Ordoliberalism’s political project depended on sustaining a socially conservative middle class

Evidence

Taken together, Rüstow’s social-psychological and ideological approach embodied in his concept of a Vitalpolitik, and Röpke’s sociological “structural policy,” were the linchpins of the ordoliberal political project. Central to both was an imperative to strengthen the capitalist social structure with the provision of determined and sustained support to small and medium-size enterprises and to family agriculture. The members of the independent middle strata of society were considered the most important recruits for the ordoliberal policy project. They were to constitute the fertile soil (“Mutterboden,” Röpke 1946, 224) of the desired order. Although they were extolled as the “healthy” core of an ailing society threatened by industrialization and mass culture, curiously, they were also considered an apolitical and uncompromised quantity still cognizant of “rendering to the king what is owed to the king, but also giving to god what belongs to god” (Röpke 1946, 223). In addition, the function of the middle strata as intermediate rungs in the climb up the social ladder was stressed time and again, not least by Müller-Armack (1947, 127), who referred in a more pragmatic manner to the reconciliation function of the “tremendously important intermediary and middle strata” of society. Thus, liberal ideas about social advance due to meritocracy were to some extent reconciled with considerations of natural hierarchy. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 514

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘apolitical’ middle strata recruited as the base of a policy coalition resonates with later analyses of how market order requires a cultural/social substrate — connects to Gramscian readings of hegemony and to Bourdieu’s middle-class reproduction. — connects to: Ordoliberal economic ideas became socially embedded through a welfare-state compromise — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 366; Social conservatism was foundational, not peripheral, to the neoliberal project. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 170; Ordoliberals distrusted capitalism’s own features like urbanization and mass parties — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 153 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly did ordoliberals resolve ‘meritocratic advance’ with ‘natural hierarchy’? The tension is named but the mechanism left vague.

Broader Connections

• The ordoliberal Ordo concept legitimized a hierarchical social order as natural and irrevocable #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 510
• Ordoliberalism’s internal contradictions combined economic modernity with antimodern social ideas #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 506