Abstract

Starting from a discussion on Adelino Zanini’s book Ordoliberalismo. Costituzione e critica dei concetti (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2022), the essay examines ordoliberalism as a scientific effort aimed at restoring the traditional nexus between science and politics characteristic of 19th century bourgeois conceptual laboratory. The first part briefly reconstructs Eucken’s economic theory as an attempt to reject Sombart’s historicism. The second part describes Böhm’s concept of economic constitution as a reaction to Savigny’s ‘fatalism’, whereas the third part centers around the ordoliberal notion of society conceived in terms of an organic community. The final part of the essay offers a discussion on the relation between the ordoliberal theory, the social market economy and the European Union.