Page 40 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 40
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
Not a supermarket society, but an enterprise society. The homo oeco-
nomicus sought after is not the man of exchange, or man the consumer;
he is the man of enterprise and production. (p. 147)
Wilhelm Röpke fundamentally sets out the neoliberal social policy
in his text ‘The Orientation of German Economic Policy’ where he says
that social policy must aim at:
the multiplication of the enterprise form within the social body…It is a
matter of making the market, competition, and so the enterprise, into
what could be called the formative power of society. (cited by Foucault:
p. 148)
In his book A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free
Market (1960)[1958], Röpke’s new form of liberalism becomes even more
readily apparent. The book aims to establish the appropriate foundations
of the market economy by outlining the conditions necessary for the free
market beyond the previously accepted context of supply and demand. For
such a market order cannot function, he says, “in a social system which is
the exact opposite in all respects” (p. 94). The cultural context of the so-
cial structure is a part of this and must support this:
We start from competition…. Competition may have two meanings:
it may be an institution for stimulating effort, or it may be a device for
regulating and ordering the economic process. In the market economy
competition…constitutes therefore an unrivalled solution of the two
cardinal problems of any economic system: the problem of the continual
inducement to maximum performance and the problem of continuous
harmonious ordering and guidance of the economic process. (p. 95)
The foundation for this is not laissez-faire; Röpke, like Eucken, and
like Simons, is not describing a naturalistic but has succumbed to advo-
cating an historical thesis. Laissez-faire was the naïve thesis of early liber-
alism. For Röpke it was a fiction. “In all honesty, we have to admit that the
market economy has a bourgeois foundation” (98).
The market economy, and with it social and political freedom, can thrive
only as a part and under the protection of a bourgeois system. This im-
plies the existence of a society in which certain fundamentals are re-
spected and color the whole network of social relationships … (p. 98)
Röpke’s conception of liberalism is clearly more authoritarian in the
sense that it seems to represent an imposed order. Such a view seems rein-
forced when he acknowledges that:
38
Not a supermarket society, but an enterprise society. The homo oeco-
nomicus sought after is not the man of exchange, or man the consumer;
he is the man of enterprise and production. (p. 147)
Wilhelm Röpke fundamentally sets out the neoliberal social policy
in his text ‘The Orientation of German Economic Policy’ where he says
that social policy must aim at:
the multiplication of the enterprise form within the social body…It is a
matter of making the market, competition, and so the enterprise, into
what could be called the formative power of society. (cited by Foucault:
p. 148)
In his book A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free
Market (1960)[1958], Röpke’s new form of liberalism becomes even more
readily apparent. The book aims to establish the appropriate foundations
of the market economy by outlining the conditions necessary for the free
market beyond the previously accepted context of supply and demand. For
such a market order cannot function, he says, “in a social system which is
the exact opposite in all respects” (p. 94). The cultural context of the so-
cial structure is a part of this and must support this:
We start from competition…. Competition may have two meanings:
it may be an institution for stimulating effort, or it may be a device for
regulating and ordering the economic process. In the market economy
competition…constitutes therefore an unrivalled solution of the two
cardinal problems of any economic system: the problem of the continual
inducement to maximum performance and the problem of continuous
harmonious ordering and guidance of the economic process. (p. 95)
The foundation for this is not laissez-faire; Röpke, like Eucken, and
like Simons, is not describing a naturalistic but has succumbed to advo-
cating an historical thesis. Laissez-faire was the naïve thesis of early liber-
alism. For Röpke it was a fiction. “In all honesty, we have to admit that the
market economy has a bourgeois foundation” (98).
The market economy, and with it social and political freedom, can thrive
only as a part and under the protection of a bourgeois system. This im-
plies the existence of a society in which certain fundamentals are re-
spected and color the whole network of social relationships … (p. 98)
Röpke’s conception of liberalism is clearly more authoritarian in the
sense that it seems to represent an imposed order. Such a view seems rein-
forced when he acknowledges that:
38
