Ordoliberals distrusted capitalism’s own features like urbanization and mass parties
Evidence
German (and Swiss) ordoliberals in exile were deeply suspicious of certain features of capitalism and democracy, namely, urbanization, large enterprise production, trade unions, and modern mass parties, all of which threatened their ideas about a traditional social order ruled by narrow elites and their romantic idea of individualism and merit-based mobility. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 153
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the broader literature seeing early neoliberalism as elite-driven and anti-egalitarian, e.g. Quinn Slobodian’s ‘Globalists’ on ordoliberal suspicion of democracy. — connects to: Ordoliberals condemned consumerism as a marker of mass society — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 213; Ordoliberalism denied an essential capitalist logic and made rival capitalisms inventable — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 940; Ordoliberal enterprise society is simultaneously for and against the market — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1268 (+6 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 153
Broader Connections
- Ordoliberalism’s founding critique of capitalism was culturally conservative and antimodernist
#expands(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 509 - Ordoliberalism entailed an authoritarian skepticism toward democracy
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 557 - Ordoliberalism’s internal contradictions combined economic modernity with antimodern social ideas
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 506 - Ordoliberalism’s political project depended on sustaining a socially conservative middle class
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 514