The Economic Constitution under Weimar. Doctrinal controversies and ideological struggles

The notion of “economic constitution”, which is today primarily linked to European integration, stems nevertheless from the turbulent interwar period of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). With a specific section dedicated to the “order of economic life”, the Weimar Constitution represents a quite unique constitutional configuration that blends liberal economic principles with social objectives and with a significant number of potentially collectivist provisions. This unstable balance gave rise to an intense doctrinal debate around the concept of Wirtschaftsverfassung. The social-democratic scholars, leaded by Hugo Sinzheimer, advocated a politicization and a democratization of the economy. In an a priori paradoxical move, Schmitt and the conservative legal doctrine radicalized the socialist definition of “economic constitution”… but to better reject it for the Weimar Republic. Instead of this extension of state interventions in the economy (leading to an “economic state”), they called for an authoritarian but self-limiting state that would subordinate the economy to its authority (through cartelization) while preserving a sphere of private economic freedom. Against both these positions, the liberal Franz Böhm carried out a real theoretical coup de force: he endorsed the conservative critique of the “economic state”, but subverted Schmitt’s analysis to propose a truly liberal meaning of the concept of Wirtschaftsverfassung, where the “strong state” has to serve the market order and to apply the principles of the rule of law in the economy.
This (neo)liberal meaning of the concept of “economic constitution” has prevailed since the end of the World War II, notably with the European legal and economic integration. But the European economic constitution, built around a market order, seem to have entered a phase of growing opposition. In this respect, the Weimar debates might shed light on our current issues and, who knows, enable dissenting voices to reopen the path to economic democracy.