ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Rueff and the liberal social order: an interventionist liberalism
Author: Daou Marie
This paper analyses Jacques Rueff’s conception of the social order and the liberalism resulting of this one. Although Rueff is known for having defended a liberal stance in economics, what he means by economic liberalism remains to be specified. Indeed, the notion of economic liberalism lies at the heart of his intellectual project, and is closely related to the defense of freedom. Accordingly, in his writings, the liberal social order thus appears as an order in which freedom is protected. This paper aims precisely at bringing out the particularism of the Rueffian liberal social order and at exploring the connections between the Rueffian vision of this concept and his specific approach of liberalism. The notion of social order is originally a sociological concept but in his 1945 book L’Ordre social, Rueff transposes it to economics. Furthermore, he elaborates a theory of it and argues that social order does not arise spontaneously. Instead, he favors the idea that it is an artificial order, which arises through a process involving several steps: first, the recognition and safeguarding of property rights by political authorities; second, government interventions in order to fulfill the collective aims for creating a livable place (un monde habitable). The importance of studying this concept of social order is that this notion can explain the specific nature of Rueffian liberalism and, notably, his adoption of a relatively extensive interventionism based on the idea—still inconceivable for many Liberals, but accepted by Rueff—that private property may be called into question under certain circumstances. In order to analyse the specificities of the Rueffian liberal order and, in so doing, the character even of Rueff’s liberalism, my paper will be divided into three parts. The first one will deal with the construction of the Rueffian social order (namely, the process of its implementation and the conditions required to achieve its main objective: freedom). In a second part, I will specify how this order is finalized and maintained, which involves to highlight what Rueff calls the “governance of society”. In a third part, I will specify and justify the governmental configuration selected by Rueff (i.e. this one which is for him: the best organization to preserve the liberal social order).
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