Politics is about recognizing who your enemies are

If he were a democrat, then why was he so involved with fascism?

Afro-Eurasian

tom hanks is an actor, dumbass

He's hinting that Jews are the problem

Both. American liberals are more focused on the social aspects of liberalism while European liberals are more focused on it’s economic aspects. But they are still more or less the same.

Fascism is inherently democratic.

No it isn't you fucking idiot

american liberals hate economic liberalism

I never said he was a democrat, and I don't think he was, however in his work he considers dictatorial fascism as more democratic than liberal parliamentary democracy.

It plainly is, it's a mass movement of proles

Why does he think that?

>Fascism is inherently democratic.

HAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHA

No

He critiques the very basics of liberalism, not it's particular modern variants. He fights Locke, Constant, Mill, Smith, and even Hobbes.

>t. knows nothing about Fascism
Whether or not you think Fascism is democratic in practice or not, it certainly is in theory, in the sense that the dictatorial sovereign is either a manifestation of general will in a Rousseauian sense or legitimized by the people in a Schmittian sense. It is fundamentally democratic, as the collective will of the people is considered necessary for the purposes of sovereignty. This isn't even debateable.

ah ok. So a reactionary of some sort, what does he propose, Monarchy?

That doesn't make it democratic you mong, it only takes a passionate minority to take over a government

>the only option besides democracy is fascism

fascism in Italy and Germany was clearly a mass movement thing, look at their parades and the almost hysterical social climate

Not true that such "general will" is often in fact speaking the will of a specific demographic such as full blooded German, males who happen to not subscribe to a certain list of forbidden beliefs.

You're essentially saying you're a democrat if you at least think everyone that agrees with you should be able to vote.

Two main reasons:
1. Democratic polities must be able to act in a state of emergency. Liberalism is, inherently, unable to allow sovereign acts, because of it's reliance on "discussion" and "rights". Therefore, liberal-democratic orders will, as liberalism, which is a theological statement, according to Schmitt, always prefer the "liberal" to the "democratic" and be destroyed.
2. Liberalism denies the very nature of the political.

Italians hated Mussolini at the end of the war and were happy that fascism was gone.

And their street battles and attacks on Leftists and Jews. Populism is not the same thing as Democracy, democracy is fundamentally a system of compromise

>who happen to not subscribe to a certain list of forbidden beliefs.
You can be jailed in present day germany for saying certain things, does that make it not a democracy? Of course not

Could you elaborate your point?

>Democracy is fundamentally a system of compromise
"no"

It makes it less of a democracy than it would be otherwise, yes

I've not read enough to know what he proposes, however he was, undoubtedly a reactionary. Though I don't believe he was a reactionary in the "let's just go back" sense, but rather in a "let's create a new 'past' in the future" sense.

Ah I see. Then he is wrong. Very wrong. Democracy can be very democratic, even liberal democracies. It usually just depends on if the state in question is economically progressing, or stagnant. If they are stagnant, especially if a larger country, centralization of government is necessary to maintain a status quo, because the policy of capitalist consumption with increasing population isn't just going to cut it anymore.

In other words, some kind of Keynesian investment into the country is going to be necessary, like the New Deal.

Of course it is, the very act of holding a vote is an act of compromise

In what regard?

>democracy is fundamentally a system of compromise

That's liberal democracy, but not democracy in the proper definition of the word

What are you even saying in regards to Schmitt? You should read him before you make a thin facile economic critique of his work, because what you just said is so absurdly retarded that you should feel ashamed.

Regardless of what you think the efficacy of the parliamentary democracy in America is, you have to admit that's the intention of a democracy : to be a system of compromising individuals.

Athens was more of an aristocracy, looking back on that system, but either way you look at it that sort of democracy/aristocracy was better suited for their smaller territory. America is very large, and that may be why the bloated democratic government isn't able to get things done, aside from other reasons. Rousseauian logic would dictate this is the truth, because the magistrate, i.e. the elected officials, are no longer in a geometric ratio with the population and the sovereign.

Emergency means that which makes necessary the temporary annulment of "normal" Law (Existential threats, generally). Also, he never said Democracy is not democratic. Believing that mere economic "progress" is the cure to the "sickness" that is the political is, itself a liberal view, which Schmitt considers an illusion.

Am I understanding your/his definition of liberalism correctly? Just simply stating everyone needs to read a book is NOT an argument. I know I don't do that when I try to discuss the ideas I just read.

Lets try this, define 'liberalism' under Schmitt's definition, then we'll see how close I was with my response to the target.

Anyways, as the other user said, it's quite clear you have not read Schmitt. I recommend you do so, because your argument does not address his in any way.

>Believing that mere economic "progress" is the cure to the "sickness" that is the political is, itself a liberal view, which Schmitt considers an illusion.
It's not a liberal or a conservative view. It just is true, that nations were under more solid foundation when a state of 'economic progress'
(i.e. land decreasing in its representation as a part of a good as compared with capital) was going on.

Technologically we're kind of at a standstill almost. We should back up and centralize government, and I'm almost certain that's probably what it sounds like this guy wants to do.

I don't entirely disagree with what he's saying, just a few points to make regarding liberalism, that's all.

I'm not making an argument by telling you to read a book, im saying you are simply not equipped to be having this discussion because you do not understand what you are talking about. You wouldn't engage in a debate about particle physics without a cursory understanding of the subject, which you clearly don't have. I'll refer you to the Standord article about him, that will give you a good read through and spare me the inconvenience of typing out half an essay which you will probably misunderstand anyways, and that's not an attack on you.

Liberalism, according to Schmitt, is a particular form of negation of the political; based upon the principles of free debate, neutral State and Law, primacy of private affairs, and faith in economic progress as a neutral sphere which ultimately may be key in erasing the political (whether it may be expressed in religion, nation, or any other way).

>making the dichotomy between liberalism and conservatism
Buddy...you really are out of your depth here

I'm sure it isn't but we don't go into debates without defining our terms.

Liberalism is an academic word of which I'm sure I know the definition. I'm not going to read this article unless you tell me his definition of liberalism sufficiently diverges from the standard Liberal vs. Conservative dichotomy.

This post is so retarded. We do not have parliamentary democracy in America.

It's just dogmatic, defining liberalism this way. I could just as easily have defined conservatism as being some other ridiculous thing that negates political activity or economic efficacy.

Thorstein Veblen has a much more impartial view of liberalism and conservatism in his 'Theory of the Leisure Class'

I'm telling you this article will give a much better definition than I can give, and will leave less room for misinterpretation. I'm trying to help you out. And no you don't understand liberalism, because the term changes meaning depending upon who uses it. You need to get outside of your box mate, stop thinking in such constraining terms.

Yes, it is by definition a parliamentary democracy, or a representative republic.

It's nothing else. That's what the founding fathers defined this as.

No animosity. However, consolidating the State is not affirming the political in any way. In fact, it seems that you say almost exactly what he means when he describes the economicist negation of the political. Also, the "solid foundation" which you refer to, what is it?

mercaba.org/SANLUIS/Filosofia/autores/Contemporánea/Schmitt/The Nomos of the Earth.pdf

This is based mystical Germanic autism thank you op

Heh, yeah well great discussion. I'm not reading whatever someone tells me to just because there are other people assuming you know your shit. Clearly you are all assblasted I've wandered into this thread and just wrecked this guy without even reading him.

What's the point of even making this thread.

He was literally a Nazi, so yeah, he was a bit more than hinting.

Regardless of what you define it as, take a nominalistic approach here and acknowledge that Schmitt is simply referring to the beliefs and principles commonly known as liberalism, and inserting his definition by demonstrating the effects it has on the political. It's not dogmatic at all.

>He fights Locke, Constant, Mill, Smith, and even Hobbes.

How does he fight Hobbes? I did only read the Concept of the Political, and somewhat superficially at that, but it seems to me he is very much in accordance with Hobbes on numerous points, notably the state being sovereign in the Hobbesian sense, i.e. outside the law in order to constitute the law, and that its purpose was primarily to prevent civil war and being subjugated by foreigners, something that would inevitably happen to feel-good hippie liberal states who chose not to participate in the specifically political - this again being an echo of Hobbes, and due to Schmitt following Hobbesian pessimist anthropology.

Look up parliamentary democracy and then get back to me

(you)

I did and it brings me to this page
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

yes but you’re trying to mask tryanny with the guise of democracy to cast aside pointed critiques of tyranny. the whole idea is to steal the notion from liberals of free discourse and the people’s will while smuggling in the reality of dictatorship. You know exactly what you’re doing. The USSR had this to, they called it centralized democracy, completely farcical in nature, but democratic in name noentheless. ill grant that in the most perverse ironic sense the Fascist uprisings were pseudo-democratic however there is almost no evidence that they remained so after attaining power.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system
This is what Schmitt means by parliamentary democracy

You asked for a definition. I will not post every argument Schmitt made to form that definition, it would make for an endless thread (the endless discussion and exchange of liberalism, as Schmitt would probably joke). That's why I recommend you check him out.

The theory itself is democratic, it is conceived of as a democratic endeavor, not just in name only, but at the fundamental level. I agree with you that it often isn't so in practice

Well regardless, I will say this: as opposed to the other user, at least you defined his term for me. This is a good step in trying to come to terms with the debate. You really should have defended his position a bit, I would have been intrigued to hear it.

Not all the time do you actually have to read the work to understand what you meant, but the best way to do this is through discussion. I have learned many things from books I have not read this very way. It's a positive process, trust me.

>Veblen
My nigga

Hobbes works from "liberal" premises, so to speak, that is to say: atomized individuals, who have "rights", which act in an self interested manner and end up giving some of those rights to a neutral, this is essential, State. It's the very foundations of liberalism, neutralizing the State by making him arbiter without interest. Hobbes also privatized religion, which, again, is, according to Schmitt, one of the very fundamentals of liberalism.

I am the other user, the point I'm making is that it's a futile endeavor to attempt to define liberalism in the Schmittian sense without you having read his work, and that will only result in me explain in his entire theory to you, which the other user pointed out. I don't know what you feel you've gained from this discussion that you couldn't have gained from reading a few pages of Concept of the Political, and then entering the discussion aware of the basic arguments so we don't have to spoon feed you.

Yeah, I see that. Good point.

I understand what you mean, but it's almost impossible to have a discussion on his thought if the terms we use mean different things. It's pointless trying to defend a position which your interlocutor does not yet fully understand; that's why I recommend reading him. He's not someone who can be easily understood in a Veeky Forums thread.

Hobbes makes it very clear people don't "have" rights they are granted rights

Hobbes does have a very individualized approach, yet at the same time his discussion of "rights" in the moral sense is purely limited to within society, as he does not conceive of any morality existing without society. In this regard I would still call him liberal, but point to that rejection of natural rights in the sense that rights are god given or what have you.

>He's not someone who can be easily understood in a Veeky Forums thread.
This perspective is a little silly too, I can't think of many places on the internet where I have discussions like this. :/

I'm sure you would have a much better discussion if you actually read him ;)

In the "state of nature" all men have "rights" to do as they please, as long as they can assert themselves by force. He said so, if I remember correctly, at the beginning of Leviathan when he speaks of the State as a "presona". He does not mean rights in the "human rights" sense, of course; but he still considers the individual as the bearer of this primordial power and not the "societas" as the Scholastics or Aristotle, for that matter.
That seems an important point, but I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean.

In the state of nature, natural law and natural rights do not have a normative moral quality. "Rights", insofar as they have been granted by the sovereign, do, yet their existence is contingent upon the existence of a system of law and society, removed from the state of nature. Outside society, everything is permissible as in Hobbes own words "nothing is unjust."

This is no longer about the book, you made two logical fallacies about discussion on this site in general.

Just because you're on Veeky Forums doesn't mean you can't have an intelligent discussion, and more importantly, just because you haven't read the author in question doesn't mean you can't have a discussion about ideas. Which you saw us do briefly as well.

Logical fallacies? Which ones? I'm not denying that discussion isn't valuable on Veeky Forums, I never said that, but that it is pointless to ask for a necessarily exhaustive definition of a concept when your goal is to understand the material, when one can just as easily read the book and achieve not only a better understanding but one removed from the biases of posters. You seem to think that there is something to be gained from asking us to define a nebulous and incredibly complex concept and then debating it secondhand as opposed to actually reading the material.

Ah, I understand now. You're quite right, when explaining why Hobbes is a liberal to Schmitt I mean rights in a non moral manner. As I said to the other user above, it is the choice of individual to limit their liberty, which seems to Schmitt a formulation of liberal premises (individuals who can do what they please with natural liberty, that is, as Hobbes said, hard to maintain for the weak).

Yep, I agree wholeheartedly.

Cont.
This, in turn, makes advantageous the creation of the State (as a politically neutral entity). Hobbes also seems to imply, according to Schmitt, the political is, therefore, suppressed by the institution of the State (a reaction, according to Schmitt, to the English Civil War and the religious wars of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries).

No, pretty much all Democrats are neoliberals

they're social liberals
Neoliberalism is Margaret Thatcher and Reagan

There is something to be gained, ahah: discussion! And we've already had some of it.

You're just so obsessed that you read a book you think you should get on the internet and tell other people to read a book. You can have constructive discussions without everybody having read the material, silly.

it never is so in practice, it is absolutely not conceived of as democratic as all of its advocates vehemently reject democracy in toto. they never for a moment claim to be democratic, they speak of a people’s will, but so have monarch’s in times past. their being populists does not in itself grant them democratic status. a democracy is predicated upon mob rule, the people’s will and the ability to depose the ruler or alter the terms of the regime’s rule at will. athens was a democracy precisely because at any time the citizen’s could remove the polemarches, call for new appointments and change the tax rates. in Nazi Germany this was not so, in fact the very suggestion of even the slightest displeasure with Hitler’s rule was a certain doom for whoever revealed themselves to harbor those feelings. One cannot be free to choose one’s rulers when there are no free elections and when the party in power has total authority over all civilian life. Fascism is much closer kind to enlightened despotism a la the republic of plato’s conception than any kind of democracy, Venetian, Athenian or American that we know of today. I’m sorry but if Schmitt argues this he is playing the role of sophist and is making use of clever semantic devices to beguile people into buying a theory they would otherwise reject. I am in no way critiquing despotism or tyranny here, though i do find them distasteful, however your assertion is simply bankrupt of any respectable truth. In the most provisional of senses you could argue with incredible pernicious intent that democracy can, and should, give birth to fascism. However democracy of itself does not and cannot include fascist regimes like Franco’s, Mussolini’s or Hitlers much less Hirohito’s

Neoliberalism is also Tony Blair and Bill Clinton

Read my post again and then reply. You'll realize how silly your response was.

Fuck you're dumb

economic liberalism is, at the very least, getting rid of income tax, which nobody would ever even consider

And are still the problem. It's a prescient statement whites need to wrap their heads around: jews are our enemy and act like it, which is why our countries have gotten turned inside out as their power has grown.

Read my response.

Again: you do NOT need to have read a book to discuss a book with someone.

Not what I said. Clearly reading it twice wasn't enough.

Income tax is largely just a tax on consumption anyway. It eventually realizes its full effects depending on who is taxed. If the poor are taxed, the monetary unit lowers in value much faster.

However, if people just realized they should be taxing rent more often than anything else, we would be fine. Taxing income of something that inherently increases in value with the economic progression of society is inherently valuable for the state as a whole.

I have read your stupid post enough, I enjoyed the discussion we had but then it hit a brick wall when you realized you were talking with me about things and I hadn't read the book, what a pretentiously stupid stance. I'm not reading the book. Not now anyway. Good thread though, you proved you can be pretentious about reading shit.

Hahahaha a little revd, are we? Cmon mate, no wonder you don't want to read Schmitt, you have no reading comprehension!

Simply telling someone to read a post is not a good argument. You have added nothing to this discussion other than reading a book. Congratulations, retard. I have posted other authors, Thorstein Veblen, Rousseau, I have commented many different ways about this subject and continue to pursue discussion. You are being dumb about this stupid shit. If you want good discussion on Veeky Forums, YOU are the reason it is not happening, moron.

Hahahahahahaha mate the post that I am referring you to IS the argument. God you're so dumb.