A Political Economy of Power

Today, ordoliberalism is at the center of the ongoing debate about the foundations, the present governance, and future prospects of the European Union—and yet we do not dispose of a comprehensive definition of it. Whenever we talk of the dominance of the German model, the discussion should involve a detailed picture of ordoliberal principles. This book retraces the intellectual history of ordoliberalism, focusing in particular on the works of its main representatives Walter Eucken and Wilhelm Röpke, together with references to the contributions of Franz Böhm, Alexander Rüstow, Leonhard Miksch, and Friedrich Lutz. The book highlights the crucial, albeit overlooked, role of economic and political power in the making of ordoliberal thought. More precisely, the book shows that ordoliberalism, in its ideological, epistemological, theoretical, and political components, can be defined as a political economy of power; that is, as a form of economic knowledge whose primary objective is to analyze the sources, action, and impact of power within society. By doing so, the book will offer a new perspective on ordoliberals' key concepts built in the interwar period while contextualizing them within a broader intellectual project.