Abstract

The essay focuses on the relationship between German Ordoliberalism and Carl Schmitt from the Weimar's crisis to the Second World War. It aims to reconstruct the specific conceptual framework of the ordoliberal theory of state and society. On the one hand, Ordoliberalism shares with Schmitt the same political aversion to communism, social democracy, and parliamentarism. On the other hand, the ordoliberal strategy to overcome the political crisis of Weimar doesn't pursue the same goals of Schmitt's decisionism. In contrast with Schmitt, Ordoliberalism's main concern is the future of German capitalism after 1929. For this reason, Ordoliberalism rethinks the role of the state in German modern society through the concepts of 'liberal interventionism' and 'strong state' which are foreign to Schmitt's theoretical framework.