The rise and fall of the ordoliberal Left in Europe
The rise and fall of the ordoliberal Left in Europe

Author(s): Vassilis K. Fouskas, Shampa Roy-Mukherjee
Subject(s): Political Theory, Political history, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Third Way; neoliberalism; ordoliberalism; Keynesianism; financialization/globalization
Summary/Abstract: One of the most cherished myths of the ‘Third Way’ that remains in Britain and Europe is that social democracy had to change and embrace aspects of the neoliberal agenda because supply-side policy constraints laid out by the process of globalization and European integration were insurmountable. Similarly, in the wake of the global financial crisis and the eurozone crisis, this form of the Left embraced austerity, arguing that “There Is No Alternative” (TINA). Another, more sophisticated, branch of the Left looked at the EU as a field of socialist action for the implementation of a full-fledged Keynesian agenda. We challenge these false realisms. We argue that the neo-revisionist Third Way Left has failed on several counts, two of which are important for our purposes here. First, restructuring, and not just being constrained by the new contours of global and national capitalism, has always been an organic part of the supply-side. Second, by embracing the austerity agenda of ordoliberalism – a disciplinarian form of neoliberalism put forth by German-Austrian intellectuals and policy-makers – that had been inserted into the EU Treaties by Germany, this (ordoliberal) Left lost its constituency and attractiveness, contributing directly to the rise of the xenophobic Right across Europe.

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