What has posterity ever done for me?” While the ordoliberals of the Freiburg School stressed the importance of Ordnungspolitik (translatable as regulatory policy) and mostly rejected intervention in economic processes (such as introducing a minimum wage), the founding fathers of the social market economy saw a need for government economic policy over and beyond this framework.
However, economic policy should be in line with the market mechanism and comply with the principle of subsidiarity. The principle of economic policy in line with the market mechanism and the principle of subsidiarity, borrowed from Catholic social teachings, are thus likewise to be seen as the founding principles of our economic order.