Wilhelm Roepke

Economists Must Answer for More than Just Economics

Romanticizing and moralistic contempt of the economy, including contempt of the impulses which move the market economy and the institutions which support it, must be as far from our minds as economism, materialism, and utilitarianism... Editor's Note: The following excerpt comes from Wilhelm Röpke's excellent book, 

A Thinker You Should Know: Wilhelm Röpke

Wilhelm Röpke infused his detailed analyses of modernity with a sensitive respect for the values of tradition and religious faith and their critical importance in building social and economic order... Born in 1899 in Schwarmstedt, Germany,...

Wilhelm Röpke’s Conundrums Over the Natural Family

Wilhelm Röpke grew mesmerized by population growth projections which counted 300 billion inhabitants on the Earth by the year 2300. In such an anthill existence, he asked, what would happen to those “unbought graces of life”: “nature, privacy, beauty, dignity, birds and woods and fields and flowers,...

Ten Books That Shaped America’s Conservative Renaissance

Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Jeffrey O. Nelson as he explores the books and thinkers who shaped America's Conservative Renaissance. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition...

Decadence, Free Trade, & Mercantilism

That boredom, sexual perversion, consumerism, and the general malaise of the West are to a great extent the fruits of past economic growth is long record­ed... "Conquest or superiority among other powers is not, or ought not ever to be, the object of republican...

The End of Socialism

James R. Otteson, the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics at Wake Forest University, possesses one of the greatest minds in defense of classical liberalism in the modern era. He has authored two definitive works on...

Humane Economy or Romantic Utopia? The Vision of Wilhelm Roepke

June 20th, 1998, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the German "economic miracle." Of course, there was nothing miraculous about it. Germany's success was not due to the hard-working character of her people, or to...

Morality and the Free Market System: The Humane Balance

Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to explore trans-economic values and the necessity of returning to them lest we bring about our own economic demise. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher

The False God of Economic Growth

Let us be clear on one point: the usual defenders of the free market—the Friedmans, Hayeks and Mises—are not primarily concerned with private property or liberty. They are firstly concerned with economic growth which mainly means continuous economic,...

The Radical Roepke

The Moral Foundations of Civil Society by Wilhelm Roepke, with a new introduction by William F. Campbell. The Social Crisis of Our Time by Wilhelm Roepke, with a foreword by Russell Kirk and an introduction by William F. Campbell.

A New Take on Economic Substitution

The concept of "substitution" is a familiar one in economics. Many products are used as substitutes for others such as margarine for butter and tea for coffee. If the price of one becomes too high the other...

Roepke and von Mises: The Difference

Some writers link the names of Ludwig von Mises and Wilhelm Roepke as if there were no important differences between them. Roepke is co-opted into the camp of more or less libertarian thinkers whose position is further enhanced by...

Let’s Get Back to Robbing Peter: The Welfare State and Demographic Decline

The German economist Wilhelm Röpke, commenting on the expansion of European welfare states in 1958, wrote, “To let someone else foot the bill is, in fact, the general characteristic of the welfare state and, on closer...