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Following Foucault's analysis of German Neoliberalism (Ordoliberalism) and his thesis of ambiguity, this paper introduces a two-level distinction between individual and regulatory ethics. In particular, its aim is to reassess the importance of individual ethics in the conceptual framework of Ordoliberalism. The individual ethics of Ordoliberalism is based on the heritage of Judeo-Christian values and the Kantian individual liberty and responsibility. The regulatory or formal-institutional ethics of Ordoliberalism which has so far received most attention on the contrary refers to the institutional and legal framework of a socio-economic order. By distinguishing these two dimensions of ethics incorporated in German Neoliberalism, it is feasible to distinguish different varieties of neoliberalism and to link Ordoliberalism to modern economic ethics.
Variations and disparities between von Hayek and Ordoliberalism can be detected on diverse levels: 1. philosophy of science; 2. setting dissimilar priorities; 3. social philosophy; 4. genesis of norms; and, 5. notion of freedom. Therefore, it is possible to make an important distinction within neoliberalism itself, which contains at least two factions: von Hayek’s evolutionary liberalism, and German Ordoliberalism. The following essay not only takes the neoliberal separation of different varieties as granted; it proceeds further. It focuses on the topic of justice and elaborates the (slightly) differing conceptions of justice within neoliberalism. Thus, the specific contribution of the paper is that it adds a sixth dimension of differences (which is highly interconnected with the differing conceptions of genesis of norms). In this paper, I emphasize the (often neglected) subtle differences between von Hayek, Eucken, Röpke, and Rüstow, with special emphasis on their theories of justice. In this regard, I focus not only on Eucken and von Hayek; in addition, I include the concepts of justice developed by Rüstow and Röpke, as well, and, in consequence, broaden the perspective incorporating Eucken as a member of the Freiburg School of Law and Economics, and Rüstow and Röpke as representatives of Ordoliberalism in the wider sense. The paper tackles these topics in three steps. After briefly examining and discussing the existing literature and providing a literature overview on the decade-long debate on von Hayek and Ordoliberalism, I then describe von Hayek’s conception of commutative justice; particularly, justice of rules and procedures (rather than end-state justice). Then, I examine Eucken’s, Rüstow’s, and Röpke’s theories of justice, which consist of a mixture of commutative and distributive justice. Then, I draw a comparison between the ideas of justice developed by Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, and von Hayek. The essay ends with a summary of my main findings.
4 June 2013 marked the formal launch of the third generation of the Equator Principles (EP III) and the tenth anniversary of the EPs – enough reasons for evaluating the EPs initiative from an economic ethics and business ethics perspective. This chapter deals with the following questions: What has been achieved so far by the EPs? Which reform steps need to be adopted to further strengthen the EPs framework? Can the EPs be regarded as a role model in the field of sustainable finance and CSR? The first part explains the term EPs and introduces the keywords related to the EPs framework. The second part summarises the main characteristics of the newly-released third generation of the EPs. The third part critically evaluates EP III from an economic ethical and business ethics perspective. The chapter concludes with a summary of the main findings.
Our most recent podcast: We were able to talk to the Japanese culturalanthropologist Mihara Ryôtarô while he visited Frankfurt in July for a talkon the Coool Japan Initiative [link]. As we have written on K-Pop in the past,we were very interested to talk about this kind of export promotion ofcultural goods as a foreign policy strategy: Do export subsidies of J-Popartifacts really promote Japanese soft power in the region? What are thedangers of promoting certain images of Japanese-ness? And is fried sushireally cool?