The extensive ordoliberal literature produced between 1945 and the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 addresses five main themes: first, building an ideological front against collectivism in the form of the Soviet Union and its various Western varieties of economic democracy and planning; second, dissociating ordoliberalism from laissez-faire principles; third, justifying, modifying, and stating more precisely the principles of ordoliberalism (Ordnungspolitik), and applying these economic policies ("arranged" market economy); fourth, developing a frame in search of a community of people directed by market economy principles; and fifth, producing a constructive draft designed to combine society and economy in terms of a third way between capitalism (as a historically outdated order) and socialism (as a current threat), which finally materialized in the social market economy.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 546