If economic disintegration was a product of moral disintegration, then a revival of dreams of perpetual peace required the development of moral and legal standards to support the global spread of the competitive market by protecting private property and human dignity. The market economy, Röpke argued, 'belongs essentially to a liberal social structure and one which respects individual rights', while non-market, collectivist coordination is coercive, ignoring such rights. … For the neoliberals, human rights could only play this role if they broke with the rationalism of the French Revolution and fostered submission to the market order. While Christianity could not provide history or the market with a providential guarantee, they believed it could secure the moral foundations of a competitive market order 'truly compatible with human dignity'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 120