Ordoliberalism and Neoliberalization: Governing through Order or Disorder

Abstract

Although both promote a free market and strong state, ordoliberalism is usefully contrasted with neoliberalization. Ordoliberals aim to achieve this goal by creating a juridico-political institutional fix that provides a stable framework for accumulation. Promoters of neoliberal regime shifts pursue it through strategies of destabilization that exploit resulting crises. Ordoliberalism governs through order, neoliberalization through disorder. Further, ordoliberalism corresponds more to an accumulation regime and mode of régulation-cum-governance based on a productivist concept of capital, reflecting the dominance of profit-producing capital in coordinated market economies. But it also has limited conditions of possibility and is relatively rare. In contrast, neoliberalization corresponds more to what Weber described as politically oriented capitalism, especially a finance-dominated accumulation regime, which is aligned with interest-bearing capital. It occurs in many more varieties of capitalism.