While in recent decades the scholarly interest in the history and in the further development of
the Austrian School of Economics has steadily increased, the German tradition of ordoliberalism
has lost in prominence, especially in the international discourse on political economy. This
talk aims to show how revitalizing the ordoliberal heritage can be a promising endeavor for this
discourse. A history of economics approach is utilized: the presentation focuses on a group of
scholars broadly belonging to the same generation whose decades-long exchange is helpful to
portray both the nuanced differences and the possible complementarities of the two strands of
thought: Walter Eucken (1891–1950) and Wilhelm Röpke (1899–1966) as the key representatives
of ordoliberalism, as well as Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) and F. A. von Hayek (1899–1992) as
their Austrian counterparts. A deeper understanding of the ordoliberal concepts of interdependent
societal orders, power, competition, stability, and economic humanism shows the potential
“gains from trade” for the two research programs, but also ordoliberalism’s relevance for the
increasing politico-economic fragility of today’s world.
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