Reinventing Liberalism

Neoliberals’ economic liberalism: A checkered history

“…144-159), and Lippmann (1937. 12 As regard socialism, the Austrians' critique was reductionist in a precise sense. It assumed a view of society as an aggregate of consumers whose preferences only the market economy could meet, whereas the ends of socialism (equality, solidarity, etc.)…”

Ordoliberalism: neither exclusively German nor an oddity. A review essay of Malte Dold’s and Tim Krieger’s Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy: Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia.

“…A very different type of challenge that equally needs to be taken on comes from the neighboring disciplines of history, politics and sociology, especially from international activist scholars inspired by Marxism and critical theory (for example Brown, 2017Brown, , 2019Slobodian, 2018;Innset, 2020). After the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, it had first looked as if the ordoliberal tradition could be attractive even to such leftwardleaning, critical intellectualsbecause of the historical ordoliberals' rejection of unfettered laissez-faire, because of their commitment to solving the "social question" and their dissatisfaction with the "sociological blindness" of traditional liberalism (Röpke, 1944(Röpke, [2002, p. 53), because of their wariness of the accumulation of power, and because of the recognition that government may get hijacked by business interests.…”

W.H. Hutt and the conceptualization of consumers’ sovereignty

“…Like many other neoliberals, Hutt's renewed liberal vision rested on a critique of laissez-faire (see Jackson, 2010, Fèvre, 2015, Innset 2020). Hutt contended that classical political economists had not sufficiently theorized the institutional structures necessary to sustain individual freedom and the other liberal values of equality, and tolerance.…”