Ordoliberals sought to regulate labor-capital conflict at the enterprise level

Evidence

Not unexpectedly, other MPS members found this prospect unappealing. At the same meeting, other members sought to clarify to what extent they would allow unions to be involved in the conduct of the enterprise. For example, Karl Paul Hensel, another ordoliberal, proposed to codify the rights and duties of unions and employers in a sort of “industrial labor constitution.” At that time as assistant to Walter Eucken, one of the founding fathers of ordoliberalism, Hensel was very anxious to regulate the conflict between labor and capital at the point where it originated, that is, inside the enterprise, and therefore to improve the legal position of the trade unions, which he described as being as weak as possible in the German context. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 960

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the ordoliberal program of enterprise-level industrial labor constitution as a distinct approach to managing labor-capital conflict.
• XREF: connects to: Ordoliberal enterprise co-management aimed to constrain union influence, unlike union demands — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 960; Early MPS figures endorsed labor participation in business as a counterweight to state intervention — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 961; Ordoliberals dated the transformance of unions to after World War I — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 964