Transatlantic Roads to Mont Pèlerin: "Old Chicago" and Freiburg in a World of Disintegrating Orders

Stefan Kolev and Ekkehard Köhler

No 309, Working Papers from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State

Abstract: This paper depicts the co-evolution of the political economies of the "Old Chicago" and Freiburg Schools. These communities within the "laissez-faire within rules" research program and the long-standing "thinking-in-orders" tradition emerged in the 1930s and culminated in the 1940s into a surprisingly coherent stream of institutional economic thought, crystallizing around the personalities of Henry C. Simons and Walter Eucken. We show how, in an age of disintegration of national and international orders of economy and society, the political economists at Chicago and Freiburg underwent a double transition: From students of equilibrium to students of order, as well as from students of various positive orders to defenders of a specific normative order. The normative order of the economy on both sides of the Atlantic was the competitive order and its rules-based framework. Along with shared angst amid disintegrating orders, personal transatlantic connections between the two communities are identified, starting in Berlin during the 1920s. We highlight the special role of Friedrich A. Lutz who, from the mid-1930s to Eucken's passing in 1950 and beyond, served as a lifeline between the isolated Freiburg School and US economists. Lutz's activities are embedded in a narrative of transatlantic conversations around Friedrich A. Hayek and the early meetings of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

Keywords: Neoliberalism; Chicago School; Freiburg School; Mont Pèlerin Society; Henry C. Simons; Walter Eucken; Friedrich A. Lutz; Friedrich A. Hayek (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 B25 B31 H11 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:309

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