ABSTRACT
In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, nation-states went into debt to assure the survival of the banks operating from their territories. This amounted to active intervention by centralist, supranational institutions, the EU Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – the Troika – in policy realms that were regarded as areas of competence reserved for nation-states before the crisis. In German economic thought, a specific variant of neo-liberalism, namely ordo-liberalism, developed, with the experience of the Weimar republic, hyperinflation, the Nazi dictatorship, the loss of World War II and the post-war need for reconstruction as its historical background. Unlike the old imperialism of colonial times, German current Euro-imperialism rests not on military but simply on economic power. One lesson of the Germany-in-Europe story is that under contemporary conditions the proper and effective use of democratic rights presupposes economic knowledge.
