Freiburg school feared private cartels more than the state, diverging from Anglo-American liberalism

Evidence

Ordoliberalism took form under the aegis of Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, and Hans Grossmann-Doerth, the founders of the Freiburg school of economics during the 1930s. Their bête noir was the private economic cartels rather than the state. The Freiburg liberals argued that Germany’s basic economic problem in the 1920s was “the inability of the legal system to prevent the creation and misuse of private economic power.” Note that private, not public, power was the concern. The individual needed to be protected from the state, to be sure, but acknowledging that the state was not the only threat worth worrying about marked Frieburg’s departure from the “can’t live with it” version of Anglo-American liberalism. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 360

Categorization

• XREF: Reframes the standard equation of ordoliberalism with laissez-faire; the private-power concern distinguishes it from Hayekian liberalism — relevant to Mattei’s treatment. — connects to: The Freiburg school sought to install an authoritarian competitive order within Nazi Germany. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 542; Neoliberalism’s Freiburg-school origins were anticartel and then mutated in Chile — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 764
• DEFINE: Defines the Freiburg school’s distinctive object of fear — private economic power rather than the state.

Broader Connections

• The Freiburg school sought to install an authoritarian competitive order within Nazi Germany. #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 542
• Neoliberalism’s Freiburg-school origins were anticartel and then mutated in Chile #qualifies (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 764