The ordoliberal Ordo concept legitimized a hierarchical social order as natural and irrevocable
Evidence
Behind the ordoliberal analysis lurked the promise of a hierarchically structured society, a “natural order” that Eucken, Böhm, and Röpke had all evoked and that had become a quasireligious Ordo talisman of the “new” liberalism in Germany. The basic Ordo mind-set served not only as an ideological backdrop for a hierarchical social model, but also as a way of providing legitimacy for its supposedly irrevocable character. Ordo was regarded as the culmination of Western high culture, defined in classically Eurocentrist fashion as the zenith of human development. Eucken ( 1990, 372) argued that Ordo represented an “order, which accords with the essence of humans; this means an order in which proportion (measure) and balance exist.” — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 510
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines Ordo as the central ordoliberal talisman — a natural, hierarchical order grounding the new liberalism in Germany.
- XREF: Connects to Hayek’s ‘spontaneous order’ and the broader neoliberal framework of naturalizing market hierarchies. — connects to: The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given; Ordoliberalism’s Ordnungstheorie anticipated modern neo-institutionalist economics — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 559; Full autonomy of social levels cannot capture a social formation’s complex unity (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given
#corroborates(0.85) - Full autonomy of social levels cannot capture a social formation’s complex unity
#corroborates(0.80) - The metaphysical Ordo ideal resisted translation into concrete postwar political programs
#qualifies(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 511 - Ordoliberalism’s Ordnungstheorie anticipated modern neo-institutionalist economics
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 559