Used first by Eucken and Böhm in the 1930s, the concept of an economic constitution had two meanings. It was both descriptive of a given so­cio­log­i­cal real­ity and normative of a desired ­legal order. Ordoliberals did not mean “economic constitution” primarily in the literal form nor did they assume that it had to be embodied in a founding ­legal document. The fact explains why Böhm gave no par­tic­u­lar attention to the debates about the West German Basic Law in the 1940s. In the minds of neoliberals, the Basic Law was not an “economic constitution” ­because it did not embody a decision establishing a specific economic order, but instead was the outcome of compromise between more liberal and social demo­cratic positions. What was necessary for a genuine economic constitution was the unity of vision for an economic order, as defined first against the compromises of the Weimar Republic.

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, loc. 696