Introduction
On the Old Continent, be it in French1 or English2 scientific literature, the advent of the notion of ‘economic constitution’ as a relevant and operative concept appears to be essentially linked to the history of European integration.3 Since the sovereign debt crisis, the doctrinal debates on this ‘European economic constitution’ seem, however, to constantly return to the controversies that marked the history of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).4 This is nevertheless hardly surprising to the observer who considers that, beyond the remote scholastic5 or physiocratic6 influences, the concept stems first
It therefore becomes opportune, if not necessary, to scrutinize this critical time, which witnessed the elaboration of some of the major structural themes of contemporary economic constitutionalism. In this period of particularly intense intellectual ferment,8 which reflected the considerable political issues at stake in the newly founded German democracy, the Wirtschaftsverfassung (i.e. ‘economic constitution’) crystallized the struggle between competing political conceptions of the legal and economic ordering of society. In a context characterized by the ‘social question’ – exacerbated by the constitution of the proletariat into a leading political force and the progressive institutional democratization of parliament – and with the advent of Soviet socialism in the ussr and fascist corporatism in Italy as alternatives to the economic and political liberal regime, the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) constituted a favourable ground and the main place for scientific controversies and political debates on these issues.
After a brief description of the economic structure of the Weimar Constitution (1.), the divergent interpretations of the Wirtschaftsverfassung developed by the socialist (2.), conservative (3.) and liberal (4.) legal theories will be investigated in more detail. The analysis of the theoretical controversies reveals, however, real ideological struggles: behind the a priori scientific debate on the Weimar ‘economic constitution’ lies nothing less than the fundamental issue of the (de)politicization of the economic order (5.).
1 The Economic Structure of the Weimar Constitution: Economic Freedoms, Social Rights and Democratization of the Economic Order
The Constitution of the German Reich (Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), better known as the ‘Weimar Constitution’ or Weimarer Reichsverfassung
After the provisions devoted to the organization of the state, which were developed in its First Title, the Constitution proclaimed in Title ii the ‘Fundamental Rights and Duties of Germans’. As noted at that time, this second part represents “a vast plan for social reorganization, for individuals, groups, religious communities, education and economic life”.13 The provisions on the ‘order of economic life’ (Ordnung des Wirtschaftslebens) were placed at the end of this Second Title, in Section v, but they nevertheless imply nothing less than the “irruption of the economy into the center of constitutional law”14 and thus provide the fundamentally new (and potentially revolutionary) element of the Weimar Constitution.15
The regulation of economic life must correspond to the principles of justice, and be designed to ensure for all a life worthy of a human being. Within these limits, the economic freedom of the individual must be guaranteed.17
Throughout all the provisions of the fifth Section, the fundamental principles of economic liberalism, though confirmed, are embedded and enclosed in objectives of (distributive) social justice (“designed to ensure for all a life worthy of a human being”).18 In this respect, “Freedom of trade and industry is guaranteed in accordance with the laws of the Reich” (Art. 151 (3) wrv) and the “principle of freedom of contract shall prevail in economic relations, in accordance with the laws” (Art. 152 (1) wrv).19 From an inviolable individual right to liberty unless otherwise provided by law, the Constituent
Enshrined at the first level are what are now commonly referred to as ‘economic and social rights’,20 such as the right to social security and insurance (Art. 161 wrv), or to labour law (Art. 157 wrv) – which is explicitly extended to “intellectual work [...] of discoverers, inventors and artists” (Art. 158 (1) wrv). These economic and social rights are recognized as formal, abstract and programmatic rights,21 but they are also concretely protected by the recognition of a special ‘freedom of association’,22 namely that for the “protection and improvement of labour and economic conditions” (Art. 159 wrv).23 Hence, the union freedom is thus constitutionally enshrined in the Weimar Constitution.
Regarding, on the other hand, the specific duties attached to this ‘economic life’, it can be first observed that, from a general and formal point of view, “it is the moral duty of every German, without prejudice to his personal liberty, to use his intellectual and physical powers as the welfare of the community requires” (Art. 163 (1) wrv).24 Furthermore, this social commitment affects the most prominent liberal right: the right to private property. Although Article 153 wrv recognized this right, it also stated that “the ownership of property entails obligations” and that “its use must at the same time serve the common good” (Art. 153 (3) wrv). Besides, Art. 155 (3) wrv adds that “the cultivation and full utilization of the land is a duty the landowner owes to
Expropriation may be effected only for the benefits of the general community and upon the basis of law. It shall be accompanied by due compensation, save in so far as may be otherwise provided by a law of the Reich. In case of dispute as to the amount of compensation, resort may be had to legal proceedings in the ordinary course, unless a law of the Reich otherwise determines. [...]
Compared to the liberal model of expropriation as enshrined in Art. 17 of the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of 26 August 1789, which provides this exception only in the event that “public necessity, legally ascertained, obviously requires it, and just and prior indemnity has been paid”,25 the Weimar provision alters and erodes each of its constituent elements to such an extent that it could (potentially) overturn and subvert the very principle. Expropriation is no longer permitted in cases of “public necessity”, but for the “benefit of the general community”; compensation is no longer required ex ante, and the only remaining condition is for the compensation to be “fair” or “due” (angemessene); above all, this compensation condition is only required “save in so far as may be provided by a law of the Reich”. In other words, the Constituent Assembly empowered the legislature to nationalize private property, without compensation if need be.
This generic provision was further extended in the (potentially) highly interventionist Art. 155 and 156 wrv, respectively devoted to the legislative empowerment of land collectivization and socialization of private enterprises. Furthermore, while Art. 164 wrv states that “[t]he independent middle class in agriculture, industry and commerce, shall be encouraged by legislative and administrative measures and shall be protected against exploitation and oppression”, the very next (and last) provision of Section v, namely the Räteartikel (‘article of the councils’), provides for a federal economic organization
The result is a rather unique constitutional configuration that blends liberal economic principles with social objectives and with a significant number of potentially collectivist provisions. The Weimar Wirtschaftsverfassung was thus the result of political compromises that sought to reconcile opposites, resulting in an unstable balance that could tip to one side or the other depending on how the legislature chose to implement it. Against this background, the concept of ‘economic constitution’ gave rise to an intense doctrinal debate, reflecting both strong theoretical positions and more or less latent strategic intents, which must be put into perspective to better grasp the underlying issue of both the theoretical and ideological struggles.
2 The Advocacy of the Wirtschaftsverfassung as a Social Democracy: Sinzheimer and the Social-Democratic Legal Doctrine
The first scholar to attempt to develop a concept of ‘economic constitution’ that could be both theoretically relevant and positively operable for the Weimar Republic was none other than the main author of Section v on Wirtschaftsleben: Hugo Sinzheimer, founding father of German labour law27
Above all, the very heart of the project lies in the “anchoring of the councils in the constitution”33: the Räteartikel (Article 165 wrv), together with the provision on the expropriation and socialization of strategic economic sectors (Art. 156 (2) wrv), lays down “the foundation of an economic constitution”34 – to which most of his rapporteur’s speech was devoted. In Sinzheimer’s words, “the fundamental idea of the council movement is the establishment of a proper and specific economic constitution alongside the
The question then arose as to how far would and should the economic competences and political functions of these Wirtschaftsräte go, and especially of the Reichswirtschaftsrat. In this respect, the rapporteur noted from the outset that the regulation of working conditions and wages must remain the competence of free professional associations (trade unions and employers’ associations), which are the only ones to possess “the necessary flexibility and adaptability” to face the evolution of specific economic needs.41 Besides, the institution of the councils should not take precedence over parliamentary political bodies: the two “extremes” should be discarded, that is, on the one hand, the revolutionary solution of the dictatorship of the councils
As summarized by Ruth Dukes, Sinzheimer’s aim was to “conceive of a ‘constitution’ that would allow for a satisfactory balance between the autonomous regulation of the economy by the economic actors themselves, on the one hand, and state oversight or guardianship of the common interest on the
However, Sinzheimer himself emphasized that the achievement and fulfilment of this economic constitution required a major legislative undertaking, which in turn required coordinated and voluntary action by the working class.52 In other words, if “the foundation for the reign of political democracy has been urgently erected in Weimar, [t]he work of social democracy is still to be accomplished”.53 It was therefore the task of the political democracy of Weimar to implement this social democracy and economic constitution through the establishment of a unified labour law controlled by a labour administration (Arbeitsverwaltung), the creation of an industrial administration (Industrieverwaltung) in charge of economic recovery and, above all, the setting up of workers’ and economic councils.54
Yet, the legislature did not fully embrace this ambitious project. It made only limited use of the numerous possibilities offered by the Economic
Although barely established by the legislative power, social democracy also faced strong judicial opposition, even from the Reichsarbeitsgericht (Reich labour court),60 as the fate of the Betriebsweck (‘enterprise objective’)
3 The Denial of a Wirtschaftsverfassung for Weimar and the Fight against the ‘Total State’: Schmitt, Huber and the Conservative Legal Doctrine
In the early years of the Weimar Republic, and especially in the first half of the 1920s, the conservative professor of public law at the University of Rostock, Edgar Tatarin-Tarnheyden,71 was one of the few (non-socialist) legal scholars who developed a theory of the ‘economic constitution’, which he linked to his corporatist conceptions of the organization of state and society. In his habilitation thesis on Professional Bodies, their Status in Public Law and the German Economic Constitution,72 Tatarin-Tarnheyden used Article 165 wrv and the newly provisionally-established Economic Council of the Reich as the basis for his proper corporatist reinterpretation of the German economic constitution, with the explicit aim of establishing a Chamber of Labour alongside the Reichstag.73 Still on the basis of the Räteartikel, he further developed his arguments in 1930 in a book dedicated to Occupational Estates and Economic Democracy,74 in which he argued for the transfer of a normative power to the Reichswirtschaftsrat, as well as for the establishment of a “kind of bottom-up
This corporatist theory of the state and of an ‘economic constitution’ allegedly enshrined in Art. 165 wrv nevertheless raised some objections within the conservative doctrine itself. Carl Schmitt,76 in particular, criticized in his Verfassungslehre the idea of a corporatist structure for the Weimar state, with an explicit reference to Tatarin-Tarnheyden.77 This corporatist project would have proceeded from a misinterpretation of the constitutional order and legislative framework in force. Above all, it would entail a conceptual contradiction: as soon as a conflict arose, and since “the decision always lies in the political sphere”, “the parliament that proves itself the decisive part will necessarily become the political parliament, because it assumes leadership and, with this, responsibility, regardless of whether it was previously organized as a political or an economic parliament”.78 Schmitt considered more fundamentally that while the Reichsverfassung certainly involved “dilatory formal compromises” (dilatorische Formelkompromisse) and implied a “mixed
This issue concerning the relationship between state and economy – and concerning a possible ‘economic constitution’ for the Weimar Republic – was only superficially and cursorily discussed in this Verfassungslehre, but Schmitt further developed it in 1931, in the context of the controversy over the ‘guardian of the constitution’.81/82 According to the future Kronjurist of the Third Reich, the concepts of ‘political’ and ‘economic’ constitutions were actually mutually exclusive: a state can either be structured around a strict and proper political domain, with a conscious and deliberate decision to leave the (considered to be) ‘neutral’ and non-political other domains (religion, economy, culture, etc.) to society;83 or the state (and therefore the politics) can be organized around the economy, making the producers (and no longer the bourgeois citizens) and the economic bodies (companies, unions, workers’ councils, etc.) respectively the basic unit and fundamental decision-making
But Schmitt did not stop at this still relatively formal reading. He also proposed in this Guardian of the Constitution a much more substantial analysis of
It is very remarkable that today only two major states have such economic constitutions: communist Russia with its Soviet system and Fascist Italy with its stato corporativo. These are two still largely agrarian countries, that are by no means at the forefront of economic development and industrial progress, and whose economic constitution, as everyone knows, is in the shadow of a tightly centralized party organization and the so-called single-party state. The system of economic constitution here is not at all intended to make the economy free and autonomous, but, on the contrary, to place it in the hands of the state and subordinate it to the state; the single-party system derives from the necessity to prevent the domination of the state by several parties, that is, to prevent the pluralistic division of the state.97
Schmitt therefore seems to applaud this centralization of power, but he also noted that the respective situations are not economically similar. He also seems to welcome the fact that the economic constitution in both countries is subordinated to the (single-party) state, but one wonders why he then rejected such an economic constitution for the Weimar Republic.98 The answer, already sketched out in a subsequent section of his Guardian of the Constitution,99 is
Through this ‘qualitatively strong state’ (qualitative starker Staat), Schmitt actually proposed a kind of Aufhebung (sublation) of the contradiction between the liberal and the total state. Against this modern state that would become quantitatively total – leading to the confusion between state and society and state and economy102 – must be imposed a particularly strong state, that would take the political decision to depoliticize the non-state spheres of society, and in particular (a part of) the economy. Similar to the stato totalitario of the fascist state in terms of “intensity or political energy”, but not backed by a single-party, this strong state must rely on the very heart of the executive power, namely the President of the Reich (through the emergency powers of Article 48 wrv).103 Only he would be able, with the support
This point is crucial in Schmitt’s reasoning: “only a very strong state would be able to dissolve this dreadful coalescence with all kinds of non-state businesses and interests”.105 And this “depoliticization, the segregation of the state from non-state spheres”, which is itself a “specifically political act”, requiring nothing less than “a painful surgical intervention”.106 However, the aim of this ‘surgical intervention’ was not to restore the binary situation of liberalism, in which the (neutral) state and society (and its purely private economic sphere) are opposed to each other. On the contrary, it would be “necessary to
Hence, Schmitt certainly denied the existence and relevance of an ‘economic constitution’ for the Weimar Republic: the German state (and thus politics) should not be – and was not – organized around the economy. But he nevertheless defended a qualitatively predominant role of the state vis-à-vis the economy. This kind of interventionism is, so to speak, a ‘feedback’ interventionism: just as the state must be (re)politicized in order to better depoliticize society, it must strategically and authoritatively intervene in the economy in order to better circumscribe its own economic domains as well as the sphere of this corporatist and cartelized self-administration and the residual field of the purely private sphere.109 And, if need be, it shall do this through the imposition, by the Hüter der Verfassung (the President
This economic state of exception represents the strong legal option of the conservative doctrine. But a perhaps more moderate (but nevertheless congruent) variant was proposed by Ernst Rudolf Huber, disciple of Carl Schmitt,111 in his opuscule devoted to the German Reich as an Economic State112 published in 1931, in the wake of his master’s Guardian of the Constitution.113 Unsurprisingly, Huber rejected as unfounded the social-democratic interpretations of the fifth Section of Title ii of the Weimar Constitution, which were based on prescriptive concepts of “economic democracy” and “social Rechtsstaat”114 and which sought to prove the existence of an “independent economic constitution with its own system of values, its own institutions and special organs”.115 According to him, these left-wing attempts “do not stand up to lucid scrutiny”.116
However, more than this socialist reasoning “which seeks to derive a change in the traditional economic order from the constitution itself”,117 it is the actual development of the Weimar economy and of the economic policy of the government118 that “indicates the transformation of the Reich into an
But, in contrast to Schmitt’s call for an economic state of exception in order to establish the tripartite division of the economy into “state”, “public” (i.e. cartelized but subordinate to the reason of state) and “private” spheres, Huber argued that the Weimar Constitution already implicitly provides for this tripartition. Although it maintains economic freedom as the foundation of the economic order,121 the Reichsverfassung would have substantially transformed the content of this economic freedom: from a freedom originally conceived as a personal sphere prior to and outside of public power, it would have been transformed into a “liberty bound and shaped” by the state,122 so that, alongside the private economy, there would now be room for a “bound economy” in the Weimar Republic.123 This solution, however, required the remobilization of state authority, in order to “restore the neutrality of the state vis-à-vis the economy” but “in a new sense”.124 This implied, on one hand, the renouncing of invasive politics and defence of private economic freedom.125 But, on the other hand and at the same time, it required this liberty to be politically integrated, that is to subordinate it to the state.126/127
4 The Liberal Wirtschaftsverfassung or the State as the Guardian of a Constitutionalized Market Order: Rüstow, Eucken and Böhm
Embracing the concept of economic constitution, but partially reversing its ‘substance’, German liberals recaptured this notion. This liberal129 remobilization of the concept did not, however, occur in head-on opposition to the criticisms expressed by the conservative legal doctrine against the existing liberal-democratic constitutional order. Quite the contrary, they took into account – or even endorsed – some of these criticisms, albeit to better inflect and subvert the solutions proposed by the conservative opponents of the liberal Rechtsstaat.
The starting point for liberal theories lay in the analysis of the roots of the 1920s-1930s politico-economic crises, also diagnosed by the conservatives. In 1932, economists Alexander Rüstow and Walter Eucken both proposed a convergent interpretation of the underlying causes of the ‘crisis of capitalism’ in Western societies (and especially in Germany). The explanation was primarily to be found in the “structural changes of the state”130 and, more precisely,
Rüstow sought to overcome the dichotomy between the Manchester liberalism of laissez-faire, on one side, and, on the other, the counterproductive interventionism that strives to “fight against the natural course of things”.135 He called for ‘liberal interventionism’ or, in other words, a state that intervenes “in the exact opposite direction to that in which intervention has hitherto been carried out, that is, not against the laws of the market, but in the direction of the laws of the market, not to maintain the old state, but to bring about the new state, not to delay, but to accelerate the natural course of events”.136 Yet, such liberal interventionism “requires a strong state: a state that stands
While Rüstow in this conference focused on the political aspect of the problem, Eucken introduced a change of perspective in his aforementioned contribution. He discussed the economic (rather than state) problem of this ‘economic state’ (Wirtschaftsstaat), namely the fact that it destroys and abolishes the “previous regulating principle of the economy”, i.e. the price system, which is directly dependent on the existence of market competition.138 The rise of monopolistic or oligopolistic private powers was already undermining this regulatory principle, but the economic state tended to eliminate market competition (and this price system) through its policies of cartelization, subsidies, etc. This focus on the system of market prices and its prerequisite (market competition) then revealed, between the lines, an important gap vis-à-vis the conservatives regarding the objectives of this strong state. The aim was not, first and foremost, to restore the state’s sovereignty and authority for itself – which required both a (limited) disengagement from the private economy and a partial subordination and cartelization of the economy. Actually, the state was no longer an end in itself, it became a means. The primary and overarching task was to eliminate any (private and public) concentration of economic power in the market; this certainly would require a strong state, but such a state does not find its raison d’être in itself (i.e., in the well-named raison d’état), but in the complete depoliticization and disempowerment (Entmachtung) of the economy.139
The present book attempts to elucidate (veranschaulichen) the laws (Gesetzmäßigkeiten) of a free trade and competitive economy, as determined by economic theory, in a way that has not been achieved before. And it does so by assuming the task of proving and presenting this economic system as a legal constitution of economic life, as a legal order in the positive sense [...] of a precise and exact constitutional legal structure. It is, so to speak, an attempt to translate the doctrinal system (Lehrgebäude) of classical economic philosophy from the language of economics (Nationalökonomie) into the language of legal science.147
From a constitutional point of view, the system of freedom of trade and industry is a constitution of economic life in the positive [law] sense; the introduction of this system consequently means a ‘complete decision’ (Gesamtentscheidung) over the type and form of the economic-social cooperation process, in the same sense in which Carl Schmitt describes the state constitution as a ‘complete decision over the type and form of political unity’.151/152
Böhm’s connection between the Schmittian meaning of (political) ‘constitution’ and the concept of Wirtschaftsverfassung may seem surprising at first glance, since Schmitt set the two concepts against each other. But it proves ultimately to be particularly subtle and astute. Schmitt considered (like Huber) that the Weimar constitutional order enshrined a free economy, and thus rejected centralized planning. If they were reluctant to use the concept of ‘economic constitution’, it is only because they remained locked in the anti-liberal conception of the term. Yet, it is precisely this socialist conceptual monopoly on the Wirtschaftsverfassung that Böhm broke. And he did so with Schmitt’s conceptual tools, albeit against him. Besides, he turned them against Schmitt not only on the purely theoretical level – that is, on the possibility of giving the concept a properly liberal content – but also in the field of concrete positive law interpretation. While Schmitt denied that the Weimar Republic was a legal order of a planned economy, on the other hand he defended the maintenance of a cartelized public sphere of economy. This is what Böhm strictly rejected: the core of his thesis lay precisely in the refutation of this cartelization of the German economic order. To do so, he opposed this cartelization (and the conservative theories that sometimes underlie it)
Böhm hardly denied the revolutionary potential of the Weimar Constitution. He conceded that the latter expressly removed the field of labour (Art. 157 wrv) and agriculture (Art. 155 wrv) from the free-market system and that it empowered the legislature to introduce economic planning through the (state or corporatist) socialization of private economic sectors.154 He nevertheless strived to rigorously undermine this revolutionary potential, through a twofold analysis, i.e. both legal and economic. At the first (legal) level, he noted, on one hand, that the state had not (except occasionally)155 made use of its planning prerogatives. He argued, on the other, that the socialist-oriented provisions of the Reichsverfassung represented only derogations from the constitutional principles of economic freedom and free competition. Indeed, the latter were, according to him, materially established at the legislative level by the Trade and Industry Code (Gewerbeordnung) of 21 June 1869,156 but also formally enshrined at the constitutional level through Art. 151 (1) and (3) wrv157 – and were even further extended by the Antitrust Regulation of 2 November 1923.158
On the second (economic) level, Böhm deconstructed the idea of a possible partial exit from the market order. Based on the labour market analysis, which is governed by collective bargaining,159 Böhm pointed out that “economic freedom, which is realized in the field of trade and industry, has
However, a constitution needs a guardian.163 An economic constitution, even a liberal one, especially a liberal one, needs a strong guardian to protect the market order. This guardian is the state. This point constituted the keystone that supports the whole theoretical edifice built by Böhm: the market
5 The Wirtschaftsverfassung or the Question of the (De)Politicization of the Economy through Law
Hence, the ‘economic constitution’ was embedded in a discursive constellation,167 in which divergent definitions and competing conceptions of fundamental notions – such as democracy, economy, state, rule of law, etc. – clash and confront each other. Through the concept of Wirtschaftsverfassung, the Social Democrats advocated nothing less than the extension of popular
Conservative legal scholars, on the other hand, rejected this project and what they considered to be an erroneous conception of democracy. The neutral state, under the pressure of the masses, would inevitably turn into a quantitative total state. The raison d’état would be overthrown by the onslaught of these vested interests. To counter this threat and to ensure its self-preservation, the state should carry out a vigorous, surgical intervention of (partial) depoliticization of the economy, but precisely in order to better re-politicize the state – if necessary, through the imposition of an economic state of exception. They actually radicalized the socialist definition of ‘economic constitution’, in so far as it would involve the entire organization of politics around the economy and, thus, the impossibility of coexisting with the political state constitution, contrary to what Sinzheimer and other left-wing legal scholars claimed. This radicalization of the socialist understanding of the notion then implied, for these conservative Staatslehrer, the rejection of such an ‘economic constitution’ for the Weimar Republic. If there should be an economic constitution, it could only be a total and absolute one, as in Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy. Otherwise, and especially when applied to the Weimar legal order, it would be, at best, a simple metaphor highlighting the rise in the economic field of an intermediate level between state and society, i.e. the autonomous and cartelized public economy; or, at worst (albeit the most frequent case), this ‘economic constitution’ would constitute only a polemical, programmatic and tactical concept developed by the social-democratic legal doctrine to subvert the constitutional order by causing a fateful confusion between state and society through economic democratization. This explains the conservatives’ call for a strong (or authoritarian) but self-limiting state that would subordinate the economy to its authority while preserving a sphere of private economic freedom.
On a third side, the liberal legal and economic doctrine shared and endorsed this critique of a too extensive understanding of democracy, which would lead to the false belief that it is possible to embrace the entire economy in a global plan, thus undermining the self-regulated market. According to them, the market functioning was disrupted, or even nullified, by this assault of the masses within the state. It was, on the other hand, weakened by the struggle for monopoly of private enterprises seeking to acquire more market power. It was therefore essential to completely depoliticize the economy, i.e., to disempower all (public and private) economic entities. This required,
Facing the new constitution adopted in the aftermath of a traumatic defeat, as well as the major political and economic crises of the inter-war period and the concomitant emergence of Fascist and Soviet alternatives to the liberal model, Weimar intellectuals and scholars sought to grasp, understand and figure out this very specific and contingent historical situation. In other words, they sought to conceptualize it. But they did so, however, on the basis of theoretical and ideological assumptions that most of the time were very divergent or even contradictory.168 The advent of the concept of economic constitution under the Weimar Republic is to be understood against this historical background.
A concept does not carry an absolute and abstract meaning, a sort of primary identity that could be restored to its original purity by retracing its history in a linear way until the discovery of its hypothetical inherent truth. It is formed and shaped against a specific issue, which it seeks to grasp and, in so doing, to overcome. This process of abstraction inevitably involves conflicts over the interpretation of the causes of the problem and of the answers to be
Against this background, what then is the specific social problem in response to which this concept of ‘economic constitution’ emerged? What can explain – or at least shed light on – such important doctrinal controversies and ideological struggles? The Wirtschaftsverfassung under Weimar actually addressed nothing less than the highly political question of the social embeddedness or disembeddedness of the economy.172 The level of theoretical conflict surrounding the concept responds to the intensity of the social crisis that affected Europe, and particularly Germany, in the first half of the 20th century. What is fundamentally at stake in the debates on the economic constitution was therefore the question of the (de)politicization of the economy through law.173 Faced with the gradual, albeit contingent and
Conclusion
This very political question of the legal ordering of the economy – what ordoliberals will later call Ordnungspolitik – has, of course, not disappeared with the Weimar Republic. The conceptual architecture in which it takes place has, however, certainly evolved since that time. After the end of the World War ii, the ‘economic constitution’, abandoned by the left-wing (political and intellectual) movements, has been mobilized and monopolized by the (neo)liberal schools in order to depoliticize the economy through law.175/176 Yet, it does not mean that the sense of this key notion would now be fixed and set in stone. Since the 2008 crisis, a number of current socio-political processes, linked to the market economy and sometimes subsumed under the concept of ‘economic constitution’ – such as the extension of the supreme courts’ power
Will these political contests, often considered (and sometimes assumed)180 to stem from (economic) “populism”,181 lead to the reopening and resurgence of theoretical confrontations around the concept, and to new interpretations and subversions of this economic constitution, notably to rediscover its potential meaning for an economic democracy? Time will tell. In any case, although the question whether “in politics, words and their usage are more important than any other weapon”182 remains open, it is quite sure that they take their part in these political and ideological conflicts. In this respect, proposing a genealogy of a concept as highly political as that of economic constitution might shed light on our present... and, who knows, open up new horizons for the future.
Institut d’Études Juridiques Européennes (ed.), La constitution économique européenne: actes du cinquième colloque sur la fusion des communautés européennes organisé à Liège les 16,17 et 18 décembre 1970, Liège/The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1971; L.-J. Constantinesco, « La constitution économique de la C. E. E. », Revue trimestrielle de droit européen, 1977, vol. 13, n° 2, pp. 244–281.
W. Van Gerven, U. Scheuner and J.D.B. Mitchell, « The Optimal Economic Constitution of the European Community with Reference to the Economic Constitutions of the Member States », Common Market Law Review, 1976, vol. 13, n° 2, pp. 215–221; see also, albeit two decades later, the important article of Manfred Streit and Werner Mussler: « The Economic Constitution of the European Community: From Rome to Maastricht », Constitutional Political Economy, September 1994, vol. 5, n° 3, pp. 319–353.
See infra in this volume, Part 2 – The European Economic Constitution. From Micro to Macro. Professor Léontin-Jean Constantinesco’s article (« La constitution économique de la République fédérale allemande », Revue économique, 1960, vol. 11, n° 2, pp. 266–290) is an exception. But this exception is due specifically to Professor Constantinesco’s knowledge of the German doctrinal debates.
See, in particular, the special issue of the German Law Journal (2015, vol. 21, issue 3, pp. 285–429) devoted to “Hermann Heller’s Authoritarian Liberalism”.
W. Decock, Le marché du mérite. Penser le droit et l’économie avec Léonard Lessius, Brussels, Zones sensibles, 2019; S. Piron, L’occupation du monde, Brussels, Zones sensibles, 2018; S. Piron, Généalogie de la morale économique. L’occupation du monde, tome 2, Brussels, Zones sensibles, 2020.
B. Herencia, Physiocratie et gouvernementalité: l’œuvre de Lemercier de la Rivière, Paris, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 2011; B. Herencia, « Recherches pour une constitution physiocratique », Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2014, n° 378, pp. 3–28. See also supra in this volume, P. Steiner, « Les Physiocrates, l’économie politique, l’Europe », and infra in this volume, H. Rabault, « Le Concept de Constitution économique : émergence et fonctions » and P. C. Caldwell, « The Concept and Politics of the Economic Constitution ».
K. W. Nörr, « ‘Economic Constitution’: On the Roots of a Legal Concept », Journal of Law and Religion, 1994, vol. 11, n° 1, pp. 343–354; D. Jungbluth, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Wirtschaftsverfassungsrechts: Von Weimar bis zum Investitionshilfeurteil, Wiesbaden, Springer, 2018.
P.C. Caldwell and W. Scheuerman (eds.), From Liberal Democracy to Fascism: Legal and Political Thought in the Weimar Republic, Boston/Leiden/Cologne, Humanities Press, 2000.
Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs (‘Weimarer Reichsverfassung’), 11 August 1919, Reichsgesetzblatt 1919, n° 152, S. 1383–1418. Unless otherwise specified, I refer in this contribution to the English translation by E. M. Hucko: « Constitution of the German Reich of 11 August 1919 », in The Democratic Tradition: Four German Constitutions, Oxford/New York/Munich, Berg, 1987, pp. 149‑190. For a detailed presentation of this constitution and of the Weimar context, see: C. Gusy, Die Weimarer Reichsverfassung, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1997.
See the debates in the German National Constituent Assembly (verfassunggebende deutsche Nationalversammlung), available at:
C. Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, Durham/London, Duke University Press, 2008, pp. 82‑88 (original ed.: Verfassungslehre, Munich/Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1928).
R. Brunet, La constitution allemande du 11 août 1919, Paris, Payot, 1921, esp. pp. 319–325.
E. Vermeil, La constitution de Weimar et le principe de la démocratie allemande, Strasbourg, Istra, 1923, p. 55.
H. Rabault, « La notion de constitution économique : éléments d’introduction », Politeia. Revue semestrielle de droit constitutionnel comparé, 2018, n° 34, pp. 207–235, esp. p. 220.
P. Fauchille, « Préface », in M.A. Schreiber-Fabre, Constitution de la confédération allemande du 11 août 1919, Paris, Arthur Rousseau, 1920, pp. v–xi, esp. p. VII; R. Brunet, La constitution allemande du 11 août 1919, op. cit., pp. 324–325.
Hence Karl Marx’s famous criticism of the limited, and therefore insufficient, nature of these formal human rights in the article « Zur Judenfrage » in the only volume of the Annales franco-allemandes in 1844 (English translation available at:
Art. 151 (1) wrv.
L. Guihéry, « La constitution économique de la République de Weimar : comment tenter de concilier choix individuels et préférences collectives ? », Revue française de droit constitutionnel, 2021, n° 1, pp. 207–225 – although we remain sceptical, to say the least, about some of the conclusions drawn by the author regarding the influence of the ‘economic constitution’ in the Nazi takeover. See also infra in this volume, P.-C. Müller-Graff, « The Idea of an Economic constitution (Wirtschaftsverfassung) in German law ».
Our translation; emphasis added.
O. De Schutter, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights, Cheltenham (UK)/Northampton (Massachusetts, USA), Edward Elgar, 2013; see also: H. Rabault, « Une “république sociale” ? Le paradoxe des droits ‘économiques et sociaux’ », in S. Gambino (ed.), Diritti sociali e crisi economica Problemi e prospettive, Torino, G. Giappichelli editore, 2015, pp. 133–143.
The rapporteur of Section v of Title ii, Hugo Sinzheimer, states himself that these ‘rights’ are not “rights in the strict sense” (H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », Verhandlungen der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung, Bd. 328, Stenographische Berichte, 62. Sitzung, p.1749). See infra, Subchapter 2. The advocacy of the Wirtschaftsverfassung as a social democracy: Sinzheimer and the social-democratic doctrine.
Generic freedom of association is already recognized in Art. 124 wrv.
Our translation.
Our translation.
Declaration of Human and Civic Rights of 26 August 1789 (available at :
Following the defeat of the Spartakist movement (the Freikorps entered Berlin on 11 January 1919 and Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht were assassinated on 15 January 1919) and the absence of the Communist Party in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of 19 January 1919, these ‘workers’ councils’ should not however be confused with the model of the Russian ‘Soviets’ or with a political democracy built from these economic and workers’ councils: they are not intended to replace the traditional parliamentary bodies, but rather to complement those institutions considered by the Marxist revolutionaries as ‘bourgeois’.
On Sinzheimer’s influence on labour law in Germany, see: E. Livneh, « Hugo Sinzheimer – The Father of German Labour Law », Israel Law Review, 1975, vol. 10, n° 2, pp. 272‑276; O.E. Kempen, « Hugo Sinzheimer – Schöpfer des kollektiven Arbeitsrechts in Deutschland », Arbeit und Recht, 2015, vol. 63, n° 7, pp. G13‑G16; O.E. Kempen, Hugo Sinzheimer Architekt des kollektiven Arbeitsrechts und Verfassungspolitiker, Frankfurt am Main, Societäts Verlag, 2017.
K. W. Nörr, Die Republik der Wirtschaft: Recht, Wirtschaft und Staat in der Geschichte Westdeutschlands. Vol. I: Von der Besatzungszeit zur Großen Koalition, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1999, pp. 15–18; K. W. Nörr, « Auf dem Weg zur Kategorie der Wirtschaftsverfassung: wirtschaftliche Ordnungsverstellungen im juristischen Denken vor und nach dem Ersten Krieg », in K. W. Nörr, B. Schefold and F. Tenbruk (eds.), Geisteswissenschaften zwischen Kaiserreich und Republik zur Entwicklung von Nationalökonomie, Rechtswissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Steiner, 1994, pp. 423‑452, esp. pp. 443–452; C.M. Herrera, « Constitution et transformation, de Weimar à nos jours », Revue française de droit constitutionnel, mars 2021, n° 1, pp. 227–248, esp. p. 235.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », Verhandlungen der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung, Bd. 328, Stenographische Berichte, 62. Sitzung, S. 1748–1752 (reprinted in: H. Sinzheimer, « Die Grundbeziehung zwischen Staats- und Wirtschaftsleben (1920) », in H. Sinzheimer, Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze und Reden, vol. I (edited by O. Kahn-Freund and T. Ramm), Frankfurt am Main/Cologne, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1976, pp. 364‑372; also available on:
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1748.
Ibid., pp. 1748(D)-1749(A).
Ibid. p. 1749(A).
Ibid., p. 149 (D).
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 1750(A). This assertion is a leitmotiv in the thoughts of the social-democratic legal scholar, as evidenced by his writings gathered in: H. Sinzheimer, Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze und Reden, vol. I (edited by O. Kahn-Freund and T. Ramm), Frankfurt am Main/Cologne, Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 1976 – and especially: « Über die Formen und Bedeutung der Betriebsräte (1919) », pp. 321‑324, esp. p. 321; « Das Rätesystem (1919) », pp. 325‑350, esp. p. 327; « Rätebewegung und Gesellschaftsverfassung (1920) », pp. 356‑363, esp. p. 357.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1750(A). This justifies the establishment of workers’ councils (Arbeiterräte), which are supposed to provide (manual and intellectual) workers with public law representation aimed at defending their own interests, similar to the chambers of commerce (Handelskammern) for the employers.
See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Über die Formen und Bedeutung der Betriebsräte (1919) », op. cit., p. 322; H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., pp. 329‑330.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1750(B).
Ibid., p. 1750(C). See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., p. 331.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1750 (C).
Ibid. at 1751(A). See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., p. 332; H. Sinzheimer, « Rätebewegung und Gesellschaftsverfassung (1920) », op. cit., esp. p. 356.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1751(B).
See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., esp. pp. 325–326. More generally, on democratic approaches in constitutional theories in the Weimar period, see: P.C. Caldwell, Popular Sovereignty and the Crisis of German Constitutional Law: The Theory and Practice of Weimar Constitutionalism, Durham/London, Duke University Press, 1997.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1751(C). According to Sinzheimer, this would lead to “grasping the entire politics from an economic point of view” and thus to giving up “politics based on ideas”. See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., pp. 335–336 and 343–344.
Regarding this democracy of the economic councils conceived as equally opposed to the ‘establishment of a dictatorship of councils’ (Errichtung einer Rätediktatur) and to the ‘introduction of a corporatist parliament’ (Einführung eines berufsständischen Parlament) based on a ‘chamber of labour’ (Kammer der Arbeit), see: H. Sinzheimer, « Über die Formen und Bedeutung der Betriebsräte (1919) », op. cit., pp. 321 et. seq.
H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., p. 327.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1751(C). Hence the fact that the potential socialization of private enterprises is not within the competence of the councils but of the state (i.e. the parliament) (H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., p. 334).
See also: ibid., pp. 329–337.
H. Sinzheimer, « Fünfter Abschnitt, Art. 148: Bericht », op. cit., p. 1751(D). See also: H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., p. 339.
R. Dukes, « Hugo Sinzheimer and the Economic Constitution », in The Labour Constitution: The Enduring Idea of Labour Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 12‑32, esp. p. 13.
Ibid.
H. Sinzheimer, « Das Rätesystem (1919) », op. cit., pp. 335 and 340.
H. Sinzheimer, « Die Zukunft der Arbeiterräte (1919) », in Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze und Reden, vol. I, op. cit., pp. 351‑355, especially p. 351 (“Der Notbau für das Reich der politischen Demokratie ist in Weimar errichtet worden. Das Werk der sozialen Demokratie ist noch zu schaffen”; free translation).
Ibid., pp. 354‑355; H. Sinzheimer, « Rätebewegung und Gesellschaftsverfassung (1920) », op. cit. On the notion of ‘economic democracy’, see also the book edited by Fritz Naphtali, Director of the Research Center for Economic Policy (Forschungsstelle für Wirtschaftspolitik) of the General Federation of German Trade Unions (Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes), to which Sinzheimer also contributed: F. Naphtali (ed.), Wirtschaftsdemokratie: Ihr Wesen, Weg und Ziel, Berlin, Verlagsgesellschaft des Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, 1928, available at:
D. Jungbluth, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Wirtschaftsverfassungsrechts: Von Weimar bis zum Investitionshilfeurteil, op. cit., p. 32.
K. W. Nörr, Die Republik der Wirtschaft: Recht, Wirtschaft und Staat in der Geschichte Westdeutschlands. Vol. I: Von der Besatzungszeit zur Großen Koalition, op. cit., p. 17. This socialization was carried out by the Constituent Assembly itself, as a result of the general strike that defeated the ‘Kapp putsch’: Sozialisierungsgesetz, 23 March 1919 rgbl. 1919, p. 341; Kohlenwirtschaftsgesetz, 23 March 1919 rgbl. 1919, pp. 342–344; Kaliwirtschaftsgesetz, 29 April 1919, rgbl. 1919, pp. 413–415; Elektrizitätsgesetz, 31 December 1919, rgbl. 1920, pp. 19–26. See also: R. Brunet, La constitution allemande du 11 août 1919, op. cit., pp. 304–318.
C. Zacher, Die Entstehung des Wirtschaftsrechts in Deutschland, op. cit., p. 50.
Verordnung über den Vorläufigen Reichswirtschaftsrat (Decree on the Provisional Economic Council of the Reich), 4 May 1920, rgbl. 1920, n° 99, pp. 858–869. See also: D. Jungbluth, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Wirtschaftsverfassungsrechts: Von Weimar bis zum Investitionshilfeurteil, op. cit., pp. 56–60. For a nuanced analysis of the influence of this Economic Council of the Reich on the economic policy of the Weimar Republic, see: F. Hederer, « How to Handle Economic Power? Law-making and the Reich Economic Council in Weimar Germany », Management & Organizational History, vol. 14, n° 4, 2019, pp. 366‑381.
Betriebsrätegesetz, 4 February 1920, rgbl. 1920, n° 26, pp. 147–174. This institution was abolished in 1928 (Gesetz zur Äbanderung des Betriebsrätegesetzes, 28 February 1928, rgbl. I 1928, p. 46). For a compendium of all the legal provisions adopted in relation to these workers’ councils between these two laws, see: D.G. Flatow and D.O. Kahn-Freund (eds.), Betriebsrätegesetz vom 4. Februar 1920 nebst Wahlordnung, Ausführungsverordnungen und Ergänzungsgesetzen (Betriebsbilanzgesetz, Aufsichtsratsgesetz und Wahlordnung): unter Berücksichtigung des Gesetzes vom 28. Febr. 1928, 13th ed., Berlin/Heidelberg, Springer, 1931.
Established by the Arbeitsgerichtsgesetz, 23 December 1926, rgbl. 1926 I, n° 68, p. 507, on the basis of Article 157 (2) wrv stating that “the Reich will frame a uniform labour law”.
According to Article 1 (1) of the Betriebsrätegesetz of 4 February 1920: “In order to safeguard the common economic interests of the employees [...] vis-à-vis the employer and to assist the employer in fulfilling the enterprise’s objectives (Betriebszwecke), workers councils shall be established in all enterprises which usually employ at least twenty employees” (our translation).
See: O. Kahn-Freund, Das soziale Ideal des Reichsarbeitsgerichts: Eine kritische Untersuchung zur Rechtsprechung des Reichsarbeitsgerichts, Mannheim/Berlin/Leipzig, Bensheimer, 1931 (translated in: O. Kahn-Freund, « The Social Ideal of the Reich Labour Court – A Critical Examination of the Practice of the Reich Labour Court », in R. Lewis and J. Clark (eds.), Labour Law and Politics Weimar Republic, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1981). See also: R. Dukes, « Hugo Sinzheimer and the Economic Constitution », op. cit., pp. 21‑22.
In this respect, the interwar controversy about the Betriebsweck echoes the more recent debates around the notions of ‘corporate social responsibility’ and ‘corporate governance’ – and the reinterpretation of those concepts by some liberal scholars, notably Milton Friedman (M. Friedman, « The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits », The New York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970). See: R. Aydogdu, « La Corporate Social Responsibility, le droit par-delà le marché et l’État (partie 1) », Revue pratique des sociétés – Tijdschrift voor Rechtspersoon en Vennootschap (rps-trv), 2016, n° 16, pp. 669‑704; G. Chamayou, La société ingouvernable. Une généalogie du libéralisme autoritaire, Paris, La Fabrique éditions, 2018, esp. pp. 81–94.
See: O. Kirchheimer, « Reichsgericht und Enteignung. Reichsverfassungswidrigkeit des Preußischen Fluchtliniengesetzes? », Die Justiz, 1930, n° 9, pp. 553‑565 (reprinted in: H. Buchstein (ed.), Otto Kirchheimer – Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. I: Recht und Politik in der Weimarer Republik, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2017, pp. 251–263).
D. Jungbluth, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Wirtschaftsverfassungsrechts: Von Weimar bis zum Investitionshilfeurteil, op. cit., p. 45.
H. Sinzheimer, « Arbeitsrecht und Arbeitsbewegung (1927) », in Arbeitsrecht und Rechtssoziologie: gesammelte Aufsätze und Reden, vol. I, op. cit., pp. 100‑107, esp. pp. 105–107. However, one year later he acknowledged that “the economic constitution provided for in Art. 165 wrv remained incomplete, since, besides the workers councils, the Provisional Economic Council of the Reich was set up, but not the district economic councils, nor the district workers’ councils or the workers’ council of the Reich, so that a fruitful connection could not develop between the workers councils on the one hand and the Provisional Economic Council of the Reich, as a parliamentary body providing expert advice, on the other” (H. Sinzheimer, « Die Demokratisierung des Arbeitsverhältnisse », in F. Naphtali (ed.), Wirtschaftsdemokratie: Ihr Wesen, Weg und Ziel, op.cit., pp. 127–153, esp. p. 152).
See in particular the special issue of the legal journal Jus Politicum on “Three Left-wing Legal Scholars under Weimar: Heller, Neumann, Kirchheimer” (vol. 23, 2019, « Trois juristes de gauche sous Weimar : Heller, Neumann, Kirchheimer », available at:
F. Naphtali (ed.), Wirtschaftsdemokratie: Ihr Wesen, Weg und Ziel, op. cit.
F. Neumann, « Über die Voraussetzungen und den Rechtsbegriff einer Wirtschaftsverfassung », Die Arbeit: Zeitschrift für Gewerkschaftspolitik und Wirtschaftskunde, 1931, vol. 8, pp. 588‑606.
C. Zacher, Die Entstehung des Wirtschaftsrechts in Deutschland, op. cit., p. 219.
Known before 1933 for his corporatist theories, Tatarin-Tarnheyden then gradually rallied to the Nazi regime. Before officially joining the National Socialist Party in 1937, he took part in the infamous congress organized by Carl Schmitt at the University of Berlin on 3–4 October 1936, devoted to ‘Judaism and Legal Science’ (Das Judentum und die Rechtswissenschaft), where he offered his ‘reflections’ on “The Influence of Judaism in Public Law and State Theory” (Einfluß des Judentums in Staatsrecht und Staatslehre).
E. Tatarin-Tarnheyden, Die Berufsstände, ihre Stellung im Staatsrecht und die Deutsche Wirtschaftsverfassung, Berlin, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1922. On Tatarin-Tarnheyden’s corporatist theory of the state, see: T. Meyer, « Die Ständestaatstheorie Tatarin-Tarnheydens », in T. Meyer (ed.), Stand und Klasse: Kontinuitätsgeschichte korporativer Staatskonzeptionen im deutschen Konservativismus, Wiesbaden, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997, pp. 225‑240.
E. Tatarin-Tarnheyden, Die Berufsstände, ihre Stellung im Staatsrecht und die Deutsche Wirtschaftsverfassung, op. cit., p. 243.
E. Tatarin-Tarnheyden, Berufsverbände und Wirtschaftsdemokratie. Ein Kommentar zu Artikel 165 der Reichsverfassung, Berlin, Reimar Hobbing, 1930.
P. Collin, « The Legitimation of Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation in Corporatist Concepts of Legal Scholars in the Weimar Republic », Politics and Governance, 2017, vol. 5, n° 1, pp. 15‑25, esp. pp. 18–19.
I leave aside for this contribution the controversy over the qualification of Carl Schmitt as ‘fascist’, including for the period 1922–1933, i.e. before Hitler’s accession to the chancellery and Schmitt’s subsequent official membership of the nsdap. On this issue, see inter alia: H. Rabault, « Carl Schmitt et l’influence fasciste. Relire la Théorie de la constitution », Revue française de droit constitutionnel, 2011, vol. 88, n° 4, pp. 709–732. I share Hugues Rabault’s position on the influence of (or even fascination for) Italian fascism in Schmitt’s thought (even before 1933), but I do not think that his thought, analysis and theories could be reduced to this fascist ideology. In particular, as will be exposed, Schmitt specifically rejects the idea of a total politicization of society: since, according to him, the state is politics, a total politicization would lead to confusion between state and society, and thus to a negation of the state. If all spheres of society (religious, economic, cultural, etc.) are potentially political, they can never be political at the same time. Besides, as shall also be seen, Schmitt also seems to reject, before 1933, the form of the single-party state. I will therefore maintain in the following pages the term ‘conservative’ to qualify Schmitt, even if the term ‘(proto-)fascist’ might perhaps have been appropriate too.
C. Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, op. cit., pp. 322–323.
Ibid., p. 322 (Schmitt’s emphasis). Schmitt concludes with a reference to the Reichswirtschaftsrat provided by Article 165 wrv: according to him, although it could be that this council represents the beginning of a new and specific institution that cannot be understood using traditional ideas of state organization, “it must be said that up ‘til now this Economic Council of the Reich of the Weimar Constitution is neither a second chamber nor an economic parliament” (ibid., p. 323).
Ibid., p. 83. Schmitt quotes here the words of the Social Democratic Deputy in the National Constituent Assembly Simon Katzenstein, according to whom the provisions of this Title ii are “to a certain degree a middle stage between bourgeois and socialist perspectives ([...] Katzenstein, Bericht und Protokolle des Achten Ausschusses der verfassungsgegebenen Deutschen National Versammlung, Berlin, 1920, p. 186)” (ibid.). See supra, Section 1. The Economic Structure of the Weimar Constitution: Economic Freedoms, Social Rights and Democratization of the Economic Order.
C. Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, op. cit., pp. 82–88, esp. p. 88.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1931, pp. 71–100, esp. pp. 96–100.
On this controversy, see: L. Vinx, The Guardian of the Constitution. Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015 (with English translation of Kelsen and Schmitt’s most important texts on constitutional guardianship and the legitimacy of constitutional review). See also: O. Beaud and P. Pasquino (eds.), La controverse sur ‘le gardien de la Constitution’ et la justice constitutionnelle. Kelsen contre Schmitt / Der Weimarer Streit um den Hüter der Verfassung und die Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit: Kelsen gegen Schmitt, Paris, Editions Panthéon-Assas, 2007; R. Baumert, La découverte du juge constitutionnel, entre science et politique: les controverses doctrinales sur le contrôle de la constitutionnalité des lois dans les républiques française et allemande de l’entre-deux-guerres, Paris, lgdj, 2009.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 73. More generally, Schmitt’s theories on the notions of ‘political’, ‘non-political’ or ‘neutral(ization)’ are developed in: C. Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, Berlin, Dunckler & Humblot, 1932 (English translation by G. Schwab: C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political. Expanded Edition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007).
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 97. In other words, and unlike the Russian Soviet model, Art. 165 wrv is not intended to organize the state on the basis of the sphere of production, but only to potentially (since the article has no direct effect) organize the economy beside the purely political organization of the state on the basis of bourgeois democracy: the councils do not ‘represent’ in the abstract and political sense (repräsentieren), they only ‘represent’ in the concrete sense of specific interests (vertreten). It must be noted that, on this specific point, Schmitt does not oppose Sinzheimer’s positions developed in his speech as rapporteur of the fifth section and in his writings, which tend to reject the establishment of the ‘dictatorship of the Soviets’ as well as the creation of a ‘chamber of labour’ (see supra, Subchapter 2. The Advocacy of the Wirtschaftsverfassung as a Social Democracy: Sinzheimer and the Social-Democratic Legal Doctrine). However, they draw quite opposite consequences from this finding, because Sinzheimer developed the possibility of combining a ‘state constitution’ and an ‘economic constitution’, whereas Schmitt absolutely rejects this hypothesis: an ‘economic constitution’ is either ‘state constitution’ or nothing.
To support his reasoning, Schmitt returned on this occasion to the theses of Tatarin-Tarnheyden, whom he described as “one of the best experts in the field”. In the light of Tatarin-Tarnheyden’s new book (E. Tatarin-Tarnheyden, Berufsverbände und Wirtschaftsdemokratie. Ein Kommentar zu Artikel 165 der Reichsverfassung, op. cit.). Schmitt drops his initial criticisms expressed in the Verfassungslehre. On the contrary, he now emphasizes the convergence of their interpretations: they would “only apparently contradict each other”, for if as Tatarin-Tarnheyden states “the Weimar Constitution has [...] taken a ‘twofold path’ of political will formation, firstly that of head-count democracy (Kopfzahldemokratie) and secondly that of the collaboration of economic classes and professional bodies (Zusammenwirkens der Wirtschaftsklassen und Berufsstände)”, he also points out that the latter is given subsidiary importance, so that it shall always be subject to the political constitution (C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 97).
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 97–98. On this point, he also refers to another well-known conservative legal scholar of that time, Erwin Jacobi (Grundlehren des Arbeitsrechts, Leipzig, Deichert, 1927, pp. 392–395).
Ibid., pp. 71–131.
Ibid., p. 77. See also: C. Schmitt, « Die Wendung zum totalen Staat (1931) », in Positionen und Begriffe, op. cit., pp. 146–158; « Weiterentwicklung des totalen Staats in Deutschland (1933) », in Positionen und Begriffe, op. cit., pp. 185–190.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 79. Schmitt refers here to Ernst Jünger (« Die totale Mobilmachung », in E. Jünger (ed.) Krieg und Krieger, Junker und Dünnhaupt, Berlin, 1930, pp. 9–30) who in turn borrows the idea from Léon Daudet (La Guerre totale, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, Paris, 1918).
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 79‑80.
Ibid., pp. 73‑94.
Ibid., pp. 80.
Ibid., pp. 80–81.
Ibid., p. 98.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 99.
Ibid., p. 100.
This vacillation can already be observed in his review of Erwin von Beckerath’s book entitled Wesen und Werden des faschistischen Staates (Berlin, Springer, 1927) (C. Schmitt, « Wesen und Werden des faschistischen Staates (1929) », in Positionen und Begriffe im Kampf mit Weimar-Genf-Versailles, 1923–1939, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1940, pp. 108–115), where he already stated that “it is precisely the non-intensively industrialized countries like Russia and Italy that can nowadays provide themselves with an ‘economic constitution’” (ibid., p. 112). Besides, he praises the supremacy of the fascist state – described as a true higher third (höherer Dritter), in contrast to the liberal neutral third (neutraler Dritter) – over the specific interests of labour and capital, but he asserts, on the other hand, that “the immanent consequence and direction of the fascist apparatus built up today [led] to the state planned economy” (ibid., p. 113).
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 115–131 (« Vorgehen der Reichsregierung nach Art. 48 rv. ; Entwicklung vom militärisch-polizeilichen zum wirtschaftlich-finanziellen Ausnahmezustand »).
C. Schmitt, « Starker Staat und gesunde Wirtschaft. Ein Vortrag vor Wirtschaftsführern (Konferenz gehalten am 23.11.1932) », Volk und Reich, 1933, pp. 81–94 (first published in the journal of this employers’ association: C. Schmitt, « Hauptvortrag von Universtitäts-Professor Dr. Carl Schmitt, Berlin », Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Wahrung der gemeinsamen wirtschaftlichen Interessen in Rheinland und Westfalen, 1932, vol. 21, n° 1, pp. 13‑32; English translation by Renato Cristi available in: C. Schmitt, « Strong State and Sound Economy: An Address to Business Leaders », in R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1998, pp. 213‑232).
As Grégoire Chamayou points out in his introduction to the Schmitt-Heller controversy concerning “authoritarian liberalism”: “[t]he model promoted by Schmitt in 1932 is not that of a party-state. He wants a strong state, as strong, in some respects, as that of the fascists, but this ‘higher third’ is not conceived as a total party under which society as a whole should be subsumed” (G. Chamayou, « Présentation. 1932, Naissance du libéralisme autoritaire », in C. Schmitt, H. Heller, Du libéralisme autoritaire, Paris, La Découverte (Zones), 2020, pp. 6‑82, esp. p. 66). Chamayou concludes from this that, for Schmitt, “[t]he strategy consisted in dictatorializing state power from the inside, without relying on a mass party” (ibid.).
C. Schmitt, « Strong State and Sound Economy: An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 218.
C. Schmitt, « Die Diktatur des Reichpräsidenten nach Artikel 48 der Weimarer Verfassung », in Die Diktatur. Von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf (1921), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2015, pp. 240‑286.
Schmitt does not explicitly call in this conference for the president to take the powers of economic exception, but this solution permeates the whole text, albeit in an underlying way. As mentioned above, this is also already apparent from his concept of an ‘economic-financial state of exception’ which he develops in his Guardian of the Constitution (C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 115–131). Finally, this call for an authoritarian power takeover by the executive is clearly evidenced in the plans for a coup d’état elaborated after the legislative elections of 31 July 1932: Schmitt wrote the drafts of emergency decrees based on Article 48 wrv (G. Chamayou, « Présentation. 1932, Naissance du libéralisme autoritaire », op. cit., pp. 67–69) – but the president’s cabinet did not make use of these crisis powers and these decrees were never adopted. Concerning the role of Schmitt in the plans for a coup d’état at the end of the Weimar Republic, see: L. Berthold, Carl Schmitt und der Staatsnotstandplan am Ende der Weimarer Republik, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1999. It can be noted that the last coup project provided for the liberal Alexander Rüstow as minister of the economy (F. Bilger, La pensée économique libérale dans l’Allemagne contemporaine, Paris, lgdj, 1964, p. 30).
C. Schmitt, « Strong State and Sound Economy: An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 221.
Ibid. Hermann Heller comes to the conclusion that Schmitt ultimately defends an ‘authoritarian liberalism’ (H. Heller, « Autoritärer Liberalismus? », Die Neue Rundschau, 1933, vol. 44, pp. 289‑298; English translation available in: H. Heller, « Authoritarian Liberalism? », European Law Journal, May 2015, vol. 21, n° 3, pp. 295‑301). He will be joined in his criticism by Herbert Marcuse: « Der Kampf gegen den Liberalismus in der totalitären Staatsauffassung », Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 1934, vol. 3, n° 2, pp. 161‑195 (translated in English in : H. Marcuse, « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, London, Free Association Books, 1988, pp. 3–42). For an analysis of this Schmittian ‘authoritarian liberalism’, see: R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism. Strong State, Free Economy, op. cit.; G. Chamayou, « Présentation. 1932, Naissance du libéralisme autoritaire », op. cit. On the other hand, there are controversies about Schmitt’s influence on certain neoliberal currents ; see in particular infra in this volume, W. Bonefeld, « Economic Constitution and Authoritarian Liberalism – Carl Schmitt and the Idea of a Sound Economy », and the discussions and criticisms by S. Audier (« Le néolibéralisme: Un “libéralisme autoritaire” néo-schmittien ? ») and V. Valentin (« L’idée de constitution économique et l’hypothèse du libéralisme autoritaire »).
C. Schmitt, « Strong State and Sound Economy: An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 224–226.
In order to avoid any misunderstanding in this business arena, Schmitt adds that “what is advanced here as economic autonomous administration, and as the distinction between state and public spheres, is completely different from the ‘economic democracy’ propagated a few years back by a certain side. That economic democracy explicitly espoused a mixture of economics and politics; it also wanted to acquire economic power within the state by means of political power, and subsequently increase its political power by means of the economic power it had thus acquired” (ibid., p. 225).
As Clemens Zacher points out, “Schmitt created an alternative situation in which the economic constitution excluded a state-organizational constitution. In the ‘qualitatively total state’, which Schmitt developed elsewhere as an option of constitutional policy and constitutional theory opposed to the existing ‘quantitatively total state’, he departed completely from the organizational understanding of the positive economic constitution. In his view, the economy – as an autonomous, non-political sub-constitution – should be integrated into the state. Without explicitly stating this, he thus left open the possibility of a corporatist constitution as an anti-Marxist option for integrating the apolitical economy into the state [...]” (C. Zacher, Die Entstehung des Wirtschaftsrechts in Deutschland, op. cit., p. 250).
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 115‑131.
Huber was a student of Schmitt at the University of Bonn, where he then taught briefly. In addition to his scholarly writings on economic law, he also published during the interwar period, under a pseudonym, fierce criticism of the Weimar democracy. From the time he joined the nsdap in 1933, he became one of the most prominent legal scholars under the Nazi regime. Professor in Kiel, Leipzig, Strasbourg and Heidelberg during this period, he was then, after the German defeat, excluded from any academic position for a few years. He taught again from 1953, first in Freiburg, then in Wilhelmshaven-Rüstersiel and Göttingen. After 1956, when he was reintegrated into the Association of German Professors of Constitutional Law, he worked on the publication of an eight volume “German Constitutional History since 1789” (Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart), published between 1957 and 1991.
E. R. Huber, Das Deutsche Reich als Wirtschaftsstaat, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1931.
To whom he refers 16 times in 33 pages, including four references to the Hüter der Verfassung.
E. R. Huber, Das Deutsche Reich als Wirtschaftsstaat, op. cit., pp. 10–15.
Ibid., p. 14.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 15.
This actual development of the Weimar Republic is characterized, according to Huber, by a concentration of private powers, an expansion of public economic activity, an increasing state intervention in the regulation of private economic activity (prices, wages, conditions of production and sale, etc.) and an increasing public financial influence on private enterprises (through subsidy, credit, customs and taxation policies) (ibid., pp. 17–23).
Ibid., p. 15.
Ibid., pp. 23–25.
Ibid., pp. 6–8.
Ibid., p. 8.
Ibid., p. 28.
Ibid., pp. 28–29.
Ibid., pp. 27–28.
Ibid., p. 28.
Clemens Zacher also points out that “Huber called for (forderte) bound freedom, i.e., subordination to the state, which would thus be relieved of (enthoben) the need to fully encompass the economic sphere. Huber systematically rejected the ‘economic state’. Instead, the state should be capable of forming its own will independently of the economy. In a constitutional balance, the organized and the non-organized economy should be subordinated to the will of the state. If one understands the economic constitution sought by Huber as an overall guidance without steering the content (umfassende Leitung ohne inhaltliche Lenkung), so that the entire economy subordinates itself to the state’s claim to power (staatlichen Herrschaftsanspruch) and does not seek to win it from below (ihn nicht von unten her zu gewinnen sucht), then a state sovereignty (etatischer Herrschaftsanspruch) prevails, which dominates the certainly existing corporatist elements. In Huber’s view, the claim of the state was always in the foreground, as opposed to the harmonization of economic and social antagonisms – in the sense of integrating the people [into the state]”, i.e. in the sense of economic democracy (C. Zacher, Die Entstehung des Wirtschaftsrechts in Deutschland, op. cit., p. 252).
E. R. Huber, Das Deutsche Reich als Wirtschaftsstaat, op. cit., p. 29.
I use the term ‘liberal’ rather than ‘ordoliberal’, since the founding act of the ordoliberal school of thought, or Freiburg school, is usually considered to be 1936 (i.e. after the collapse of the Weimar Republic), with the foreword (which represents a genuine manifesto) of the first book in the collection Ordnung der Wirtschaft edited by Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm and Hans Großmann-Doerth: W. Eucken, F. Böhm and H. Großmann-Doerth, « Unsere Aufgabe. Beleitwort der Herausgeber zur Schriftenreihe ‘Ordnung der Wirtschaft’», in F. Böhm, Die Ordnung der Wirtschaft als geschichtliche Aufgabe und rechtsschöpferische Leistung, Stuttgart, Berlin, Kohlhammer, 1937, pp. vii–xxi. This collection evolved into the journal ordo after the war.
W. Eucken, « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krisis des Kapitalismus », Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 1932, vol. 36, n° 2, pp. 297–321 (reprint in: W. Eucken, « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krisis des Kapitalismus », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1997, vol. 48, pp. 5‑24.).
Ibid., respectively: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, pp. 302–308; ordo, pp. 10–14.
Ibid., respectively: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, p. 307; ordo, op. cit., p. 13. Eucken here develops Schmitt’s thesis of the reversal of the ‘total war’ against the state as a result of democratization, leading to an expansion of the state’s economic activity that does not correspond to a “strengthening but, on the contrary, a weakening of the state”, even entailing a “danger of state dissolution”. It should nevertheless be noted that this ‘anti-democratism’ is one of the commonplaces of a substantial part of the Weimar academic elite (R. Fèvre, L’ordolibéralisme (1932–1950): une économie politique du pouvoir, PhD thesis, University of Lausanne, 2017, pp. 204–205) – except, of course, the socialist or social-democratic minority.
A. Rüstow, « Freie Wirtschaft – starker Staat. Die staatspolitischen Vorraussetzungen des wirtschaftspolitischen Liberalismus », in F. Boese (ed.), Deutschland und die Weltkrise. Verhandlungen des Vereins für sozialpolitik in Dresden 1932, n° 187, Munich, Duncker & Humblot, 1932, pp. 62‑69, esp. pp. 66–67.
See supra, footnote 100. Rüstow’s intellectual proximity to Carl Schmitt was already observable (and explicitly affirmed) in a first conference in 1929 with a very revealing title: “Dictatorship within the limits of democracy” (A. Rüstow, « Diktatur innerhalb der Grenzen der Demokratie (1929) », Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1959, vol. 7, n° 1, pp. 87‑102). Another article published in 1931 in a French journal also illustrates this anti-democratic stance (A. Rüstow, « La situation économique de l’Allemagne », La revue des vivants, 1931, vol. 5, n° 4, pp. 414‑420).
A. Rüstow, « Freie Wirtschaft – starker Staat. Die staatspolitischen Vorraussetzungen des wirtschaftspolitischen Liberalismus », op. cit., p. 64.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 68.
W. Eucken, « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krisis des Kapitalismus », respectively: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, op. cit., pp. 308‑309; ordo, op. cit., p. 14. Eucken observes in this regard that this shift is certainly due in part to the assault of the masses on and within the state, but also to a spurious “interventionist ideology”, which carries erroneous economic conceptions (ibid., respectively: Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, pp. 318‑321; ordo, pp. 23–24). The worst of them is, according to Eucken, the “assertion that the free capitalist economy is a chaotic, anarchic, haphazard economy in need of state regulation – whereas the truth is that the price system fulfils the task of balancing the immensely numerous economic plans of the individual and creates an order of the utmost rigour”.
R. Fèvre, « Le marché sans pouvoir: au cœur du discours ordolibéral », Revue d’économie politique, mars 2017, n° 1, pp. 119‑151. This obviously echoes Schmitt’s critique of liberalism as ‘anti-politics’, according to which there is “absolutely no liberal politics, only a liberal critique of politics” (C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op. cit., pp. 69–79, esp. 70). However the future ordoliberals invalidate this assertion: there is indeed a positive liberal political theory (which becomes explicit in ordoliberalism, perhaps even in reaction to Schmitt’s analyses), which is characterized precisely as a conscious and explicit enterprise of depoliticization, i.e., as ‘politics of depoliticization’ (see: M. Goupy, L’état d’exception ou l’impuissance autoritaire de l’État à l’époque du libéralisme, Paris, cnrs éditions, 2016).
This is precisely the critique developed by the legal scholar and other founding member of the future ordoliberal school, Hans Großmann-Doerth (See in particular: R. Wakote, « Hans Großmann-Doerth, un cofondateur méconnu de l’École de Fribourg », in H. Rabault (ed.), L’ordolibéralisme, aux origines de l’école de Fribourg-en-Brisgau, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2016, pp. 127‑159) in his inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg in 1933, devoted to the “self-created law of the economy” (H. Großmann-Doerth, Selbstgeschaffenes Recht der Wirtschaft und staatliches Recht (Antrittsvorlesung), Freiburg, Freiburg Wagner’sche Universität Buchhandlung, 1933). This ‘self-created law of the economy’ criticized by the liberal legal scholar seems to correspond quite well to the ‘economic autonomous administration’ (wirtschaftliche Selbstverwaltung) advocated by the conservative legal doctrine. Großmann-Doerth does not directly discuss this particular issue, but he scrutinizes and dissects the “general terms and conditions of sale” and the contractual imbalances between buyers and sellers that this phenomenon reveals. In so doing, he actually highlights the disproportionate balance of power that undermines the market and he points out the role of the state in supervising and controlling the market, in order to prevent abuses of a dominant position and to limit the power of private interest groups (see: C. Mongouachon, « L’ordolibéralisme: Contexte historique et contenu dogmatique », Concurrences, 2011, pp. 70‑78, esp. p. 71).
M. Foucault, « Leçon du 7 février 1979 », in Naissance de la biopolitique: cours au Collège de France (1978–1979), Paris, Gallimard, 2004, pp. 105‑133, esp. p. 125.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf: Eine Untersuchung zur Frage des wirtschaftlichen Kampfrechts und zur Frage der rechtlichen Struktur der geltenden Wirtschaftsordnung, Berlin, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1933 (republished in: F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf: Eine Untersuchung zur Frage des wirtschaftlichen Kampfrechts und zur Frage der rechtlichen Struktur der geltenden Wirtschaftsordnung, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2010; this last version is taken as a reference in the following pages).
On the work and life of Böhm, see: H.O. Lenel, « The life and work of Franz Böhm », European Journal of Law and Economics, 1996, vol. 3, n° 4, pp. 301‑307; S. Kolev, « Böhm, Franz », in A. Marciano and G.B. Ramello (eds.), Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, New York, NY, Springer, 2018, available at:
F. Böhm, « Das Problem der privaten Macht », Die Justiz, 1927/1928, vol. 3, pp. 324‑345. The legal roots of this cartelization of the economy lie in the founding (but, according to Böhm, fatal) decision of the Reichsgericht of 4 February 1897 on the Saxon Wood Pulp case (Reichsgericht, sächsische Holzstoffkartell, 4 February 1897, rgz 38, 155), in which the court applied freedom of contract to confirm the binding nature of restrictive competition agreements. Böhm will later provide an analysis specifically devoted to this judgment (F. Böhm, « Das Reichsgericht und die Kartelle. Eine wirtschaftsverfassungsrechtliche Kritik an dem Urteil des RG. vom 4. Februar 1897 », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1948, vol. 1, pp. 197‑213).
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., p. 229.
K. W. Nörr, « On the Concept of the ‘Economic Constitution’ and the Importance of Franz Böhm from the Viewpoint of Legal History », European Journal of Law and Economics, 1996, vol. 3, n° 4, pp. 345‑356, esp. p. 350. See also: J. Walther, « Prométhée enchainé ou la puissance maitrisée. Le lien génétique entre droit privé et concurrence dans l’œuvre de Franz Böhm (1895–1977) », in H. Rabault (ed.), L’ordolibéralisme, aux origines de l’école de Fribourg-en-Brisgau, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2016, pp. 95‑126, esp. p. 109.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., p. 17 (emphasis added). Böhm continues with an explicit reference to the physiocratic project of transcribing natural (economic) law into positive state law: “With this problem [i.e., the translation of the doctrinal system of classical economic philosophy from the language of economics into the language of legal science], the work takes up the proposition of the Physiocratic School, which one and a half centuries ago claimed that the state should declare ‘the natural law to be the state law’ in the field of economic life. Wherever there exists today a free economic constitution, the right to what is called freedom of trade and industry, the states have at one time or other fulfilled this requirement. But as assiduously as generations of academics have since extended and refined knowledge of the economic natural laws (wirtschaftlichen Naturgesetzen), legal science has paid little attention to the question of what a legal constitution that is drawn up by the state declaring ‘a natural law as the state law’ looks like” (ibid.). On the physiocratic project, see supra in this volume, P. Steiner, « Les Physiocrates, l’économie politique, l’Europe » and infra in this volume, H. Rabault, « Le Concept de Constitution économique: émergence et fonctions » and P. C. Caldwell, « The Concept and Politics of the Economic Constitution ». Regarding Franz Böhm’s views on natural (economic) law, see: D. Nientiedt, « Metaphysical justification for an economic constitution? Franz Böhm and the concept of natural law », Constitutional Political Economy, 2019, vol. 30, n° 1, pp. 114–129.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., pp. 31–107.
Ibid., pp. 206–298.
Ibid., pp. 179–191.
Ibid., p. 120. Böhm refers here to Schmitt’s Theory of Constitution: C. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, München-Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1928. pp. 20 ff. (in the English translation: C. Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, op. cit., p. 75).
This formulation is the first occurrence of the definition which will be systematically used by the future ordoliberals (W. Eucken, F. Böhm and H. Großmann-Doerth, « Unsere Aufgabe. Beleitwort der Herausgeber zur Schriftenreihe ‘Ordnung der Wirtschaft’ », op. cit., esp. p.xix.; W. Eucken, Die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie, Iena, Gustav Fischer, 1940, p. 52). For an overview of the advent of the ordoliberal notion of “economic constitution”, see: H. Rabault, « Naissance de la notion ordolibérale de ‘constitution économique’ », in H. Rabault (ed.), L’ordolibéralisme, aux origines de l’école de Fribourg-en-Brisgau, op. cit., pp. 189‑210.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., pp. 299–342.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., pp. 315‑317. Böhm even argues that “the Reichsverfassung contains a fundamental and significant amendment to the complete constitutional decision taken by the Gewerbeordnung [of 1869, enshrining the freedom of trade and industry]” (ibid., p. 315).
Böhm cites in particular the “special public service laws for coal, potash, electricity, iron, spirits, and match industries” (F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., p. 299). See supra, footnote 56.
Gewerbeordnung, 21 June 1869 rgbl. 1869, 245.
These are supplemented by the right to private property (Art. 153 wrv), the freedom of contract (Art. 152 wrv) and the general freedom of association (Art. 124 wrv) (ibid., p. 316).
Verordnung gegen den Mißbrauch wirtschaftlicher Machtstellungen, 3 November 1923, rgbl. I, p. 1067. Böhm considers that this Antitrust Regulation represents the “way of the compulsory restoration of the free order [...], the appeal to the natural order” (ibid., p. 320; emphasis added).
This is why the “constitution of working life” (Verfassung des Arbeitslebens) is anything but a “Manchesterist” constitution (F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., p. 319).
Ibid.
Ibid. Böhm adds: “Should this obedience be denied, the free order will retaliate in so far as the stream of economic life will be dammed up at these obstacles, sooner or later bursting its banks at some point and wreaking havoc in both spheres, for which the proponents of the tied economy then tend to blame economic freedom, while the advocates of economic freedom tend to blame the arbitrariness of the planned economy”. This same economic logic would also apply when enterprises illegally try to circumvent the free market system in order to acquire dominant positions: “[s]ooner or later, the initially dammed and partially diverted stream will sweep the artificially matted structure into its torrent” (F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., p. 320: “dann wird der zunächst gestaute und teilweise abgelenkte Strom das künstlich verfilzte Gebilde früher oder später in seinen Strudel reißen”).
The method is particularly cunning, for under the guise of recognizing the possibility of an alternative, it makes the latter so radical that it becomes almost utopian. Since the alternative is ultimately not really an alternative, one has to settle for the liberal ‘natural order’. This conceptual radicalization, this antagonization of alternatives is, moreover, quite similar to Schmitt’s theoretical strategies: playing on the binarity and contradiction between concepts, on their irreducible oppositions, in order to better force the choice, and to better impose one of the two alternatives. Planning and competition are not seen here as Weberian ideal types, necessarily tangled and intertwined in reality; they are understood as mutually exclusive – one always having to destroy the other (and vice versa). This is also the discursive strategy that F.A. Hayek will develop in his pamphlet The Road to Serfdom (London, Routledge, 1944).
See supra, footnotes 81–82.
F. Böhm, Wettbewerb und Monopolkampf, op. cit., pp. 326‑327. See also: F. Böhm, « Privatrechtsgesellschaft und Marktwirtschaft », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1966, vol. 17, pp. 75‑151. (Translated in: F. Böhm, « Rules of Law in a Market Economy », in Alan T. Peacock and H. Willgerodt (eds.), Germany’s Social Market Economy – Origins and Evolution, London, Macmillan, 1989, pp. 46‑67).
Here Böhm openly polemicizes with Schmitt (C. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, op. cit., pp. 158 ff.; in the English translation: C. Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, op. cit., p. 198).
F. Bilger, La pensée économique libérale dans l’Allemagne contemporaine, op. cit., p. 64; M. Foucault, « Leçon du 21 février 1979 », in Naissance de la biopolitique: cours au Collège de France (1978–1979), Paris, Gallimard, 2004, pp. 165‑190, esp. p. 176. See also: J. Hien and C. Joerges (eds.), Ordoliberalism, Law and the Rule of Economics, Oxford/London, Hart Publishing, 2017.
M. Foucault, « La formation des stratégies », in L’archéologie du savoir, Paris, Gallimard, 1969, pp. 89‑97.
C. Gusy, 100 Jahre Weimarer Verfassung. Eine gute Verfassung in schlechter Zeit, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2018.
M. Foucault, « Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire », in S. Bachelard et al. (eds.), Hommage à Jean Hyppolite, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1971, pp. 145‑172; M. Foucault, « Le souci de la vérité », in Dits et écrits, Tome II, Paris, Gallimard, 2001, pp. 1487‑1497.
R. Koselleck, « Begriffsgeschichte and Social History », in Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time (1979), New York, Columbia University Press, 2005, pp. 75–92.
F. Taylan, Concepts et rationalités. Héritages de l’épistémologie historique, de Meyerson à Foucault, Paris, Éditions matériologiques, 2018. See also supra in this volume G. Grégoire & X. Miny, « Introduction – La Constitution économique : Approche contextuelle et perspectives interdisciplinaires ».
K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, (1944) Boston, Beacon Press, 2001.
See also infra in this volume, the conclusion of C. Joerges, « Economic Constitutionalism and “The Political” of “The Economic” ».
C. Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, mit Press, 1998; F. Lordon, Imperium: structures et affects des corps politiques, Paris, La Fabrique éditions, 2015.
See infra in this volume, T. Biebricher, « An Economic Constitution – Neoliberal Lineages ». See also: L. Zevounou, « Le concept de “constitution économique” : Une analyse critique », Jus Politicum, 2018, n° 20‑21, pp. 445‑482; M. Caron, « Réflexions sur la constitutionnalisation des politiques économiques conjoncturelles », Revue du droit public et de la science politique en France et à l’étranger, 2016, n° 2, pp. 557‑595.
There is no contradiction in observing that the ordoliberal Ordnungspolitik grasps the very political character of the legal ordering of the economy and, at the same time, that the (neo)liberal schools aim to depoliticize the economy through law. As noted above in regard to the (future) ordoliberals (see supra, footnote 139), the (neo)liberal project can be understood as a political enterprise of self-disempowerment of the state and of economic depoliticization (P. Dardot and C. Laval, The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society, London/New York, Verso, 2014). Beyond their divergences, this project also characterizes the theories of Hayek, the Public Choice school, the New Classical Macroeconomics, etc.
B. du Marais, « Constitution économique ou constitutionnalisation de l’économie? », in C. Mongouachon and F. Martucci (eds.), La constitution économique. En Hommage au Professeur Guy Carcassonne., Paris, La Mémoire du Droit, 2015, pp. 3‑18; G. Grégoire, « L’économie de Karlsruhe. L’intégration européenne à l’épreuve du juge constitutionnel allemand », Courrier hebdomadaire du crisp, 2021, vol. 2490–2491, nos 5–6, pp. 5–96.
G. Gerapetritis, New Economic Constitutionalism in Europe, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2019.
G. Teubner, « Transnationale Wirtschaftsverfassung: Franz Böhm und Hugo Sinzheimer jenseits des Nationalstaates », Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 2014, vol. 74, pp. 733‑761.
C. Mouffe, For a Left Populism, London, Verso, 2018.
N. Hesse and F. Karstens, « Ordoliberalismus vs. Wirtschaftspopulismus: Unterschiedliche Konzepte für ähnliche Wähler », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, vol. 69, n° 1, 2019, pp. 341‑365.
R. Koselleck, « Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution », in Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time, op. cit., pp. 43–57, esp. 57.
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