The German ordoliberals similarly criticised what Rüstow called the 'idolisation of the standard of living'. They rejected the materialism of what Röpke dismissively dubbed 'standard-of-life-ism', and the attempt to fight the Cold War on the terrain of economic productivity. Both men saw consumerism as a key marker of a materialistic mass society, and they bemoaned the fact that, in West Germany, social status was increasingly measured in 'radiograms, television sets, refrigerators'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 213