ABSTRACT
This chapter presents core ideas of a contemporary ordoliberalism without getting into the weeds of concrete policies or philosophical subtleties. It identifies some pressing socioeconomic issues in Europe that are endogenous to our current liberal economic order and which demand ordoliberal responses. The subsidiarity principle also demands solutions at the supranational level that go beyond support for principles of a common and discrimination-free single market with formal rights of participation. The chapter argues that future successful ordoliberal research will not be in technical economics, but rather in the growing field of philosophy, politics, and economics, which respects ordoliberalism’s traditional roots in legal–institutional analysis. In light of the ongoing institutional crisis in Europe, they provide explanations and historical contextualization and raise important challenges for the modernization of the ordoliberal research agenda. The most fundamental idea of ordoliberalism is the conviction that markets must be embedded in non-market institutions.
