Along the spectrum of neoliberalism, ordoliberalism is found at a range of frequencies that owes some of its peculiarities to the specific German conditions encountered during the Weimar Republic and under Nazi rule. In contrast to the Austrian and Chicago emphasis on the rather abstract rule of the law, the ordoliberals grant the visibly strong state a much more prominent role in establishing and securing the capitalist market economy. This recognition of the role of the state is at the very center of ordoliberal efforts to theorize an ideal social order of capitalism and to design public policy to this end. The specific term policy of order (Ordnungspolitik) was coined by the Freiburg school, led by Walter Eucken and Franz Böhm, during the second half of the 1930s. Members of this school conceived of the need to theorize the frameworks that effectively structure the relationship between the state, the economy, and society in general. They thereby fostered an early understanding of the important relationship between law and economics, relative to their neoliberal comrades. Their central goal in this task was to secure a socially embedded and well-functioning competitive order.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 503