ABSTRACT
The ‘thinking in orders’ – German as it may sound rhetorically – can be identified in other neoliberalisms. The ordoliberal topos of power was related to these ethical considerations. Its overarching normative element of disempowering economy and society by implementing a competitive order can be traced back to ordoliberalism’s roots in the Historical School and to Weber, but also, as was shown in the third section, to the debates about the role of power within the Austrian School, especially to Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser. Neoliberalism is a colorful and embattled term, with its connotations passing substantial transformations over the last decades. The ordoliberals will be contextualized as an integral part of the neoliberal network of scholars which formed in Vienna, London, and Chicago during the interwar period. The intensive exposure of continental students of economics to law was another formative factor in the scholarly socializations of the neoliberal ‘thinkers in order.’
