Wilhelm Röpke had launched broadsides against classical economic liberalism since the early 1940s. He claimed that classical writers had ignored the fact “that the market economy constitutes a narrow sector of societal life only.” Although the market economy was “simply [an] indispensable configuration” in the economic sphere, where it would manifest itself in an “unadulterated and genuine” way, on its own, it would be dangerous, if not indefensible, because for all intents and purposes it would reduce humans to an unnatural existence: “The market economy thus requires a firm framework, which we shall call in short an anthropological-sociological frame” (Röpke 1946, 82f.).

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 507