Marx and Schmitt Vs. Democracy

Patrice Cailleba ()
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Patrice Cailleba: Groupe ESC Pau

No 801, Working Papers from Groupe ESC Pau, Research Department

Abstract: The political is a polemological activity. It involves the presence of friends and enemies which means the centrality of those who are with you and those who are against you. In The Concept of the Political Schmitt identifies as the “high points of politics” those moments in which “the enemy is… recognized as the enemy.” For the German philosopher, since the Enlightenment, the progressive historical conjunction of liberalism and democracy has obscured this conception. Indeed, democracy rests on discussion and the compromise of shifting majority rules. By the universalism implicit in its claims for toleration and equality, democracy challenges the very essence of the political, i.e. a struggle for power. As Schmitt noted, “the political adversaries of a clear political theory will easily refute it in the name of some autonomous discipline as amoral, uneconomical, unscientific and above all declare this a devilry worthy of being combated”. The enemy turns into a “disturber of peace”, an “outlaw of humanity”. This quote can be applied to Marx’s political thoughts. Even if he eventually considered Revolution in elective ways, Marx apprehended his whole philosophy as being scientific: the abolishment of private property would ineluctably come with the rise of the communist society after the proletarian Revolution. As Schmitt, Marx did not distinguish adversaries from enemies. Doing so, both failed to understand the core ideas of democracy: pluralism. War is not “simply a continuation of political intercourse”. Conversely, democracy is the civilized frame for the fundamental nonrationality of the political.

Keywords: Marx; Schmitt; Democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2007-06, Revised 2007-06
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