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Hayek and Schmitt on the Rule of Law*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

F. R. Cristi
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University

Abstract

According to Hayek the rule of law constitutes the foundation of liberalism's political and legal theory. General and abstract laws, as opposed to concrete measures, protect individual freedom from prerogative and arbitrariness (normativism versus decisionism). Hayek maintains that Carl Schmitt's decisionism explains his attacks on liberalism and the prominent role he played in support of Hitler's regime. Two general observations should shorten the distance that Hayek seeks to establish between his posture and that of Schmitt. Firstly, Schmitt's critique is primarily aimed against the tendency that neutralizes the state and makes it vulnerable to democratic pressures. Secondly, Hayek's normativism is seen to contain a decisionist potential.

Résumé

Selon Hayek, l'état de droit est le fondement de la théorie politique et légale du libéralisme. Des lois, générales et abstraites, contrairement aux mesures concrètes, protègent la liberté individuelle de la prérogative et de l'arbitraire (normativisme versus « decisionisme »). Hayek soutient que le decisionisme de Carl Schmitt explique sa réfutation au liberalisme et son adhésion au National-socialisme en 1933. D'après moi, il faut absolument raccourcir la distance que Hayek essaie d'établirentre sa position et celle de Schmitt. D'abord, la critique de Schmitt est dirigée contre la tendance de neutraliser l'état, laquelle le fait vulnerable aux pressions démocratiques. Ensuite, le normativisme de Hayek contient un decisionisme potentiel.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1984

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References

1 Hayek, Friedrich A., The Constitution of Liberty (South Bend: Gateway, 1972).Google Scholar

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4 Hayek's acquaintance with Schmitt's legal and political theory is extensive. He recognizes in him an extraordinary German student of politics, who “in the 1920's probably understood the character of the developing form of government better than most people and then regularly came down on what appears both morally and intellectually the wrong side” (Hayek, Friedrich A.. Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 3: The Political Order of a Free People [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973], 194).Google Scholar

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7 Two American historians have recently devoted attention to Schmitt: Schwab, George, The Challenge of Exception: An Introduction to the Political Ideas of Carl Schmitt between 1921 and 1936 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1970)Google Scholar: and Bendersky, Joseph. Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussions of Schmitt's reception in the English-speaking world see Bendersky, Joseph, “Carl Schmitt Confronts the English-Speaking World,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 2 (1978). 125–35Google Scholar. and George Schwab. “Schmitt Scholarship,” ibid., 4(1980). 149–55.

8 Compare with Mommsen, Wolfgang, Max Weber und die Deutsche Politik, 1890-1920 (2nd ed.; Tuebingen: Mohr, 1974), 408. n.156.Google Scholar

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13 According to Schmitt, it is the existential quality of a will, its power and authority, that determines the validity of norms. Thus the Weimar constitution should not be interpreted as a self-validating, functional legal system. Its validity is objectively determined by the political will of the nation. It rests on the “existential totalitarian will of the German people” (Verfassungslehre, 24).

14 Kierkegaard, Søren, Die Wiederholung, Ges. Werke (Duesseldorf: Eugen Diederichs. 1967), 93. Quoted by Schmitt in his Politische Theologie. 11.Google Scholar

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16 It is a different story when Schmitt descends from this abstract plane to the concrete applications of sovereignty. In the Appendix to his Die Diktatur he denies that the Reichspraesident can embody the plenitudo potestatis which was accorded the monarch in the Prussian constitution, for instance (Schmitt. Die Diktatur des Reichspraesidenten nach art. 48 der Weimarer Verfassung. appendix to Die Diktatur. 236-37).

17 Heinrich Muth, “Carl Schmitt in der Deutschen Innepolitik des Sommers 1932.” Historische Zeitschrift, Beiheft (1971), 75-147.

18 Schmitt, , Der Hueter der Verfassung (2nd ed.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1969), 73. The first edition of this work was published in March 1931.Google Scholar

19 Quoted in Roepke, Wilhelm, Civitas Humana (London: W. Hodge, 1948), 28.Google Scholar

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21 Schmitt uses this notion for the first time in Der Hueter der Verfassung (79). It is used again in October of the same year (1931) in his Concept of the Political, 23-24, and then in November 1932 in a conference given to the Langman association of German businessmen, later published in Volk und Reich (February 1933) with the programmatic title “Starker Staat und gesunde Wirtschaft.” Heinz O. Ziegler, in a work that owes much to Schmitt, draws the distinction between totalitarianism and authoritarianism (Autoritaerer oder Totaler Slant [Tuebingen: Mohr. 1932])Google Scholar. This distinction constitutes the basis for later discussions of this subject. Ultimately, what Marcuse, Fraenkel, Neumann, Talmon, Hayek, Popper. Friedrich, Brzezinski. Arendt, Barber and Kirkpatrick have to say on this matter is tributary to Schmitt's pioneer work. It is interesting to note that Schmitt's distinction between qualitative and quantitative totalitarianism turns authoritarianism into a variant of the totalitarian state ("Starker Staat und gesunde Wirtschaft,” 84). Compare with Legalitaet und Legitimitaet (Muenchen and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1932). 93, and with Schwab, The Challenge of Exception, 145-46.Google Scholar

22 Schmitt, Legalitaet und Legitimitaet, 96. Compare with Hayek, The Political Order of a Free People, 195.

23 Ibid., 93.

24 Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, 90-91.

25 Ibid., 350.

26 Ibid., 351.

27 Compare with Huber, Ernst Rudolf, “Das Staatsoberhaupt des Deutschen Reiches,” Zeitschrift fuer die gesamte Staatsrechtwissenschaft 95 (1935), 203.Google Scholar

28 Schmitt, , Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus (3rd ed.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1961), and following pages.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., 9-10.

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31 Compare with Schwab, The Challenge of Exception, 87.

32 Schmitt, Politische Theologie, Preface.

33 Schmitt, Ueber die Drei Arten des Rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens, 40-44.

34 Ibid., 45-57. There is a certain ambiguity in Schmitt's relation to Hegel, apparently a product of a reference to the latter in his book Staat, Bewegung nnd Volk (Hamburg: Hanseatische, 1933)Google Scholar. In it he states in connection with Hitler's being designated chancellor on January 30, 1933: “Accordingly one can say that on this day Hegel died.” Marcuse, for instance, stops here and does not read any further (Marcuse, , Negations [Boston: Beacon, 1967], 275, note 79)Google Scholar. Compare with Ottmann, Henning, Individuum und Gemeinschaft bei Hegel, vol. 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977), 222, n.451)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The continuation of the text, though, speaks for itself: “This does not mean that the great work of this German political philosopher has lost its significance and that the idea of a political leadership that transcends the egoism of social interests should be abandoned. What is truly German and perennial of the powerful spiritual construction erected by Hegel, continues to be valuable for the new formation” (32). Again, in 1935, Schmitt identifies his opposition to the rule of law or Rechtsstaat as Hegelian. The true antithesis to the Rechtsstaat is not a Nicht-Rechtsstaat, but Hegel's Sittlichkeitsstaat (ethical state). See Schmitt, , “Was bedeutet der Streit um den Rechtsstaat?,” Zeitschrift fuer die gesamte Staatsrechtswissenschaft 95 (1935), 189–91.Google Scholar

35 Schmitt, Ueber die Drei Arten des Rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens, 47.

36 Ibid., 13.

37 Hayek, Rules and Order, 71.

38 Schmitt's notion of concrete order surely contains decisionist elements (compare with the requirement of a Fuehrergrundsatz in his Ueher die Drei Arten des Rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens, 63). Still, this “principle of leadership” cannot operate in a void. It is in this latter sense that Schmitt's notion of concrete order formation is “suprapersonal.”

39 Compare with my article “The Hegelsche Mitte and Hegel's Monarch,” Political Theory 11 (1983), 601–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, 161.

41 Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976), 102–03: The Political Order of a Free Society, 130, 149-50.Google Scholar

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44 Joseph Raz has perceived the compatibility of the rule of law, as Hayek understands it, with nondemocratic systems ("The Rule of Law and its Virtue,” The Law Quarterly Review 93 [1977], 196)Google Scholar: “A non-democratic legal system, based on the denial of human rights, on extensive poverty, on racial segregation, sexual inequalities and religious persecution may, in principle, conform to the requirements of the rule of law better than any of the legal systems of the more enlightened western democracies. This does not mean that it will be better than those western democracies. It will be an immeasurably worse legal system, but it will excel in one respect: in its conformity to the rule of law.” Compare with Gray, John, “Hayek on Liberty, Rights and Justice,” Ethics 92 (1981), 7778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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46 A parallel objection is raised by Fraenkel against Schmitt's notion of concrete order (The Dual State, 145): “The problem of the concrete theory of order transcends the limits of the system of concrete communities. This problem demands solution by decisionism and, since there is no norm, this decision—to employ Schmitt's terminology—must be derived from a “void.” In reality, however, this “void” is not a “void” at all. It is the value system associated with the class structure of present-day society.”

47 Hayek, The Mirage of Social Justice, 16.

48 Hume, , An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, in Hume's Essays (London: George Routledge, 1894), 422.Google Scholar

49 Boswell, , in The Life of Samuel Johnson, Napier, A. (ed.), vol. I (London: George Routledge, 1892), 356Google Scholar. Compare with Miller, David, “Hume and Possessive Individualism,” History of Political Thought 1 (1980), 277.Google Scholar