by Carl Schmitt
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Product Description
In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism’s basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state—a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab’s introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt’s intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to the Hitlerian one-party state. In addition to analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword by Tracy B. Strong placing Schmitt’s work into contemporary context, this expanded edition also includes a translation of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations,” which the author himself added to the 1932 edition of the book. An essential update on a modern classic, The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 great quality, 2008-03-31
This book came on time and looks newer than advertised! I am very happy with my purchase.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
One of the best books on political theory ever written, 2006-11-17
Others have described the book quite well, so I simply wanted to add a corrective to Mr. Dermeval's review, which criticized Schmitt's analysis as being crudely bipolar relative to Weber. While I agree that Weber's analysis is superlative, it does not in fact contradict Schmitt's theory at all. Schmitt views "the political" as a particular process that pervades human life to varying degrees, depending upon the particular degree of friend/enemy antagonism that is involved in a given social situation. Obviously, not every judgment that involves some aspect of the political rises to the highest point of friend/enemy antagonism. Battles over health care rights, for example, are inherently less "political" in Schmittian terms than is an outright war. The health care conflict is resolved with more rational and bureaucratic elements -- for example, determining which approach will likely be lowest in total cost. Schmitt's theory takes full account of this varying intensity of the political in social life; in fact it is premised on it.
It is thus a mistake to think that the "friend/enemy" distinction is fully manifested in every judgment made by a state. Many (if not most) such judgments are apolitical decisions made on generally rational grounds, consistent with Weber's description of the state. On Schmitt's theory, such particular rational judgments are not truly (i.e. distinctively) political, even though made by a political entity. Such judgments *become* political to the extent they involve one group seizing advantage over another group, rather than a purely rational technical analysis based on accepted criteria.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 A task unfulfilled, Leviathan's illusion regained, 2006-09-27
If on the one hand, Schmitt's book does contain some brilliant insights - especially in its last pages, where it criticizes liberalism as an inconsistent form of political doctrine - on the other, it seems to me, when all is said and done, the meditation fails its main purpose, which is to show something about the essence of politics.
Because the essence of the political is indeed present in the Freund/Feind situations, but these are only two extreme possibilities of political alterity, which, however, do not exhaust the political field. A profounder and more challenging approach to the notion of the political is that of Max Weber in "Politik als Beruf/The Vocation and Profession of Politics" (1921) and Hans Morgenthau in Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946) / Politics among Nations (1948). Their depth resides in their approach via the notion of power. The exercise of power over fellow beings is the true rub of politics. How well did the North-American founding fathers grasp it too!
Schmitt's extreme polarity, to me, is Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan with new garb. And I was quite glad to see evidences in favor of this guess: in the original version of Der Begriff des Politischen, published in 1927 at the Archiv Journal, Schmitt states that Hobbes is the -only- truly systematic political thinker. This compliment was diluted for the text's final version, published in 1932, in which Hobbes appears as "a truly systematic thinker".
Schmitt and Hobbes stand together in their view of man as a power-seeking creature by nature, a hostage of passions and egotism. So far, as the basic generalization, no problem. But then Schmitt goes on to repeat the same faux pas of Hobbes' Leviathan in regard to the solution identified for this condition. Hobbes fell in the trap of proposing the symbolic figure of the pact, by which individuals sacrifice their aspirations in the name of the king, who, in exchange, shall protect them against hostilities from abroad and promote well-being. This, of course, for a political context quite different from the XXth century. In any case, Hobbes' politico-theological thought has little or no room for internal dissent. At the end, in his view, human `reason' and the Scriptures converge; Schmitt agrees with him.
Here are the two implicit errors I see in Hobbes' view of the `Pact'. Firstly, the implicit expectation that humans will be able to sacrifice their passions and ambitions with a view to order and peace, as if they were free. And they are not. Whatever the political system, their desire for power will make itself felt and seek satisfaction. The second implicit error is the expectation that the king will be neutral and can be trusted - once more, the Founding Fathers are called to the scene, the Federalist 51 being their top gem. What guarantees do we have about the king? Is he not a human being just like the others, power-seeking, a hostage to his passions?
The flaw of Hobbes' `philosophy', then, is that its solution does not solve the problem it identifies. What Hobbes does is merely to raise - suspend - project - in a word: procrastinate - the state of nature onto the international arena, without changing its supposed essence. One would then have - if premises were truly followed - communities under pact from within, and without inner dissent, at war against all the others. Thus the logical extension - and here is Schmitt's insight, perhaps unconsciously: within the body politic, in the case the state, there could then only be friends and foes to the will of this body's head. And among the other bodies politic, as they interact, there could also be only friends/allies and foes.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Great book, 2006-08-17
One of the few books on politics/philosophy worth reading. Deals with the internal conflicts of the so-called "rational" state.
My only objection is the inclusion of Strauss, which is an insult to anyone capable of understanding Schmitt's original text.
Re: "Good ideas, but very densely written" - did you even read the book? It is one of the only examples of clear writing and thinking on politics that we have today. Don't seek secondary academic writing on the book - it uniformly lacks clarity, as the topic of Schmitt's writing is (by nature? or nurture?) foreign to academics.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
The Political as Friend-Enemy Distinction., 2006-05-22
This edition of Carl Schmitt's _Der Begriff des Politischens_ is translated by George Schwab and contains several interesting writings on Schmitt and his thought. In addition to _The Concept of the Political_ proper, this book also contains a "Foreward" by Tracy B. Strong, an "Introduction" by George Schwab, and ends with a series of notes on the book by Leo Strauss. Carl Schmitt was a legal scholar and political theorist during the time of the Third Reich who was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. While unfortunately Schmitt joined the Nazi party, this should not prevent one from reading his otherwise important works which have much to say about the political and provide trenchant critiques of liberalism. Schmitt can be rightfully considered as one of the conservative revolutionaries, including such figures as Junger, Spengler, and Heidegger, who opposed liberalism in the period before the Second World War. Schmitt's writings were an important influence on Heidegger in particular, but have also seen a resurgence in their importance among the New Right and the Left as well. Schmitt was influenced by such political thinkers as Machiavelli, Hegel, and Hobbes, but also by Catholic counter-revolutionaries such as de Maistre and Donoso Cortes. This book lays out the essential details of his thought.
In _The Concept of the Political_, a book which profoundly criticizes liberalism, Schmitt essentially argues that the political must be understood in terms of the "friend-enemy" distinction. Schmitt explains how the state presupposes the concept of the political. In searching for a definition of the political, Schmitt explains how the state has become an absolute, total state in the twentieth century in contrast to the neutral, noninterventionist state of the nineteenth century. According to Schmitt, the political may be understood in terms of the distinction between friend and enemy, much as morality can be understood in terms of the distinction between good and evil, aesthetics in terms of the distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, economics in terms of the distinction between the profitable and the unprofitable. This distinction between friend-enemy provides the groundwork upon which Schmitt builds his concept of the political. Schmitt distinguishes the idea of the "enemy" from that understood in the private-individualistic sense as the competitor or partner in conflict in general as that of the private adversary. Schmitt offers an interesting interpretation of the dictum of Christ to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27) as indicating only the private enemy and not the political enemy. As proof of this, Schmitt offers the fact that Christians have not surrendered to the Muslims throughout the many centuries of conflict between the two groups. Schmitt also argues against pacifism claiming that eventually pacifism will be pushed into a "war against all war", leading ultimately to great destruction. Schmitt considers the case of the League of Nations and the reparations forced upon Germany and argues that rather than serving as a preventive against war the League of Nations has opened up new possibilities for war. Underlying all of this is the notion of the political. In addition, Schmitt contrasts "authoritarian" and "anarchistic" theories, arguing that the central difference between them is the view of human nature as fundamentally evil or good, respectively. Schmitt brings to the fore the thoughts of both Machiavelli and Hobbes on this point. Schmitt also contrasts the political to the economic, arguing against economic liberalism. Schmitt calls attention to the thinking of Fichte and Hegel, whose thought was subverted by Karl Marx. Schmitt also emphasizes the Catholic counter-revolutionaries who represented the forces of reaction such as de Maistre and Donoso Cortes. Schmitt brings out the contrast between the ideas of "freedom" and "progress" and those of "feudalism" and "reaction". Finally, Schmitt argues that a final war waged to expand economic power or a war to rid the world of war, while promoted as non-political or even anti-political will ultimately open up new ground for the friend-enemy distinction to be made yet again.
This book provides an excellent translation of one of Schmitt's most important works. The groundwork for the political understood as the friend-enemy distinction is laid out by Schmitt here. Schmitt's thinking continues to be important to many today, despite his apparent encounter with the dark side and his involvement with the Nazi regime. Schmitt would live the rest of his life in relative obscurity although he would continue to write and teach. While Schmitt disavowed his Nazi past, he also adamantly opposed the denazification procedures inflicted on Germany by the Allies. This book provides an excellent introduction to his political thought.
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