An ordoliberal shift? The Biden-Harris Administration's public response to U.S. capitalism in crisis

In March 2022, President Joseph Biden declared, “Since 1946 we've established a liberal world order...Now is the time when things are shifting, and there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.” Biden was speaking at Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, a lobbying group made up exclusively of CEOs. While Biden offered a surprisingly accurate description of the task ahead of the new 'establishment,' he left out the key aspect that it’s more particularly the neoliberal order which emerged in the 1970s that finds itself at an inflection point and, from the perspectives of state and capital, is incentivizing conjunctural transformations. Without this caveat, one isn’t sure what kind of ‘new world order’ the Biden administration wants America to lead, and what it wants to leave behind. Fortunately, in April 2023, we were offered an elaborated vision in the form of a speech on America’s ‘new industrial policy,’ given by the NSA. In this essay, I seek to analyze the rhetoric and objectives offered in this new vision. I show how it challenges neoliberal principles by way of introducing ordoliberal ones. I conclude with a discussion on ordoliberalism’s capitulation to a capitalism and its failure to envision a post-capitalist society.