KOBRA Universität Kassel

Universität Kassel

Mitteilungsblatt der Universität Kassel // 17. Jahrgang, Nr. 6, Mai 2022

Khonsari, Bahar

Kassel, Universität Kassel, Fachbereich Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, Institut für Biologie

Schaffrath, Raffael (Prof. Dr.)

Herberg, Friedrich W. (Prof. Dr.)

Stengl, Monika (Prof. Dr.)

Gutekunst, Kirstin (Prof. Dr.)

Klassen, Roland (Dr.)

English

The Importance of tRNA Modification and SSD1 Status for Protein Homeostasis and Cell Viability

Vahrenkamp, Richard

Kassel, Universität Kassel, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften

The Role of Punch Card Technology in the Office Rationalization  in Germany, 1910-1939

Roufos, Pavlos

Review
Conservative liberalism, ordoliberalism
and the state
Kenneth Dyson
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021, 542pp., ISBN 978-0-19-885428-9
Contemporary Political Theory (2024) 23, 175–179. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-
022-00598-x; Published online 7 November 2022
Emerging in the turbulent interwar period, what came to be called ordoliberalism
was born out of an international coalition of liberals that positioned themselves
against both ‘laissez-faire’ capitalism and central planning, while promoting a
strong state that regulates—but does not intervene in—the market. In the aftermath
of World War II, a group of German economists and lawyers who were central to
that coalition played a pivotal role in West Germany’s ‘social market economy’,
thereafter crowned as responsible for the country’s Wirtschaftswunder (‘economic
miracle’). In the late 1960s, ordoliberalism largely faded from view—subsumed by
the rise of monetarism and public choice theory. Yet, and even though this
historical trajectory remains relevant, the primary reason behind a recent
acceleration of interest in ordoliberalism lies primarily in its use as an explanatory
framework behind both the design and architecture of the European Monetary
Union (EMU) under German hegemony and its rigid and austere policies during the
Eurozone crisis. From ‘child of crisis’ to a ‘catalyst of crisis’, research on
ordoliberalism continues to invite conflicting interpretations.
Kenneth Dyson’s new book Conservative Liberalism, Ordo-Liberalism and the
State appears at an opportune time. Given that the inflated interest in ordoliberalism
has at times led to greater confusion about its actual positions and influence, Dyson
offers a comprehensive overview of a tradition whose sizeable and multi-lingual
intellectual production remains largely untranslated into English. Making good use
of a wide arsenal of sources and key texts, Dyson provides extensive bibliographic
notes for each key member of the ordoliberal epistemic community. At the same
time, his ample use of private letters and archival material adds nuance to topics
and debates within (and outside) ordoliberal circles. Lastly, interviews with key
figures of the contemporary ordoliberal universe complete his thoughtful theoret-
ical engagement, producing a truly remarkable study.
Locating its prehistory in conservative and aristocratic liberalism, Dyson’s
exposition of ordoliberalism’s intellectual ‘patron saints’ flows smoothly into his
analysis of its contemporary relevance, representing a formidable effort to frame
 2022 The Author(s). 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 23, 1, 175–179
www.palgrave.com/journals
the tradition’s historical continuity, as well as its distinctiveness. From this
perspective, key features of the ordoliberal framework that differentiate it from
other versions of neoliberalism (such as the Austrian School, the US libertarian
tradition or the post-war Chicago School) are well illustrated and argued. Similarly,
the persistent hostility to socialist or ‘collectivist’ thought is clarified, embedding
the underlying ordoliberal certitude regarding the superior efficiency of the price
mechanism in structuring the world of private property. Central categories of the
ordoliberal framework (such as the ‘economic constitution’ or the ‘interdependence
of orders’) are meticulously addressed, while its early aversion to ‘laissez-faire’
capitalism and the rejection of a night-watchman state are placed in a proper
theoretical and historical context.
What is perhaps one of the most important contributions of the book, however, is
the methodical deconstruction of the persistent myth of ordoliberalism as a
specifically German tradition. Correctly insisting that ordoliberalism has always
had a ‘wider European and international resonance’ (p. 30), Conservative
Liberalism sets the stage for ordoliberalism’s cross-national essence, present in
both its vision (the preservation and expansion of the global capitalist market) and
its composition. For this reason, a large part of the book (Part III) is devoted to
exploring the international character of ordoliberalism. The list that comprises
these ‘family resemblances’ is extensive: from Bresciani-Turroni and Luigi Einaudi
(Italy) to Jacques Rueff and Louis Rougier (France); and from Reinhardt Kamitz
(Austria) and Paul van Zeeland (Belgium), reaching all the way to Frank Knight,
Henry Simmons (USA), R.G. Hawtrey and Lionel Robbins (UK).
While other research on ordoliberalism has drawn attention to specific cross-national
connections, it is safe to say that Dyson’s represents the most overarching and in-depth
study of the international ordoliberal network. An occasional drift into exaggeration is,
however, noticeable at times, creating the impression that these ‘family resemblances’
might be stretched a bit too thin. The inclusion, for example, of Louis Brandeis in this
group could raise some eyebrows: his opposition to monopoly power was framed
around a call for a democratic distribution of power, a perspective visibly incompatible
with the ordoliberal critique of cartels as market-distorting structures.
In any case, Dyson’s exposition allows him to tackle the question of why
ordoliberalism remains identified as a German tradition. Here, besides linguistic
explanations (‘The very word is German in origin’, p. 9), Dyson locates its inability
to flourish in other countries in ‘ill-fitting cultural values … weak state structures,
predatory elites, [and] mistrustful, non-acquiescent publics’ (p. 241). Admitting
that ‘democratization and the popularization of politics’ (p. 249) forced a decline of
the social structures that had supported aristocratic liberalism, thereby undermining
ordoliberalism’s appeal, adds a necessary component. But Dyson’s argument grows
even stronger when, in assessing specific problems of adaptation in each country,
he is confronted with the tainted relationship of ordoliberal figures with fascist and
far-right regimes or organizations—as in the cases of Rougier (p. 41) or Kamitz (p.
176Review
176  2022 The Author(s). 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 23, 1, 175–179
40). Conversely, one could add that, in prioritizing a market-friendly economic
reconstruction, the willingness of the American occupation authorities to ignore
elements of Nazi collaboration (as in the cases of Erhard or Müller-Armack)
allowed ordoliberals to exert significant influence in (West) Germany.
Eventually, Dyson’s refusal to reduce ordoliberalism to its German proponents
can be conceptually linked to contemporary questions, such as its role in the design
of the EMU or during the Eurozone crisis. While recognizing the visible traces of
the ordoliberal framework in the architecture of the EMU (pp. 68–70; 333–335),
Dyson insists that during the crisis, ‘German negotiating positions had more to do
with the protection of a German coordinated-market economy model of export-led
growth than with the defense of Ordo-liberalism’ (p. 13).
For such an interesting and extensive engagement with ordoliberalism, it would
be amiss not to add that the structure and editing choices of the book leave a lot to
be desired. Assembled together in what are mostly short passages, with topics
thematically and chronologically dispersed under headlines that seem generated by
the same randomness, Conservative Liberalism’s layout is quite taxing. Content-
wise, however, what is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the book lies in the
discernible affinity of the author with his subject matter. Though such a rapport is
not, in itself, reprehensible, Dyson’s positioning generates a number of blind spots
which a more detached approach would have avoided.
Most striking is the apparent embrace of the idea that there exists a pure, liberal
core floating in a pantheon of neutral objectivity, caught in a relentless struggle
against illiberalism, violence, and other ‘forces of evil’. Given that such ‘evil’
includes financial crises, authoritarianism, tyranny and war, liberalism’s own
responsibility and complicity in generating them magically disappears from view.
Rather, one gets the impression that such tribulations are nothing but exogenous
events that happened upon a ‘liberal intelligentsia’ that was either ‘too naı̈ve’ or
simply ‘powerless’ to stop them.
It is perhaps an unintended quality of the book that Dyson’s own account
contradicts this narrative. For the reader learns too that a great a number of
ordoliberals were lured by the authoritarian anti-socialist and anti-pluralist
tendencies of the interwar period, which then led some of them to join the
NSDAP (Müller-Armack, Miksch), others to become anti-Semitic Wehrmacht
officers active in the brutal Eastern European campaign (Großmann-Doerth) or
members of the SS (von Stackelberg). But even if these personal trajectories could
arguably be disassociated with the ordoliberal project per se, Dyson’s dismissal of
the explicit preference for a strong state in opposition to Weimar democracy as
‘naı̈ve and counter-productive’ (p. 40) is inexcusably lenient. Comparing them to
‘well intentioned Christians’ who ‘failed to comprehend and anticipate the evil that
lay before them’ (p. 41), Dyson reduces a well-established tradition of authoritarian
liberalism into a momentary lapse of moral compass. Is it purely coincidental, a
Review177
 2022 The Author(s). 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 23, 1, 175–179 177
student of ordoliberalism is forced to ask, that whenever ordoliberal ‘naivete’ is at
play the result is always a flirtation with authoritarianism or the far right?
Contemporary research has tried to maneuvre around such authoritarian aspects
of ordoliberalism by insisting on their postwar abandonment, while acknowledging
their predominance in the interwar period (Young & Berghahn, 2012). But while
Dyson would appear to subscribe to such an approach, his repeated assertion that a
central aim of the ordoliberal project is to ‘discipline democracy’ undermines the
argument. Inherited from aristocratic liberalism, the elitist suspicion against mass
democratic procedures remains firm within the ordoliberal framework. Röpke’s
genuine anti-Nazi sentiments did not, after all, stop him from lending his full
support to the South African racist system of apartheid which suppressed the
political rights of the non-white majority. And if Eucken’s desire to see the state
‘free itself from the influence of the masses’ (Eucken, 1932, p. 318) underpinned
the interwar call for a strong state, its legacy remains alive in the discursively
benign but conceptually adjacent post-war concept of ‘depoliticization’.
Funding
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Open Access
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References
Eucken, W. (1932) Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krisis des Kapitalismus. Weltwirtschaftliches
Archiv 36: 297–321.
Young, B. and Berghahn, V. (2012) Reflections on Werner Bonefeld’s freedom and the strong state. New
Political Economy 18(5): 768–778.
178Review
178  2022 The Author(s). 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 23, 1, 175–179
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.
Pavlos Roufos
Kassel Universität, 34127 Kassel, Germany
pavlosroufos@gmail.com
Review179
 2022 The Author(s). 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 23, 1, 175–179 179


Conservative liberalism, ordoliberalism and the state

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Mitteilungsblatt der Universität Kassel // 17. Jahrgang, Nr. 6, Mai 2022

The Importance of tRNA Modification and SSD1 Status for Protein Homeostasis and Cell Viability

The Role of Punch Card Technology in the Office Rationalization in Germany, 1910-1939

Conservative liberalism, ordoliberalism and the state

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Mitteilungsblatt der Universität Kassel // 17. Jahrgang, Nr. 12, November 2022

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