Critical Theory, Ordoliberalism and the Capitalist State: Teoría Crítica, Ordoliberalismo y el Estado capitalista

• Autores: Alex Alvarez Taylor
• Localización: Constelaciones: Revista de Teoría Crítica, ISSN-e 2172-9506, Vol. 13, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Liberalismo, capitalismo y autoritarismo: actualidad de una constelación / coord. por Cristina Catalina Gallego, Daniel Barreto González), págs. 118-166
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Critical Theory, Ordoliberalism and the Capitalist State: Teoría Crítica, Ordoliberalismo y el Estado capitalista
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    In this contribution, the author uses the concept of the state as the political form of capitalist society to shed light on the state theories of two intellectual currents that were heavily marked by crisis of capitalism during the interwar period, namely the Freiburg school of ordoliberals and the Institute for Social Research or Institut fur Sozialforschung (IfS). Though politically opposed, both intellectual currents argued that the free market, left to its own devices, produces crises that lead to the collapse of the relatively autonomous form of the liberal state (Rechtsstaat), and thus to undesirable forms of state intervention and administration. Today, liberal capitalism is said to be in crisis once again. For this reason, this paper compares and contrasts two historic approaches to the “liberal state-economy relation in crisis” and considers their implications for critical theories of the state today.

  • English

    In this contribution, the author uses the concept of the state as the political form of capitalist reproduction to shed light on the post-liberal state theories of two intellectual currents that were heavily marked by the experience of Weimar, namely the Freiburg school of ordoliberals and the Institute for Social Research or Institut fur Sozialforschung (IfS). The two intellectual currents, though politically opposed, both argued that the emergence of authoritarian states in the twentieth century reflected a historical transition to a post-liberal economy that favoured state planning to the spontaneity of the free economy. In contrast, the present article argues that the true function of the authoritarian measures of the capitalist state today is not to threaten the logic of the free economy but to facilitate and ensure its continued reproduction. The crises of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in an increase of state intervention and favoured the rise of authoritarian and demagogic forces in politics. However, rather than heralding a historical crisis of neoliberalism, it is argued that such phenomena ought to be understood as an alternative political means of ensuring the survival, extension, and strengthening of ‘liberal’ capitalist relations during unstable times.