Rüstow and Röpke linked liberalism’s crisis to economism and totalitarianism

Evidence

Alexander Rüstow (1899-1966), professor of economics, opposed the Nazis in Germany and eventually fled to Istanbul. After World War II, he held a chair in economics and social sciences at the University of Heidelberg, and headed the Alfred Weber Institute. His Ortsbestimmung der Gegenwart (three volumes) is sometimes placed next to Popper’s Open Society, Hannah Arendt’s “Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft,” and Adorno and Horkheimer’s “Dialektik der Aufklärung.” Together with Wilhelm Röpke, Rüstow determined the crisis of liberalism in its economism. The threat of totalitarianism required a complete new beginning in the social sciences, they argued at the founding conference of the MPS (Walpen 2004, 58). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1354

Categorization

• DEFINE: The phrase ‘crisis of liberalism in its economism’ names the ordoliberal diagnosis that liberalism failed by reducing itself to economics.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in ordoliberalism as a distinct strand within the Mont Pèlerin network vs. Anglo-American neoliberalism. — connects to: German theorists also birthed neoliberalism, with Rüstow urging liberal interventionism — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 102; Marxism degenerated into economism by fusing with laissez-faire liberalism — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 709; Anti-Keynesianism and Austrian marginalism unite the two neo-liberalisms — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 527 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Liberal ideas evolved into totalitarianism through logical stages governed by external circumstances and emotions. #expands (0.80) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2337
• Marcuse’s dialectical method treated totalitarianism as both reaction and continuation of liberalism #complicates (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 404
• Neoliberalism fused philosophy of science and political economy against totalitarianism #expands (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 53
• Marxism degenerated into economism by fusing with laissez-faire liberalism #corroborates (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 709
• Anti-Keynesianism and Austrian marginalism unite the two neo-liberalisms #qualifies (0.70) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 527