The reliance on a visibly strong state as evidenced by Ordnungspolitik (akin to Nazi ideology based on Carl Schmitt, as discussed later in this chapter) and an emphasis on the sociocultural foundations of individuals in the market economy (a key divergence from the anti-individualism of Nazi ideologies) became constitutive elements of Germany's “new” liberalism. The German ordoliberals sought their own response to the Social Question, in constant fear of what they regarded as the ultimate destructive powers of socialist organizing in mass production and society at large—exemplified by trade-union “monopolies” and the welfare state. They incessantly stressed the importance of sociopolitical integration, which was intended to mitigate the centrifugal forces of a market-oriented organization of society, by offering all and sundry alternatives to the proposals of social liberals and socialists. Whereas authoritarian elements of compulsory integration were emphasized in the first papers written by ordoliberals in the 1930s, this approach had to change after 1945—postwar circumstances no longer allowed embracing national-authoritarian approaches to sociopolitical integration.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 515