The choice of most neoliberals, especially within the Law and Economics tradition, has been to take a “consequentialist” rather than an “axiomatic” position, working from a pragmatic evaluation of outcomes rather than inflexible first principles. Led by Posner, these economists use both modeling and historical observation to advocate policy based on the conclusion that well-designed patent rights incentivize innovation. This is also the stance taken by latter-day ordoliberals, including the former director of the Kiel Institute, Horst Siebert, and in the pages of Ordo journal, founded by the IP-skeptical Walter Eucken.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 192