'Economic Policies Are the Best Social Policies': West German Neoliberalism and the Housing Question After 1945

摘要

This article challenges the widespread view that neoliberalism had become hegemonic in the late 20(th) century by zooming into a less well-known variant of neoliberalism, German ordoliberalism, whose political ascendency dates back to the 1940s and 1950s. Through the lens of post-WWII housing policiesa central field of political intervention after 1945this article focuses on the remaking of social policies as neoliberal policies in West Germany, a remake that rendered the market economy a key source of political legitimacy of the newly emerging, liberal democracy.