Ordo-Liberalism in Comparative and Historical Perspective

Abstract

Abstract This chapter compares the main strands in twentieth-century liberal thought: laissez-faire/libertarianism; social liberalism; pragmatic liberalism; and conservative liberalism/Ordo-liberalism. English-language accounts of the new liberalism have tended to neglect conservative liberalism/Ordo-liberalism in favour of social liberalism. This book seeks to remedy this neglect. Conservative liberals were as staunch opponents of laissez-faire as the social liberals and even more critical of pragmatic liberalism. They sought to anchor their thought about politics, economics, law, society, and culture around general principles and binding rules. Conservative liberals envisaged a morally disciplined population. For them, rules were enabling as well as constraining: character-building; consistent with intergenerational economic justice; and offering a sustainably prosperous and humane society in which individuals could flourish. Liberalism had to be safeguarded against self-destruction. The chapter examines conservative liberalism and Ordo-liberalism against the historical background of the first two transformational crises of liberalism, the 1770s to 1850s and 1918 to the 1950s, and raises the prospect of a third such crisis early in this new millennium. Conservative liberals were critics of the Enlightenment, without being counter-Enlightenment. They were deeply committed to aesthetic and intellectual values as the basis of human flourishing. The chapter also investigates the historical origins of the term Ordo-liberalism; the role of historical contingency; the significance of the ORDO Yearbook and Freiburg in certifying the ‘mainstream’; the role of German politicians in its memorialization; the role of the ‘strong state’; the misplaced hopes to which it led; and its effects on the reputation of this body of thought. The distinctive features of conservative liberalism are summarized.