Journal of the History of Ideas

Abstract:

Ludwig von Mises and the main figures of German ordoliberalism represent the two extreme points on the spectrum of neoliberal thinking in the twentieth century. This paper provides a comparative analysis of Mises and the Germans. Among other things, it shows how Mises and the ordoliberals held contradictory positions regarding central bank responses to the crisis of the late 1920s, the definition of the categories of the political and the economic, and above all how the latter was to be separated from the former in practice.