Abstract
German neoliberalism, as represented by the so called Freiburg School, was mainly influenced by the economist Walter Eucken. Eucken’s economic methodology can only be understood if placed in the context of the German philosophical and sociological debate of that time. The revelation of these connections is at the center of this paper. To this purpose, first, the influence of Max Weber and of his ideal typical approach will be discussed. Second, the role played by Walter Eucken’s father, the philosopher Rudolf Eucken and the significance of the Freiburg phenomenologist Edmund Husserl for the concept of ordoliberalism will be analyzed. Third, it will be shown that Eucken’s method is set against all relativist currents and sustained by the hope of discovering the “realm of truth” (Edmund Husserl) in economics as well. On this basis, Eucken’s oeuvre can be characterized by the aspects of order, freedom and truthfulness.
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Notes
Weber’s “Habilitationsschrift” on Roman agrarian history already hints at this ideal type approach; cf. Weber (1891: 266).
This is explained in his 1906 “Kritische Studien auf dem Gebiet der kulturwissenschaftlichen Logik” (Critical studies in the logic of the cultural sciences): “To be able to penetrate the real causal interrelations, we construct unreal ones” (Weber [1906] 1982: 287, my translation). For Weber, however, causal interrelations are not, of course, to be understood as objective principles: “Where the individuality of a phenomenon is concerned, the question of causality is not a question of laws but of concrete causal relationships; it is not a question of the subsumption of the event under some general rubric as a representative case but of its imputation as a consequence of some constellation. It is in brief a question of imputation.” (Weber [1904] 1949: 79). Indeed, one of Weber’s main criticism towards the epistemological principles of the Historical School was that it had failed to recognize this.
One has to agree with Yuichi Shionoya (1996: 51) when he sums up: “Weber had one foot in German historical economics and the other foot in neo-Kantian philosophy.”
Observe that Eucken begins his deliberations on the great antinomy with the following desideratum: “The first task of the economist is to get a grasp of economic reality” (Eucken [1940] 1950: 41).
This trait elucidates why in Eucken’s epistemology, Menger’s approach is always presented along with the Rickert-Windelband theory of science (Eucken [1940] 1950: 55 f.).
In this connection, Eucken gives credit to Menger especially for bringing to the fore the problems of his time: “Actually, it was Menger’s and his disciples’ main objective to do away with outdated tenets altogether and to take a fresh approach to things. This is why classical economics was criticized harshly, and often too harshly […] it was a new approach that the Austrians sought […] to not acknowledge this often declared and energetically pursued aim of theirs is tantamount to doing grave injustice to Menger’s and his disciples’ agenda” (Eucken 1940: 497, my translation, cross-referencing to Menger [1883] 1969: XV).
“The question to what extent, for instance, today’s ‘abstract theory’ should be further elaborated is ultimately also a question of economy in scholarly inquiry (which is, after all, also faced with other problems). Thus, ‘marginal utility theory’ is itself subject to the ‘law of marginal utility’.” (Weber [1904] 1949: 89)
“To solve corresponding concrete problems, about a century ago Thünen posed the agricultural location problem in general terms and constructed his thought experiment of the isolated state […] On the basis of this famous model, he succeeded in obtaining generalizable theoretical propositions. With theoretical tools like these, the analyst can turn to the real economy again to identify those connections which are of interest. The ‘real economy,’ along these lines, may be Mecklenburg agriculture of Thünen’s time, but just as well today’s East Prussian agriculture or, for that matter, the entire German agriculture” (Eucken (1938b: 18, my translation).
With his appointment, Rudolf Eucken also prevailed over Friedrich Nietzsche, who was already teaching philology in Basel; cf. Graf (1997: 61 f.).
The “Prolegomena” were re-printed in unaltered form in 1922, also featuring a review of his oeuvre, as “Prolegomena und Epilog. Zu einer Philosophie des Geisteslebens” (Prolegomena and Epilogue. On a Philosophy of Intellectual Life).
In the Foundations as well, Eucken recurrently refers to Lotze’s “Logic” (Eucken ([1940] 1950: 40, 330, 332 and 350). Thanks to this specific work, Lotze is certainly to be considered one of the principal sources of inspiration for many thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century. It is precisely because of this that it is difficult to argue (at least with regard to this specific publication) that there is a specific influence of Lotze on Eucken’s method.
The Australian philosopher W. R. Boyce Gibson translated Rudolf Eucken and Edmund Husserl into English. This quote is taken from his diary, cited in Spiegelberg (1971: 69).
Though Husserl’s objective is the “realm of transcendental order as an ‘absolute,’ in a specific sense, existence.”
Observe the direct analogy to Husserl’s introduction to the “Lehre von den Ganzen und Teilen” (On the Theory of the Wholes and the Parts): “The difference between ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ contents […] is most important for all phenomenological investigations” (Husserl [1900/1901] 1970: 435).
A few lines later, he rejects the relativistic position of Spengler, Pareto and Mach: “The following is true also for Spengler, Pareto, Mach and the other relativists: however their respective relativist stances are formulated, they all assume absolute validity of their propositions. How can they be so sure? If they were consistent, they would have to declare their propositions to be conditional as well” (Eucken [1952] 2004: 343, my translation). Almost verbatim, this argument occurs as early as in Eucken (1938a: 199).
A passage in a letter by Malvine Husserl dating from December 1930 shows that Edith Eucken-Erdsiek was familiar with phenomenological analysis: “Yesterday we spent a very nice and intellectually inspiring evening with Erik Wolf at the Euckens’ place, returning home only at 1 a.m. Father had a very good day, talking very arrestingly and not leaving his route for a second. Mrs. Eucken seconded cleverly and spiritedly” (cited in Husserl 1994, vol. IX: 390, my translation).
Two weeks before the official appointment of Heidegger as President of the University of Freiburg, Walter Eucken complained that Heidegger “wanted to follow in the Führer’s footsteps. Apparently, Heidegger considers himself the born philosopher and the intellectual leader of the new movement, the only important and outstanding thinker since Heraclitus.” During Heidegger’s tenure, Eucken became the speaker for the latent opposition in the University of Freiburg Senate, as well as the foil of the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics, the jurist Erik Wolf, who, at that time, was an ardent admirer of Heidegger’s. Eucken ascribed to Wolf “fanaticism and ignorance of the legal situation” as well as an “idolatrous worship of Heidegger.” The tensions between the new leadership of the University and the Faculty on the one hand, and the professoral opposition led by Eucken on the other, escalated when Karl Diehl vacated the Chair for Economics and a successor had to be appointed. Heidegger, aggrieved in his vanity and in his claim to leadership, used these quarrels as a welcome excuse to resign from his position as President of the University. In a similar vein, Walter Eucken’s lecture “Der Kampf der Wissenschaft” (The battle of science) (summer term 1936) documents to what extent the belief in personal freedom characterizes Eucken’s role in the resistance against the Nazi regime. As Eucken writes in a letter to Alexander Rüstow in May 1936, the lecture’s aim was to give an “impression of the strength, dignity, dynamics of true science.” This, however, made Eucken’s lectures not only a meeting place for critics of the regime, but also an assembly point for ardent defendors of the new doctrine of the state—in order to polemicize there against Eucken and his views; cf. Goldschmidt (2002: chap. 4).
Eucken’s value convictions cannot be reduced to a ‘Kantian freedom philosophy,’ a view often found in the literature (on the basics cf. Nawroth 1961). Instead, Eucken’s convictions are of the post-Kantian tradition. In order to confront the (nihilistic) danger of loss of values, Eucken explicitly endorses the ideas of a philosophy of values: “Only free will enables us to recognize and realize the mandatory ethical value order.” (Eucken [1952] 2004: 176, my translation). Hence, the notion of order is constitutive of the notion of freedom.
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Goldschmidt, N. Walter Eucken’s place in the history of ideas. Rev Austrian Econ 26, 127–147 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-013-0222-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-013-0222-z