist spoke. Literal comparisons of the current context with the one experienced by Kondratieff may well denote a certain mental indolence.
    [Show full text]