Abstract
This chapter introduces the approach of the Freiburg School and explains its particular relevance to the focus of this book. It provides a brief overview of the concept of “Ordnungsökonomik” or “Ordnungspolitik”, presents its historical origins, its background and development and provides references to the key representatives. It briefly outlines the principles of the market economy formulated by Walter Eucken, which can be understood as a kind of essence of the approach of the Freiburg school. Then it explains why it makes sense to recombine and supplement them for the purposes of this study.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Smith’s—incidentally rare—use of the term leaves room for different interpretations and it would be too much to say that Smith actually “knew” what this mechanism actually is. The discussion on this term seems never-ending (see, e.g., for overview Kennedy (2009), most recently, Torr (2022)); more recent contributions also refer to Smith’s deistic worldview (see, for example, Oslington 2012; Long 2022). This discussion cannot be adequately reproduced here. With a view to the problem of coordination in markets, its costs and the freedom of the participants, which is the focus here, we limit ourselves to a simple emergence-theoretical interpretation of this metaphor, best known under the phrase “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”.
- 2.
This is a field of tension among different categories of actors. At this point, however, it is also worth mentioning again the field of tension in economic policy action, which is presented as three-pole, as mentioned in the introduction, namely the necessity to accept economic laws, the normative component to every economic policy decision and endogenous novelty.
References
Beck, Thorsten / Kotz, Hans-Helmut (2017): Ordoliberalism: A German oddity? London: CEPR Press.
Bofinger, Peter (2016): German macroeconomics: the long shadow of Walter Eucken. VOX EU, 7 Jun. online: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/german-macroeconomics-long-shadow-walter-eucken (last access: 11.09.2022).
Böhm, Franz (1989): Rule of law in a market economy, in: Peacock, A. / Willgerodt, H. (eds): Germany’s Social Market Economy: Origins and Evolution. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 46–67.
Denord, Francois / Knaebel, Rachel / Rimbert, Pierre (2015): Germany’s iron cage. Le Monde diplomatique, August. Online: https://mondediplo.com/2015/08/03ordoliberalism (last access: 25.09.2023).
Dullien, Sebastian / Guérot, Ulrike (2012): The Long Shadow of Ordoliberalism: Germany's Appoach to the Euro Crisis. European Council on Foreign Relations. Policy Brief, February.
Eucken, Walter (2004): Grundsätze der Wirtschaftspolitik. Herausgegeben von Edith Eucken und K. Paul Hensel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Feld, Lars / Köhler, Ekkehard A. / Nientiedt, Daniel (2021): Ordoliberalism and the Social Market Economy. Freiburg Discussionpapers on Constitutional Economics 21/05, Freiburg: Walter Eucken Institut.
Fiedler, Salomon / Gern, Klaus-Jürgen / Stolzenburg, Ulrich (2019): The impact of digitalisation on the monetary system, in: European Parliament: The Future of Money. Compilation of papers. Study requested by the ECON committee. Monetary dialogue, December, 5–29.
Kennedy, Gavin (2009): Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth. Econ Journal Watch 6 (2), 239–263.
Kolev, Stefan (2010): F. A. Hayek as an ordo-liberal. HWWI Research Paper 5–11. Hamburg: Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
Kolev, Stefan (2020): Ordoliberalism’s embeddedness in the neoliberalisms of the 1930s and 1940s, in: Dold, M. / Krieger, T. (eds): Ordoliberalism and European economic policy: Between Realpolitik and economic utopia, London: Routledge, 22–28.
Long, Brenadan (2022): Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand of God. London: Routledge.
Oslington, Paul (2012): God and the market: Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Journal of business ethics 108 (4), 429–438.
Sally, Razeen (1996): Ordoliberalism and the Social Market: Classical Political Economy from Germany. New Political Economy 1 (2), 233-257.
Schnellenbach, Jan (2021): The Concept of Ordnungspolitik: Rule-Based Economic Policy-Making from the Perspective of the Freiburg School. Freiburg Discussionpapers on Constitutional Economics 21/7. Freiburg: Walter Eucken Institut.
Seekamm Jr., Kurt von (2022): Rent Seeking and Human Capital: How the Hunt for Rents Is Changing Our Economic and Political Landscape. London: Taylor & Francis.
The Economist (2015): Automation angst. Three new papers examine fears that machines will put humans out of work. Online: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2015/08/13/automation-angst (last access: 10.06.2023).
The Economic Times (2018): Data is the 21st century’s oil, says Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser. ET Bureau. Last Updated: May 24, 2018, 08:50 AM IST. Online: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/data-is-the-21st-centurys-oil-says-siemens-ceo-joe-kaeser/articleshow/64298125.cms?from=mdr (last access: 11.06.2023).
Torr, Christopher (2022): The conditions under which Adam Smith’s invisible hand operates. In: Ioana Negru, Penelope Hawkins (eds): Economic methodology, history and pluralism: expanding economic thought to meet contemporary challenges. London: Routledge, 185–194.
Tullock, Gordon (1994): Rent Seeking. Aldershot: Elgar.
Vanberg, Viktor J. (2001): The Constitution of Markets. Essays in political economy. New York: Routledge.
Vanberg, Viktor J. (2004): The Freiburg School: Walter Eucken and Ordoliberalism. Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 04/11. Freiburg: Walter Eucken Institut.
Vanberg, Viktor J. (2014a): Ordnungspolitik, the Freiburg School and the Reason of Rules. Freiburg Discussionpapers on Constitutional Economics 14/01. Freiburg: Walter Eucken Institut.
Vanberg, Viktor J. (2014b): Liberalismus und Demokratie: Zu einer vernachlässigten Seite der liberalen Denktradition. Freiburg Discussionpapers on Constitutional Economics 14/04. Freiburg: Walter Eucken Institut.
Vanberg, Viktor J. (2017): Ordoliberalism and Ordnungspolitik. A Brief Explanation. Freiburg i. Br.: Aktionskreis Freiburger Schule – Initiative für Ordnungspolitik e.V.
Zweynert, Joachim (2015): The concept of Ordnungspolitik through the lens of the theory of limited and open access orders. Constitutional Political Economy 26, 4–18.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dötsch, J.J. (2024). The Approach of the Freiburg School and Why It is Particularly Useful Now. In: Economic Policy in the Digital Age. Contributions to Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53047-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53047-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-53046-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-53047-0
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)