Ordoliberals viewed the Third Reich as the product of anti-liberal policy

Evidence

In this perspective, the collapse of democracy in Germany is not caused by a functioning market economy, but rather the consequence of the fact that such an economy did not exist. From the viewpoint of the Ordoliberals, the Third Reich was the inevitable result of a series of anti-liberal policies” (Lemke 2001, 193). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1172

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the core ordoliberal claim that economic order precedes and underpins political democracy — resonates with Foucault’s reading of ordoliberalism in The Birth of Biopolitics. — connects to: Ordoliberals traced Nazism to technocratic state management, not capitalism — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 671; Cold War anti-communism whitewashed ordoliberals’ Nazi-era roles — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 544; Ordoliberal constitution of the economy was a compromise accommodating Nazi political supremacy — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 585
• DEFINE: Clarifies the ordoliberal causal narrative distinguishing it from classical liberalism’s assumption that markets naturally precede states.