Carl Schmitt is perhaps the most important source of a policy that believes little in democratic procedures and instead relies on the unlimited decision-making power of sovereign rulers. His teachings have been widely discussed again for several years – and for good reason. Anyone who thinks that their thinking is inherently right-wing fails to recognize that they are not concerned with a particular world view, but rather with the unvarnished mechanisms of robust regulatory policy. Schmitt not only supported Hitler, he admired Mao even more for the clarity of his definition of the enemy and the consistency with which he cleaned up the mess both internally and externally. Schmitt did not share his political goals, but praised him as the new Clausewitz.
What we are currently experiencing is a revolution in the current world order: away from US dominance towards a tripolar constellation with three power blocs – the USA, China and Russia. Washington claims hegemony over South America and Greenland and even announces similar intentions to Canada. The aim is to expand its own sphere of influence in order to form a counterpoint to the Chinese and Russian power blocs. You divide the world up, don’t get in each other’s way unnecessarily and hope that the balance holds. What unites us is the economy; everyone has their own way with the political system. Everyone protects their own borders, but is not very squeamish when it comes to asserting their interests in their own zones of influence.
The most important thing: you ensure stable conditions. And the rest of the world can watch. There is no need for an international criminal court – quite the opposite. In fact, you could even do without the UN. The American president’s often annoyed reactions to Ukraine’s calls for assistance can probably be explained by the fact that in his worldview, the small ones have to submit, while the big ones handle matters among themselves. The powerful need a free hand.
Power blocks with their own rules
Following the Monroe Doctrine, which is now much quoted again, Schmitt designed a large-scale order in which the power blocs dictate their own rules and expect the others not to intervene. Schmitt develops his thoughts in this regard primarily in “International Law for Large Area Orders with a Prohibition of Intervention for Foreign Powers” (1939), “The Nomos of the Earth” (1950) and in the essay “Take, Share, Grazing” published in 1953. It’s not just about the relationship between rival powers, it focuses primarily on the fundamental question of what law and law actually are and how they come about. To this end, he contrasts the Greek “Nomos” with the later Latin “Lex” and thereby challenges legal concepts that modern, liberal, universalist contemporaries consider to be indispensable.
Schmitt wants to show that the foundation of any initial legislation is not based on ethical principles and certainly not on discursive consensus-building, but on acts of violence that create order. Law is therefore not derived from a heaven of ideas, but because someone says: “This is how it is done.” It is not norms that shape the nomos, but coercion.
Schmitt refers to the original meaning of the Greek no, which he translates as “take” and “share”. The law is therefore preceded by a land seizure. The occupier sets the rules. By relying on ancient text passages, Schmitt tries to prove that the nomos is embodied in the king, ruler, despot or tyrant and thus functions as a “counter-term to the rule of popular decisions”. Schmitt explains: “According to this, the nomos would be nothing other than the arbitrary law of the stronger. It would be an expression of what is called in Germany today the normative force of the factual…” With this, Schmitt ties in with his doctrine of decision, according to which law and order arise from willful, not to say arbitrary, decisions.
Always threatening state of emergency
When Schmitt speaks of political theology in his early writings, he is not aiming at a divine idea of justice, but at the fact that the secular sovereign determines with quasi-divine authority what is valid and what is not. There is no benevolent God looming over Schmitt’s cosmos, but one who knows his Machiavelli. Otherwise the world would not be able to hold together. Schmitt is convinced that only interests, desires and desires for dominance are at work everywhere, even and especially where naive contemporaries deny this and dream of a world of peace – in a radical misunderstanding of their own drives. Because this is the case, every conceivable order remains fragile and subject to erosion. That’s why someone with strength and power always has to avert the impending chaos by decree and ensure that the ever-threatening state of emergency is stopped.
Schmitt teaches power politics without a guilty conscience. Anyone who comes to him with morals is playing a game of marked cards for him. He doesn’t reveal what he’s really about. And be it because he is deluding himself about it. Moralists also have interests and a will: they want to force the world under their worldview. And they don’t want to believe that heaven is only available in the afterlife. Anyone who wants to force him down to earth will bring the guillotine and the gulag. And that’s why in Schmitt’s eyes he is the Antichrist.
Regardless of whether one values universalism or considers Schmitt’s large-scale thinking to be more realistic: the irony of history is that the idea of a values-driven world order was based primarily on the unipolar dominance of the West. But now the United States is demonstrating unequivocally that Only their own rules apply to them. Although Washington has never been a stranger to this tendency, what is new is that it no longer even tries to find pleasant justifications when bombing other states. The current administration is dispelling the illusion that it is about anything other than influence, power and natural resources.
What Schmitt would have opposed, however, would be the intertwining of state decision-making power with private business interests, as can be observed today in the White House and its network with Silicon Valley. The primacy of the political with its clear distinction between friend and enemy is thus sacrificed to volatile calculations of utility. For this reason, Schmitt believes that consistent political thinking and action is not compatible with liberalism, nor with economic liberalism. On this point, his teachings can even be used for a left-wing criticism of neoliberalism, as Chantal Mouffe tries to do.
Fewer illusions
Since war has returned to our latitudes in recent years and conflicts have worsened everywhere, some people can hardly hide their glee that the post-war generations, accustomed to peace, with their noble ideals, are being pushed back to the ground of reality. As if the realist Schmitt had finally triumphed over Habermas.
However you look at things, you have to be grateful to Schmitt for the clarity of his theories. It has now become clear to those who want to see them further realized that the visions of peace of a rational world policy are based on shaky foundations. With Schmitt in your luggage, you expose yourself to fewer illusions. What finds little space in his world, however, is the idea that outrage over naked power politics can itself become power. Even if hope is currently small.
In his debate with Schmitt, the philosopher Jacques Derrida agrees with him that there is an element of violence in all legislation – even if it pursues ethically desirable goals. Even if it is to limit the strong and ruthless ones in their will to assert themselves. However, Derrida contradicts the assumption that law-making must necessarily be based on physical force. He also contradicts the belief that this is unchangeable and has always been this way. Opinions are once again divided on this question everywhere: Some want to use all their might to enforce seemingly incontrovertible – not to say archaic – laws, while others believe that law must have something to do with justice and that the world is making progress.
Schmitt thinks in crystal-clear pairs of opposites and maintains a matter-of-fact office style. And yet there is always something dramatic about it. Wherever you look, everything revolves around friend and enemy, the state of emergency, sovereignty and decision-making power. And it’s always about the whole thing, so much so that the great mass of humanity has only the place of spectators – trapped in an arena in which, without being asked, they become the plaything of violent orders, again and again. All she can do is applaud and submit – or start a rebellion.