ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of ordoliberalism as a tradition; its embeddedness in a wider cross-national disciplinary revolution in liberalism; the distinctive roots of this disciplinary revolution in aristocratic liberalism, in ethical philosophy, and in religion; and the significance of ordoliberalism, using Germany as a case study. It shows, on the one hand, that ordoliberalism has borrowed heavily from US-based economics and has had a resonance well beyond Germany: and, on the other, how it has remained highly contested, not just internationally but even within Germany. Credibility and time-consistency theory was consistent with the conservative–liberal mindset of ordoliberalism. The lens of tradition helps in avoiding a reductive view of ordoliberalism as a certain school, as a certain set of formal texts, and as having a single authentic form. The lens of invented tradition throws light on the processes of memorizing and forgetting in ordoliberalism.
