Introduction
The concerns of this contribution can be summarized with reference to a recent publication by Viktor Vanberg.1 In this publication Vanberg offers a succinct summary of the ordoliberal meaning of Ordnungspolitik, focusing on economic constitution and on the indispensability of the liberal state for the free economy.2 According to Vanberg, economic constitution and political constitution presuppose each other. In distinction to the founding ordoliberal texts of the early 1930s, he establishes the principles of Ordnungspolitik with scientific insight and analytical precision. The political urgency of the founding ordoliberal texts is missing and their contribution to the emergence of an authoritarian liberalism is not raised. Carl Schmitt does not figure in his account, which is cleansed of unsavoury references to the ‘authoritarian liberalism’ that Hermann Heller3 and also Herbert Marcuse4 talked about when determining the character of his argument in the early 1930s.
Clearly Schmitt is not a liberal economic thinker. He is the authoritarian thinker of the political state as the institution of sovereign decision-making. Nevertheless, Schmitt’s insistence that the state is properly a state on the condition that it sustains its distinction from (mass) society is not at all at odds
Schmitt’s authoritarian liberalism emerged as an argument about the causes that led to the breach of the distinction between state and society and about how to renew their separation in a mass democratic context. The slogan “sound economy and strong state”9 expressed the programme of authoritarian liberalism. It
The following subchapter presents Vanberg’s account of Ordnungspolitik (1.). His argument links economic constitution and political constitution in a clear and precise manner. Then follows a subchapter on Schmitt’s critique of the Weimar “economic state” (Wirtschaftsstaat),14 which is a central term of critique in ordoliberal thought, including especially Eucken’s contribution (2.). The final subchapter examines Schmitt’s idea of the strong state as the premise of the free economy (3.). The conclusion summarizes the account with reference to the ordoliberal conception of order(ing).
1 Ordnungspolitik and the Strong State
Vanberg expounds the separation of state and society as fundamental to the constitution of a free economy. He recognizes that in this relationship the state is the institution of institutions. The separation of state and society is a practice of Ordnungspolitik.15 That is, the maintenance of state-free spheres of economic interaction amounts to a political task. By implication, the assertion of political power in society, and conversely, the assertion of economic interest at the level of the state amount to a failure of Ordnungspolitik. It leads
According to Vanberg, however, the assertion of ‘private economic power’ as such does not pose a threat to the free economy. In fact, such assertion belongs to its concept. The threat comes from a political order that fails to stay strong in the face of such assertion, ranging from pluralist demands for special measures to mass democratic demands for welfare protections. He conceives of such a state as a weak state because it succumbed to the clamour of the private interests and the social forces. The “state should on no account be allowed to confer privileges”21 and the liberal state has therefore to be a strong state22, a night-watchman state will not do. Only a strong state can prevent the “(re)feudalization” of state and society and act as “guardian of the competitive order”.23
Vanberg argues his case with reference to Eucken’s view that the Weimar state had become “a plaything in the hands of interest groups”.24 Whereas the weak
Crucially, therefore, Ordnungspolitik is not only needed “to establish an appropriate economic constitution, Ordnungspolitik is also needed at the level of politics [...] to establish and maintain an appropriate political constitution”,35 one that, in the face of immense pressures brought to bear on the conduct of public policy by powerful interest groups, political parties, and the social forces, enables the liberal state to preserve its independence and one that, therefore, facilitates its liberal utility as “market police”,36 that is a state which in Hayek’s phraseology “plans for competition” through a politics of what Rüstow calls “liberal interventionism”. The establishment of an economic constitution and of a political constitution is a matter of Ordnungspolitik. Ordnungspolitik entails ‘the whole’. It amounts to a Gesamtentscheidung about the character of political economy, of state and economy, and about the character of their relationship. Ordnungspolitik is therefore also a ‘decision’ about the basic norms of conduct in liberal economy. In the case of a society founded on the freedom of competition, what are the ground rules and what kind of (social) order is required to sustain its conduct? In this context, the meaning
Ordnungspolitik entails therefore not only an “integrated approach to the various components of the legal-institutional framework in which a market economy is embedded”.40 It entails also an integrated approach to the various components of the political framework, including the scope of democratic control over, and influence on, the conduct of public policy. Ordnungspolitik specifies “the essential role that government has to play in defining and enforcing the legal-institutional framework”.41 For the sake of the system of economic liberty, and in the words of Schmitt, the political constitution has therefore to set out the “precise limits”42 in which the state has to act in accordance with and for the sake of what is Right and proper in a liberal political economy.
2 On Schmitt’s Critique of the So-Called Weimar Economic State
In his The Guardian of the Constitution Schmitt argues that prior to the incursion of mass democracy into the liberal state, state and society were clearly separated with the state successfully claiming the monopoly of the political and the economy self-regulating on the basis of “the automatic mechanisms” of “demand and supply, competition, market prices”, etc.43 According to Schmitt, the mass democratic age of Weimar ruptured the separation between state and society with the result that state and society became essentially identical. The rupture focused on the change in character of the institution of parliament,
In the Guardian of the Constitution, Schmitt argues that the old liberal state possessed elements of an executive state (Regierungsstaat) that was “strong enough to stand above and beyond all social forces”. He argues that the liberal state of old comprised a dual structure that embodied two different forms of state: a parliamentary legislative state [Gesetzgebungstaat], which was the representative body of the propertied and the educated classes (Besitz und Bildung), and an executive state (Regierungsstaat), which expressed monarchical interests and was administered by aristocratic officeholders.47 The dualist structure comprised thus a democracy of propertied friends and government by the ancien régime. Schmitt acknowledges that this structure was contradictory and tension-ridden with traditional economic and political élites battling an upcoming bourgeoisie that demanded reforms in support of its
For Schmitt, society had taken possession of the state with profound socio-economic consequence: “if society organizes itself into the state, if state and society are to be basically identical, then all social and economic problems become immediate objects of the state”.51 Paraphrasing Schmitt, the stranger, this figure of ‘the enemy within’, enters the liberal state and asserts her interests as an equal, that is, in mass democracy unconstrained by the liberal principle, control is exercised by those who need to be controlled. With mass society asserting itself within the state as its democratic sovereign, the state loses its quality as a state of Right. It is no longer able to distinguish between the Rights of private property and the demands of those without property, sacred values and coarse demands for material support and security.
[t]he state as an outgrowth of society, and thus no longer objectively distinguishable from society, occupies everything societal, that is, anything that concerns the collective existence of human beings. There is no longer any sphere of society in relation to which the state must observe the principle of absolute neutrality in the sense of non-intervention.56
Mass democracy defiled the liberal state of old and supplanted it by a mass democratic state, which in the view of Schmitt is no longer a state properly understood as the monopoly holder of the ultimate decision about what is right and rightful. In unlimited mass democracy there are no longer any substantive values. There is only relativism. Relative values, he argues, belong to a depoliticized condition of government that has lost the capacity and the courage to spill blood for the sake of Right, for the order and the tranquillity of Right and rightfulness. In contrast to the political state of sheer quality – of authoritative, independent decision-making about the rules of the game and their execution – the economic state is fundamentally a socialized state.
Schmitt’s account puts particular emphasis on the democratization of the rule of law in the economic state of total social responsibility. He argues that majoritarian democratic law making de-theologises the rule of law as the law of divine Rights. In its stead it manifests law as process-law, reducing the rule of law to a procedural formalism. Legality is the principle of mass democratic law-making, which attributes legitimacy to legal-rational processes and
In conclusion, in mass democracy law becomes arbitrary, unpredictable, and profane, and above all contradictory and inconsistent. It no longer establishes the rules of the game of an economic order based on the Rights (and graces) of private property. Instead of a “constitutional economic policy” (Wirtschaftsverfassungspolitik)60 that lays down and enforces the ground rules and the basic values of a depoliticized exchange society, the economic state politicizes the economic relations and allows the economic interests to “economize” or “socialize” the state, transforming the former sovereign of the political into a depoliticized institution through which those who need to be governed assert their interests as democratic equals.61 In the democratized Rechtsstaat
As the following subchapter argues, for Right to prevail in a mass democratic context, constraining mass democracy on a liberal basis is of the essence. Fundamentally, it entails an attempt at rolling mass society out of the state, at eliminating or eradicating heterogeneity for the sake of an order of state that governs for the homogeneity of purposes.62 In short, it requires the independence of political will, and above all, it requires an existential decision about whose blood needs to be spilled for the sake of an order of Right and righteousness. The separation of state and society amounts to a decisive political procedure, one that reacts to the supposed dethronement of the political by – unlimited – mass democracy with a force that eliminates any doubt about the veracity of the action.63 It is an act of removing the state as an available means by which “everybody wants to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else”64 and it is an act of “existentialising” the state as the independent power of the sound (free) economy.65
3 Strong State – Sound Economy
I have argued that for Schmitt the liberal state of old had been “strong enough to stand above and beyond all social forces”. It had possessed elements of an “executive state” and maintained its independence from a graceless mass society of propertyless traders in labour power. It was because of its independence that it was able to “relativize”, that is to pacify, the social conflicts.66 According
The liberal-conservative dictum that the state ought not to have any power at all outside its sphere and that within its sphere it cannot have enough power has formidable consequences. It says, first of all, that the freedom of exchange under the rule of law is dependent upon the capacity of the state to limit itself to Ordnungspolitik and thus to prevent itself from becoming the prey of the recalcitrant social interests. That is, the state-free sphere of economic interaction entails not only a political practice of socio-economic depoliticization. In the face of assertive social forces and mass demands, it entails also a political practice of maintaining a rightful order, producing Right. Any weakening in its resolve has the potential to undermine the concrete order of the free economy. Order is the premise of freedom and of equality before the law. That is, equality before the rule of law presumes the order of law as an order of inviolable Rights. The rule of law does not apply to social disorder, as Schmitt points out. It only applies to social order. Therefore, government by the rule of law entails a politics of social order. In the authoritarian liberal conception, the saying “law and order” appears as fundamentally flawed. Since social order is the premise of the rule of law, of Right and rightful-ness, the reverse of the saying is true: “order and law”. Schmitt’s authoritarian liberalism clearly understands that the political state of economic liberty is the institution of the order of Right and law. It is the order making and the order preserving power. In Schmitt’s argument only the strong state has the capacity to govern for what is right, righteous, and rightful. It alone has the capacity to govern for the economic constitution of a depoliticized exchange society, and as such it is the institution of institutions.
Schmitt’s argument about the elements of the executive state in the liberalism of old recognized that laissez-faire is not a concept that applies to the conduct of government.68 It applies to depoliticised economic relations. Only the
Schmitt argued that unlike the quantitatively total state of social interventionism, the strong state is a state of total quality. It is the concentrated power of social order and ordering. Producing Right entails a politics of Right. It sustains the veracity of social order by ensuring the validity of the rule of law as a rule of Right, and if need be it suspends the rule of law during proclaimed liberal emergencies to contain the forces of social disorder, if need be by politicizing the “friends” as faithful agents of a politics of “ordering”. If necessary, it spills blood for the sake of re-establishing for the rule of law that social order upon which its rightful conduct depends.79 The strong state is not only “bound by precise rules”,80 it also sets these rules, ensures their veracity and, if required, suspends them for their own sake, whatever it takes. It governs the conduct of society as a security state. That is, the state-free spheres of society and economy are themselves not only a product of government. They are also a practice of government, a practice of Ordnungspolitik, which sets down the rules for the conduct of freedom. Freedom is an expression of order and an exercise of orderliness. In the context of the Weimar democratic welfare state, which he rejects as an economic state, he called for the “necessary depoliticization and restoration of the domains and spheres of a free life” by means of state. He demands the reassertion of the state as the sovereign power of sound economy,81 one which governs with the independence of will for the freedom from political interference in economic life.82 Against the supposed dethronement of the political through the mass democratic usurpation of the state, he demands, following Marcuse, the “existentialisation and totalisation of the political sphere”, politicizing the state as the indisputable power of socio-economic de-politicization.83 The politicized state of order and law reacts to the “threatened freedom and security of private property” and acts
In conclusion, and with reference to Rüstow, the economic state is a state of “lamentable weakness”; it is “pulled apart by greedy self-seekers. Each of them takes out a piece of the state’s power for himself and exploits it for his own purposes”.86 Schmitt recognized the unpredictable power of real life in the reality of the political situation of a mass democratic age. If required blood needs to be spilled for the sake of a righteous order of Men (Menschen) who combine peacefully and guided only by their self-interest in the stateless sphere of the economy, each pursuing their own interests as equals under the rule of law and under the watchful eye of the authorities.87
Conclusion
I have argued that Schmitt likens the Weimar democratic welfare state to “mob rule”.88 He identified the time of egalitarian mass democracy as an illiberal disorder. The identification of a state of disorder entails the declaration of a state
I have argued that for Schmitt the emergence of Weimar mass democracy amounted to a fundamental alteration in the structure of state and society. “By yielding to democracy and intervening in society’s spontaneous order the state became a ‘welfare state’ and in this process lost its autonomy and independence, its neutrality and strength”.92 For the sake of Right and rightfulness, and following Eucken, the state had to act: it must find “the strength to free itself from the power of the masses and to distance itself in some way from the economy”.93 Schmitt’s critique of Weimar mass democracy sought to locate
Following Schwab, Schmitt’s critique of the Weimar economic state attempted at “devising a constitutional order that would once and for all drain society of political forces that could challenge the state’s monopoly on politics”.98 It entailed the establishment of a constitutional order comprising, on the one hand, a politicized state of pure quality and the establishment of entirely depoliticized socio-economic relations, on the other. For Schmitt, the organization of a depoliticized societal order is an outcome of a politics of (re-)order(ing). It is an outcome of a specific use of state authority.99 In the context of mass democracy, which he depicts as the seizure of the state by the mob, mass society had first to be “rolled back” out of the state and once the state had re-established its independence from the social relations Schmitt envisaged, as argued by Cristi,100 the creation of parliamentary institutions with weak democratic ties. He envisaged the restoration of the legislative state as a representative body that “does not yield to democratic pressures”101 and an executive state modelled on the idea a presidential power, which combines
In conclusion, Schmitt’s work of the early 1930s stands for a “simultaneous affirmation of an authoritarian state and a free liberal economy”.113 He argued for the “segregation of the state from non-state spheres” and recognizes that the “disengagement from politics is a specifically political act”.114 Man is free if he has to comply only with the rules of the game. Ensuring compliance amounts to a political practice of market police. That is to say, for the sake of freedom, “all orderlessness”, market distortions and impediments, has to be eradicated by means of state and for the sake of enterprise, self-responsibility and acceptance of individual liability for the consequences of decisions made in freedom from coercion.115 Economic freedom is an ordered freedom, which is the “product” of “constitutional economic policy”.116 The ordoliberal idea that “the state has to be as strong as possible within its own sphere, but that outside its own sphere, in the economic sphere, it has to have as little power as possible”117 is also Schmitt’s. In either case, be it Schmitt’s
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Pavlos Roufus and Guillaume Grégoire for their most helpful advice, and to Rosanna Pope for her careful reading.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », European Review of International Studies, 2015, n°2, pp. 27–36.
Ed.: for a historical overview of the notion of Eonomic constitution from the early ordoliberals (Böhm, Eucken) through Hayek and the American neoliberals (Chicago School of Friedman and Virginia School of Buchanan) to Viktor Vanberg’s Ordnungspolitik, cf supra in this volume, T. Biebricher, « An Economic Constitution – Neoliberal Lineages ».
H. Heller, « Autoritärer Liberalismus », Die Neue Rundschau, 1933, vol. 44, pp. 289–298 (reprinted in: H. Heller, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. ii, Leiden, A. W. Sijthoff, 1971, pp. 643–653 ; English translation available in: H. Heller, « Authoritarian Liberalism ? » European Law Journal, 2015, vol. 21, n°3, pp. 295–301).
H. Marcuse, « Der Kampf gegen den Liberalismus in der totalitären Staatsauffassung », Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 1934, vol. 3, n° 2, pp. 161‑195 (English translation available in : H. Marcuse « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, London, Free Association Books, 1988, pp. 3–42).
W. Eucken, The Foundations of Economics – History and Theory in Analysis of Economic Reality, New York, Springer, 1992, p. 81 (original ed.: W. Eucken, Die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie, Iena, Gustav Fischer, 1940).
F. Böhm, « Extracts from Franz Böhm: “Private Law Society and Market Economy” », in P. Koslowski (ed.) The Theory of Capitalism in the German Economic Tradition, Berlin, Springer, 2010, pp. 148–188.
See A. Rüstow, « General Sociological Causes of the Economic Disintegration and Possibilities of Reconstruction », afterword to W. Röpke, International Economic Disintegration, London, Hodge, 1942, pp. 263–283, esp. p. 275 ; W. Röpke, The Social Crisis of Our Time, New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers, 2009, p. 52 (original ed.: Die Gesellschaftskrisis der Gegenwart, Erlenbach-Zürich, Eugen Rentsch, 1944).
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, London, Routledge, 1944, p. 61, referring to Kant.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », Appendix to R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, Cardiff, Wales University Press, 1998, pp. 212–232. (original ed.: C. Schmitt, « Starker Staat und gesunde Wirtschaft. Ein Vortrag vor Wirtschaftsführern (Konferenz gehalten am 23.11.1932) », Volk und Reich, 1933, pp. 81–94).
H. Marcuse « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », op. cit.
R. Ptak, Vom Ordoliberalismus zur Sozialen Marktwirschaft, Opladen, Leske – Buderich, 2004.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, Cardiff, Wales University Press, 1998.
F. Böhm, « Eine Kampfansage an Ordnungstheorie und Ordnungspolitik. Zu einem Aufstaz im Kyklos », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1973, vol. 24, pp. 11–48.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung (1931), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1996, p. 79.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit.
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, op. cit.
W. Eucken « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krise des Kapitalismus », Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, vol. 36, n°2, pp. 297–321 (English translation available in : W. Eucken, « Structural Transformations of the State and the Crisis of Capitalism », in T. Biebricher and F. Vogelmann (eds.), The Birth of Austerity, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 51–72).
L. von Mises, Planned Chaos, Irvington-on-Hudson NY, Foundation for Economic Education, 1947; C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 92.
W. Eucken, « Structural Transformations of the State and the Crisis of Capitalism », op. cit., p. 52.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 78.
F. Böhm, « Rule of Law in a Market Economy », in A. Peacock and H Willgerodt (eds.), Germany’s Social Market Economy – Origins and Evolution, London, Palgrave, 1989, pp. 46–67, esp. p. 70 (original ed.: F. Böhm, « Privatrechtsgesellschaft und Marktwirtschaft », ordo: Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1966, vol. 17, pp. 75–151).
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 30.
Ibid., pp. 29–30.
Ibid., pp. 30–31, quoting Eucken (W. Eucken « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krise des Kapitalismus », op. cit., p. 307).
A.O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1997.
A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1976. On the (liberal) state as the political form of market freedom, see: W. Bonefeld, « Adam Smith and Ordoliberalism: On the Political Form of Market Liberty », Review of International Studies, 2013, vol. 39, n°2, pp. 233–250; S. Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State, Cheltenham, Edward Elger, 1988.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 29.
Ibid., p. 31.
F. Hayek, Law, Legislation, Liberty, London, Routledge, 2012, pp. 471–472. On Hayek’s political philosophy of liberty as an authoritarian political practice see: R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., chap. 8 ; S. Irving, « Limiting democracy and framing the economy: Hayek, Schmitt and ordoliberalism », History of European Ideas, 2018, vol. 44, n° 1, pp. 113–127. Against Schmitt, Hayek argues for the sovereignty of the liberal rule of law, rule-bound government, and the limited state. With Schmitt, he argued that unlimited democracy is incompatible with the law of private property, and he argued further that a dictatorship might be more liberal in its conduct than a democracy that does not know how to limit itself (paraphrasing Hayek as quoted in R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., p. 168). Hayek recognizes that the crust of liberal market civilization is thin and when required by the prevailing situation “the most fundamental principles of a free society [...] may have to be temporarily sacrificed [...][to preserve] liberty in the long run” (F. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, London, Routledge, 1960, p. 217). Hayek’s endorsement of a transitional dictator accepts not only that Schmitt’s conception of the sovereign as he who decides on the exception had not just ‘some plausibility’ (F. Hayek, Law, Legislation, Liberty, op. cit., p. 459) but that it is in fact the ultimate safeguard of capitalist economy. For an expanded discussion about (transitional) dictatorship as a means of liberty in mass democracy, see: W. Bonefeld, « Democracy and Dictatorship: Means and Ends of the State », Critique, 2006, vol. 34, n°3, pp. 237–252.
A. Rüstow, « General Sociological Causes of the Economic Disintegration and Possibilities of Reconstruction », op. cit. ; A. Rüstow, « Freie Wirtschaft – starker Staat. Die staatspolitischen Vorraussetzungen des wirtschaftspolitischen Liberalismus », in F. Boese (ed.), Deutschland und die Weltkrise. Verhandlungen des Vereins für sozialpolitik in Dresden 1932, n° 187, Munich, Duncker & Humblot, 1932, pp. 62‑69 (reprinted in A. Rüstow, « Die staatspolitischen Voraussetzungen des wirtschaftspolitischen Liberalismus », in Rede und Antwort, Ludwigsburg, Hoch, 1963, pp. 249–258).
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, op. cit., p. 31.
J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, And Democracy, New York, Harper & Row, 1942.
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, op. cit., p. 293.
On this issue see also Müller’s account of militant democracy : J.W. Müller, « Militant Democracy », in M. Rosenfeld and A. Sajo (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 253–269. About democracy and European economic constitution, see also: W. Bonefeld, The Strong State and the Free Economy. London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 115–170 ; W. Bonefeld, « Ordoliberalism, European Monetary Union and State Power », Critical Sociology, 2019, vol. 45, nos 7–8, pp. 995–1010.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 31.
See A. Rüstow, « General Sociological Causes and the Economic Disintegration and Possibilities of Reconstruction », op. cit., p. 275; W. Röpke, The Social Crisis of Our Time, op. cit., 2009, p. 52.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 28.
Ibid., p. 29.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 42.
C. Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (1933), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1966, p. 42.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 78.
Schmitt, quoted in S. Irving, « Limiting democracy and framing the economy: Hayek, Schmitt and ordoliberalism », op. cit., p. 116.
C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie (1927), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1985, p. 20. See also: C. Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, op. cit.
Ed.: see also supra in this volume, G. Grégoire, « The Economic Constitution under Weimar. Doctrinal Controversies and Ideological Struggles », and P.C. Caldwell, « The Concept and Politics of the Economic Constitution ».
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 75.
W. Scheuerman, Carl Schmitt. The End of Law, Boulder CO, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p. 89, citing Schmitt.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., p. 80.
Ibid., p. 140. Of all the many commentators on Schmitt, Renato Cristi’s is the most decisive exploration of Schmitt’s contribution to authoritarian liberalism.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 78–79.
F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, op. cit., p. 31.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 99.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 92.
H. Marcuse, « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », op. cit., p. 36.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 79.
C. Schmitt, Political Theology II: The Myth of the Closure of any Political Theology, Cambridge, Polity, 2008, p. 119.
W. Röpke, The Moral Foundations of Civil Society, New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Publishers, 2002 (original ed.: W. Röpke, Civitas Humana : Grundfragen der Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsreform, Erlenbach-Zürich, Eugen Rentsch, 1944).
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 29.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit.
C. Schmitt, Legalität und Legitimität (1932), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1988.
If need be, it eliminates the doubter. As Forsthoff, a student of Schmitt’s and later President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus, put it in 1933, “attempts to dispute the state’s newly gained effective right signify sabotage [...] Relentlessly to exterminate this sort of thought is the noblest duty of the state today” (E. Forsthoff, Der Totale Staat, Hamburg, Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, 1933, p. 29).
W. Röpke, The Social Crisis of Our Time, op. cit., p. 164.
H. Marcuse « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », op. cit.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., p. 73.
The point made here is in reference to the political context of the early 1930s during the Chancellorship of Brüning who was commonly referred to as the Hungerkanzler – the famine chancellor – because of his government’s robust politics of austerity.
See also F. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, op. cit., p. 60.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
C. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre (1928), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2017, p. 315.
C. Schmitt, Legalität und Legitimität, op. cit., p. 93.
C. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, op. cit., p. 126.
Ibid., p. 125.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 96 ff.
A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, op. cit., p. 340.
C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie (1927), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1985, p. 13.
C. Schmitt, Der Hüter der Verfassung, op. cit., pp. 13–15.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., pp. 177–178.
C. Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen, op. cit., p. 42.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
C. Schmitt, Legalität und Legitimität, op. cit., p 93.
H. Marcuse, « The Struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian View of the State », op. cit., p. 36.
Ibid.
A. Rüstow, « Diktatur innerhalb der Grenzen der Demokratie (1929) », Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1959, vol. 7, n° 1, pp. 87–102.
A. Rüstow, « Die staatspolitischen Voraussetzungen des wirtschaftspolitischen Liberalismus », op. cit., p. 255.
F. Böhm, « Extracts from Franz Böhm: “Private Law Society and Market Economy” », op. cit., p. 167.
C. Schmitt, Political Theology II: The Myth of the Closure of any Political Theology, op. cit., p. 119. Schmitt’s view was not unique on this matter. It was shared by the founding ordoliberal thinkers (see D. Haselbach, Autoritärer Liberalismus und Soziale Marktwirtschaft, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1991 ; R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit.) and beyond. In fact, Bernard Baruch, a leading Democrat, had protested against Roosevelt’s decision to abandon the gold standard in 1933 by stating that “it can’t be defended except as mob rule. Maybe the country does not know it yet, but I think that we’ve been in a revolution more drastic than the French Revolution. The crowd has seized the seat of government and is trying to seize the wealth. Respect for law and order has gone” (quoted in A.M. Schlesinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal, Cambridge MA, Riverside Press, 1958, p. 202).
A. Rüstow, « Diktatur innerhalb der Grenzen der Demokratie (1929) », op. cit., p. 110.
C. Schmitt, Über die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens, Hamburg, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1934.
A. Müller-Armack, Entwicklungsgesetze des Kapitalismus, Berlin, Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1932, p. 42. On Ordnungsgefüge with respect to European monetary union, see: W. Bonefeld, « Stateless Money and State Power: Europe as ordoliberal Ordnungsgefüge », History of Economic Thought and Policy, 2018, n° 1, pp. 5–26.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., p. 190.
W. Eucken « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krise des Kapitalismus », op. cit., pp. 307–308.
C. Schmitt, Legalität und Legitimität, op. cit., p. 10.
Eucken, quoted in T. Biebricher and F. Vogelmann, « Contextualising 2, Walter Eucken », in T. Biebricher and F. Vogelmann (eds.) The Birth of Austerity, op. cit., pp. 41–49, esp. p. 43.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 221.
W. Eucken « Staatliche Strukturwandlungen und die Krise des Kapitalismus », op. cit., pp. 307–308.
G. Schwab, « Introduction », in Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. xxxvii-li, esp. pp. l-li.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., p. 80.
Ibid. On the contemporary resonance of this argument in the context of Eurozone crisis, see: W. Streeck, Buying Time, London, Verso, 2014 ; W. Bonefeld, « Authoritarian Liberalism: From Schmitt via Ordoliberalism to the Euro ». Critical Sociology, 2016, vol. 43, nos 4–5, pp. 747–61. Ed.: see also infra in this volume, H. Lokdam & M. A. Wilkinson, « The European Economic Constitution in Crisis: A Conservative Transformation? ».
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 225. See also: S. Irving, « Limiting democracy and framing the economy: Hayek, Schmitt and ordoliberalism », op. cit., p. 117. Schmitt’s proposals echo his Catholic romanticism of the early 1920 and articulate his admiration of Italian Fascism.
F. Böhm, W. Eucken and H Großmann-Doerth, « The Ordo Manifesto of 1936 », in T. Biebricher and F Vogelmann (eds.), The Birth of Austerity, op. cit., pp. 27–40.
F. Hayek, « The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism » (1939), in F. Hayek Individualism and Economic Order, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1948, pp. 255–272. Ed.: see infra in this volume, H. Lokdam & M. A. Wilkinson, « The European Economic Constitution in Crisis: A Conservative Transformation? ».
On the liberal transformation of mass democracy, see: J. Agnoli, Die Transformation der Demokratie, Freiburg, Ca Ira, 1990. On Hayek’s interstate federalism, see: W. Bonefeld, « European economic constitution and the transformation of democracy: On class and the state of law », European Journal of International Relations, 2015, vol. 21, n° 4, pp. 867–886. On complete competition and forms of enforcements, see: D. Gerber, « Constitutionalising the Economy: German Neo-Liberalism, Competition Law and the New Europe », American Journal of Comparative Law, 1994, vol. 42, n°1, pp. 25–74. On the ordoliberal manifesto of 1936, see: T. Biebricher and F. Vogelmann, « Contextualising 1, The Ordo Manifesto », in T. Biebricher and F. Vogelmann (eds.), The Birth of Austerity, op. cit., pp. 23–26. On the wider argument about limited democracy and emasculation of mass democracy, see Biebricher’s excellent account: T. Biebricher, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2019. See also: W. Brown, Undoing the Demos, New York, Zone Books, 2017.
F. Böhm, « Extracts from Franz Böhm: “Private Law Society and Market Economy” », op. cit., p. 167.
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit.
H. Heller, « Authoritarian Liberalism ? », op. cit.
See also Leo Strauss’s dissection of Schmitt as an authoritarian liberal thinker : L. Strauss, « Notes on Carl Schmitt », in C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 97–122.
H. Heller, « Authoritarian Liberalism ? » op. cit., p. 301, citing Schmitt.
F. Böhm, « Die Kampfansage an Ordnungstheorie und Ordnungspolitik. Zu einem Aufstaz im Kyklos », op. cit.
L. Miksch, Wettbewerb als Aufgabe: Die Grundsätze einer Wettbewerbsordnung, Stuttgart/Berlin, Kohlhammer, 1937.
R. Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, op. cit., p. 207. Indeed, in the early 1930s, Schmitt and the founding ordoliberals favoured resolution to Weimar “disorder” by commissarial dictatorship under the conservative politician von Papen (see D. Haselbach, Autoritärer Liberalismus und Soziale Marktwirtschaft, op. cit., p. 25).
C. Schmitt, « Sound Economy – Strong State : An Address to Business Leaders », op. cit., p. 221.
F. Böhm, Ordnung und Wirtschaft, Berlin, Kohlhammer, 1937, p. 150.
V. Vanberg, « Ordoliberalism, Ordnungspolitik, and the Reason of Rule », op. cit., p. 29.
A. Müller-Armack, Genealogie der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft, Stuttgart, Paul Haupt, 1981, p. 102 ; W. Röpke, The Moral Foundations of Civil Society, op. cit., p. 28.
The source of the dictum is Benjamin Constant. In his view, “[i]f, to the freedom to use their talents and industry, which you owe them, you add political rights, which you do not owe them, these rights, in the hands of the greatest number, will inevitably serve to encroach upon property[...]. In all those countries which have representative assemblies it is essential that those assemblies, whatever their further organisations, should be formed by property holders” (B. Constant, Political Writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 215).
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