Consequently, when the German Social Democratic Party came to power in 1966 with a pro-Keynesian agenda in response to faltering growth rates, it found little receptivity to these ideas in either the bureaucracy or the academy. Locally, Keynes was “crowded out” in theory. Amplifying this exclusion, the monetary authority, “the fiercely independent Bundesbank … placed strict monetary limits on deficit financing,” thus locally crowding out Keynesianism in practice. This is hardly a surprise when one considers that the Freiburg ordoliberals had foreseen such a role for the monetary authority, arguing that “a strong central bank [would be] the guardian against any misuse of power by the political authorities.” In ordoliberal terms, spending equals misuse, and the central bank was specifically designed to prevent such misuse.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 372