State Economy Society

K. Schmit

Theoretician of political decisionism - when things go bad the rule doesn t apply, because it
doesn’t apply to chaos, but to order.

Schmit - a liberal? - Authoritarian liberalism

Hayek - despite his conduct in the Hitler regime, his work is still the most learnt as perspective on
the state and the dangers that the mass democracies brings to the state. Accept that
totalitarianism belongs to liberty, . Law does need to be abstract, formal, non-directive and not
substantial and Schimt’s definition of sovereignty (state of emergency) to suspend the liberal rule
of law - is entirely plausible.

State of pure quantity - the socialist state, the welfare state, of unlimited democracy, that can do
everything for everybody, there is nothing that the state doesn’t do, a state of responsibility

State of pure quality - has succeeded in depoliticising society, in monopolising the politics, in
ruling of the social interests out of the state, succeeded to govern independently from society.

The state needs to free itself

Two types of dictatorship can occur

1. Commissariat dictatorship - the dictator removes all the democratic features and the army is
on the streets and the rule of law comes back when it is order and his authority is recognised.

2. Sovereign dictatorship - suspends the present constitution and re-writes it.

Society is divided between friends and force. Friends - those who are not the enemy.

Politics- the values for which you fight. You need to know the stranger to our values, who
opposes them and then remove it.

Sovereignty not the rule of law, but the one that decides on the state of emergency.

Democracy - possibly only on the basis of a fundamental consensus between rulers and ruled -
possible only as a democracy of friends, not as a democracy that is tolerant towards the enemy.
any such tolerance towards the enemy - lets him in, weakens the state.

Only the strong state has the power and the ability to tolerate the enemy. The weak state does not
have this capacity.

Schmit the state doesn t lose its independence - the strong state is to acquire for liberty for
depoliticised economy, for the recognition of property rights and the conduct of the rule of law. In
order times when law apply, everything is like this. If the state is conquered by the masses - then
the pursuit of the liberal rule of law cannot be guaranteed anymore - this is when the rule of law is
suspended by the power of democracy- a dictator must come into force. Suspends the rule of law
in order to have peace returned (but this through violence).

Critic of the liberalisation of state, of mass-democracy.

He rejects liberalism because it has no values to defend - laissez0fair is not a concept that should
be applied to the state, but tot the economy.

He rejects Weber s view of state as a machine. The state is not an administrative process -
reducing it to that, you open the door to demagogs.

The enchanter - the right ruler - the orator - such as Hitler.

Reassert the state as the power that is able to eliminate all kinds of social conflict - might be
needed to organise conflict - but not conducted by the society, but by the Fuhrer. Liberty survives
if there is this person who can organise social conflict, conducted by the state in order to identify
and prosecute the enemy and through this identify the rest as national friends

the dictator governs either through the rule of law or by suspending it.

The rule of Law

It is not a universal value. It is the legal institution of particular social interests over other, a form of
domination of one group of men over another. If the rule of law is abstract, the people will fill it
with the meaning

Political liberalism is delusionte because it cannot understand this feature.

Friends - enemy - the struggle on what the rule of law wants - it legitimising a certain form of
historical domination.

Not a natural occurrence, not a divine intervention - to be effective, it needs to be authoritarian.

Authoritarian elimination of doubt - nobody can be left in any doubt about what it does and
doesn’t permit.

The authoritarian elimination of doubt is true because it has been implemented - the doubter dies,
or if it survives, it will be as faithful as the rest.

The rule of domination, if denied - rule of thinking = positivists. If understood as the normative
expression of the friends = we know what to do, we can get the policy makers against the
enemies.

The sovereign

The state fragments, decomponses - it is the capture of the various social interests - political,
social, economic. This state needs to be ruled out of the society, to have the capacity to
sepparate itself from the social interests - the elimination of the social conflict is the social conflict
conducted by the state hthrough violence and eliminating the enemy.

Against laissez-faire, but pro free economy - basically because the state is so strong, the
economy cannot do everything politicallys peaking, it cannot choose its influence on the state and
the society,. In his view, the economy is legitimate to do everything in its area, but not its effects
on the society and state is still controlled becuase of states’ force on everything. so it s definitely
nt a laissez faire.

Quantitative - weak state because its power is dispersed everywhere and it does not concentrate
on a small sphere enforcing full control and qualitative power - control only on the politics, so
strong because it concentrates everything there and can control how the other spheres influence
his sphere!! Important to make the distinction for the exam

strong state is depoliticising the society to have control on it, while it politicises the state to get
the power.