The 1948 German state was legitimated via the free market mechanism

Evidence

I think thiskind of reversal, which the ordoliberals were only able to carry out on the basis oftheir analysis of Nazism, enabled them in 1948 to try to resolve the problem they faced of finding a way of giving legitimacy to a state that did not yet exist and that had to be made acceptable to those who most mistrusted it. Well, let’s adopt the free market and we will have a mechanism that will found the state and at the same time, by controlling it, will provide the guarantees demanded by those ~. who have grounds for mistrusting it. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 676

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the founding of the postwar German ‘social market economy’ and its use of the market to overcome the state’s Nazi taint. — connects to: Postwar German elections were degraded into mere customer-touting — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2339; Postwar liberal revivalists framed state intervention as a neutral arbiter protecting market rules — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 194; The German Miracle stemmed from postwar rebuilding, not pro-market reforms — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 588 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The German Miracle stemmed from postwar rebuilding, not pro-market reforms #contradicts (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 588
• West German postwar restoration followed an anti-welfare neoliberal programme #corroborates (0.75)