Carl Scmitt and Friedrich Hayek on Democracy: Elective Affinities?

ARHE, 2024

The aim of the present paper is to disclose the structural affinities between Carl Schmitt and Friedrich Hayek regarding the concept of parliamentary democracy. Identifying Hayek's neoliberal thinking with Schmitt's theoretical justification of fascism would apparently be an a-historical overgeneralization. While Schmitt develops a model of absolute sovereignty relying on the sovereign's decision on the state of exception, Hayek envisages the historical realization of those conditions allowing the market competition to flourish. Schmitt's model subjugates market to an omnipotent state whereas Hayek views the latter as an engine abetting the free market competition. A closer reading, however, could discern affinities behind the seemingly opposed models of the two thinkers. Schmitt's model of an emergency dictatorship and Hayek's nomocracy are two different responses and attacks to the Left's attempt to construct a democratic welfare state in the Weimar Republic and postwar Europe. Schmitt advocates the concentration of political power in a totalitarian state as the sole "remedy" to the democratic contamination of liberalism induced by the politicization of civil society. Similarly, Hayek castigates any state intervention taking the form of the welfare state but endorses a powerful state entrusted with the role of securing the conditions of market competition.

The Idea of Economic Constitution in Europe, 2022

The contribution explores contemporary arguments about the scope of mass democracy in economic liberalism and expounds their origins in the liberal-conservative critique of the Weimar democratic welfare state, focusing on Carl Schmitt’s endorsement of the strong state as the prerequisite of sound economy. Like the founding ordoliberal thinkers, he characterized the Weimar welfare state as a weak state that had given in to the demands of recalcitrant social interests. He recognizes free economy as a genuine and indispensable political task and argues that the state can therefore not be an outgrowth of majoritarian democracy. Authoritarian liberalism is an argument about the indispensability of the liberal state as the independent power and authoritative guardian of the free economy. It recognizes the separation between state and society as fundamental to the constitution of a free economy and in this relationship, it identifies the state as the institution of institutions. It lays down the rules of conduct in a free economy and enforces the rules decides upon. Schmitt’s authoritarian critique of the mass-democratic legislative state and his endorsement of the executive state of the rights of property illuminates the political character of contemporary authoritarian liberalism and offers a cogent account of what is at stake.

History of European Ideas, 2018

This article shows how Hayek's understanding of 'unlimited democracy' was influenced by the work of Carl Schmitt. It goes on to make the case that ordoliberal ideas informed his suggestions for limiting democracy, made in response to Schmitt's work. A number of authors have drawn attention to the influence of Schmitt on Hayek's thought. Similarly, the ordoliberal relationship has been explored. However, these two influences must be read alongside each other in order to arrive at a full understanding of Hayek's deep ambivalence towards democracy and how that developed from the 1930s through to the 1970s. Finally, the article makes the case that the decisive influence on Hayek's later authoritarian turn was not the work of Schmitt, as certain authors have argued, but ordoliberal interpretations of dictatorship. It also argues that Hayek's model constitution is informed by fundamental ordoliberal concerns.

Reflektif: Journal of Social Sciences, 2021

Carl Schmitt's work on The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy has been subject to a new scholarly interest within the context of the debates on populism. Most accounts emphasized the anti-liberal elements in his thought that are discernible in those parts of the book that elaborate on the opposition between liberalism and democracy. This paper argues that such emphasis tends to oversee the analysis developed by Schmitt with regard to the decline of the nineteenth century parliamentarism in the same book. Suggesting that Schmitt nostalgically idealizes nineteenth century parliamentarism as an instance of bourgeois domination and blames mass democracy for its deterioration, this paper puts forth a different portrayal of Schmitt who is an anti-democrat and committed to preserving bourgeois social/political order. This paper finalizes by suggesting that a rigorous analysis of Schmitt's anti-democratic politics would offer us a new lens to interrogate the polemical side of his anti-liberalism. This would in turn disclose the shortcomings of portraying Schmitt as a principled anti-liberal.

2022

This thesis focuses on Carl Schmitt’s political theory of the strong state and the way his own concept of the political justifies strong coercive methods to de-politicise the economy. According to Schmitt, the strong state should have the legitimate capacity to counter democratisation of the economy and limit the possibility of social movements from “confounding” (Verwirrung) or “confusing” (Vermischung) the state and economy. Unlike many, who argue that Schmitt was in this extent (an economic) liberal, as he sought to uphold a distinction between politics and economy, I argue that behind Schmitt’s institutional distinction between state and economy lies an explicitly anti-liberal conceptual distinction between the political and social. It is the task of this conceptual distinction to justify strong coercive means to counter socialist demands for economic justice. The distinction is anti-socialist or anti-democratic as it tries limit the “uncontrollable” expansion of the state into the economy by establishing the autonomy of the political from the economy. This enables him to accuse democratic forces of illegitimately “politicising” the economy in a way that contradicts this necessary autonomy. On the other hand, the distinction is anti-liberal as it does not argue for the autonomy of the economy, but its relative dependence on the strong state to uphold social order necessary for capitalist system of production. I have decided to use the term “authoritarian distinction” to define Schmitt’s conceptual distinction and its normative implications. The authoritarian distinction between the political and social is not simply a conceptual distinction but it establishes a normative basis for re-organising the relationship between the state and economy. In order to flesh out the specific nature of Schmitt’s authoritarian distinction, I have connected his thought with other theories of sovereignty and how they support the state’s authoritarian relationship with the economy. The thesis has three objectives. First, I want to develop a form of analysis of Schmitt’s work that connects his theoretical work with political struggle. To engage in political theory and conceptual work means to take part in politics. The concept of the political is no different, and it cannot be detached from political and normative entailments as it seeks to transform the way we perceive politics. In contrast to those who argue that Schmitt’s work on the concept of the political can be abstracted from his own political objectives, I analyse his conceptual work in tandem with his texts that explicitly engage in the politics of his time. On the basis of this analysis, I show that Schmitt’s abstract work takes part in the class struggle that was prevalent in the Weimar Republic. The conceptual distinction between the political and social is at the heart of his attempt to authorise exceptional measures to counter the labour movement of his time. Second, it is far too often that all distinction of the state and economy are reduced to analyses of liberalism. This has meant that Schmitt, too, has been claimed to adhere to a version of liberalism simply because his theory justifies limiting the politicisation of the economy. To me it seems that the focus on the liberal side of de-politicisation has produced a very one-sided narrative. In order to argue this, I discuss to an extent other theorists of sovereignty, namely Hobbes and Rousseau, and point out that even they sought to establish a distinction between the state and economy in a way that contradicts liberalism but still leaves capitalist means of production intact. To reduce Hobbes or Schmitt to a role of a precursor to liberalism means to look aside the specific nature of their theory – and, for that matter, the specificity of liberalism. Furthermore, I discuss to an extent how both liberals and these various theories of sovereignty are similar in so far as they accept the modern development of the economy as its separate sphere from politics. Third, I want to criticise the recent attempts to appropriate Schmitt’s concept of the political on the left. Many have argued that Schmitt’s concept of the political as autonomous to the social is useful in overcoming traditional Marxism and use for radicalising democracy. However, my thesis suggests that this strategy needs to be problematised, as Schmitt’s conceptual distinction cannot be separated from his anti-democratic and -socialist economic policies. In the future, I hope to further explore this need to re-think the relationship between the political and social, and whether or not we should return to a more standard Marxist understanding of this relationship.

Unpublished Conference Paper, 2020

Clearly Schmitt is the thinker of the political state as the institution of sovereign decision making. His insistence that the state is properly a state on the condition that it sustains its distinction from society is not at all at odds with, in fact it is central to, liberal conceptions of free economy as a depoliticised sphere of rules-based exchange relations between property owners. ‘What are the rules of the game’ (Eucken 1992, p. 81)? What then is the name of institution that is charged with depoliticising the social relations, ensuring their rule-based conduct and containing the passions of self-interest, pluralist demands for protection from competitive pressures, and class specific demands for welfare security from the vagaries of the labour market and conditions of employment? For Schmitt the institution of institutions is the state. It is not only the power behind the economic constitution, the force of order and law, it is also the guardian of the economic constitution, which characterises the state as 'market police' (Röpke, Rüstow).

This paper looks at Schmitt and his critique of liberalsm in terms of the question of constitutional structure of the modern state lead to certain contradictions and problems that arise out of the radicalism of liberal doctrine advanced by the NeoKantian legal tradition that dominated German in the early 20th Century. I argue that Schmitt saw the only means to correct this radicalization of liberalism to allow for the surivial of politics by returning to Hobbes, as well as other modern political thinkers such as Machiavelli and Bodin.

This paper looks at Schmitt and his critique of liberalism in terms of the question of constitutional structure of the modern state lead to certain contradictions and problems that arise out of the radicalism of liberal doctrine advanced by the NeoKantian legal tradition that dominated German in the early 20th Century. I argue that Schmitt saw the only means to correct this radicalization of liberalism to allow for the survival of politics by returning to Hobbes, as well as other modern political thinkers such as Machiavelli and Bodin.

Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 2022

Carl Schmitt, the controversial German political thinker, deeply influenced the 20th century with his critique of liberalism. Many scholars have developed his ideas, using them as a powerful theoretical resource for conservatism. This article seeks to introduce his realistic theories to domestic politics in democratic countries after making necessary developments to Schmitt's theory and explore the underlying tendency of liberalism in his theory. We will first reanalyze the concepts of politics, enemy, and war to propose and demonstrate that the essence of an enemy is the existence of a hostile status. The application of Schmitt's theory to domestic politics presents the need to introduce a realistic perspective to liberalism. Considering the escalating antagonism as evidenced by recent political science research within democracies, realistic liberalism may effectively recognize the threats that are negated by liberals and could warn us of authoritarianism and the encroachments on political rights.