Was Walter Eucken a proponent of authoritarian liberalism?

The paper asks whether Walter Eucken, the founder of German ordoliberalism, should be considered to be a proponent of authoritarian liberalism. That term originally refers to a proposal for economic liberalization advanced by Carl Schmitt in 1932. Authoritarian liberalism also could be taken to mean that Eucken favors the rule of law and economic freedoms, but rejects democratic decision making. Both possible meanings are considered. We show that Eucken is not a representative of authoritarian liberalism in either sense of the term. While Eucken and Schmitt offer similar descriptions of the entanglement of state and economy in Weimar Germany, their proposed solutions are rather different. With regard to the second meaning, we argue that Eucken’s critique of democracy refers to two universally recognized problems of democratic decision making, namely interest group influence and the tyranny of the majority.