B25 Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian
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This paper explores the various personal and intellectual links between Edmund Husserl, Rudolf and Walter Eucken. Our interdisciplinary approach gives an insight into Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, Walter Eucken’s Ordoliberalism as well as in the interdependency between phenomenology and economics for which Rudolf Eucken’s philosophy of intellectual life plays an important role. Particular affiliations between phenomenology and economics can be found in the following topics: epistemology, the idea of man, the comprehension of liberty and the importance of legal or social orders, institutional rules and frameworks of regulations.
This paper analyzes the inherent dangers of paternalist economic policies associated with the newly established economic sub-disciplines of behavioral economics, economic happiness research and economic psychology. While the authors in general welcome these sub-disciplines for enriching and critically evaluating mainstream economics – especially their criticism of the Homo oeconomicus-heuristic is of great value contributing to a more realistic idea of man –, the political-economic implications as well as inherent risks of paternalist economic policies should be received with concern and thus be subject to a critical review. The paper is structured as follows: In the first step, we recapitulate Kahneman’s, Thaler/Sunstein’s, and Layard’s versions of paternalism pointing at similarities and differences alike. We contrast libertarian or soft paternalism of behavioral economics (Thaler/Sunstein) and economic psychology (Kahneman) with (Layard’s) happiness economics and its hard paternalism. In the second step, we analyze the political and economic implications and consequences of paternalism. We give an overview of the main points of criticism of paternalism from a constitutional economics perspective. The Ordnungs- vs. Prozesspolitik argument is discussed as well as epistemological, political-economic or idea of man arguments. The paper ends with some concluding remarks.
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.
"Ich möchte in diesem Vortrag Beziehungen zwischen Gutenbergs Theorie der Unternehmung, die in seiner Habilitationsschrift angelegt und in den "Grundlagen der Betriebswirtschaftslehre" entfaltet ist, und aktuellen Entwicklungen in der Theorie der Unternehmung herstellen. Obwohl der Anlaß für diesen Vortrag das Thema hinreichend rechtfertigt, stellt sich die Frage, ob mein Vorhaben ein wissenschaftlich sinnvolles Unterfangen darstellt: Kann Gutenbergs Theorie der Unternehmung noch aktuell sein?"