“Now the Machine Runs Itself”: Carl Schmitt on Hobbes and Kelsen

Carl Schmitt claimed that the fundamental distinction of politics is the distinction between friend and enemy. That distinction, he said, has to be put on a substantive basis, which, in the era of the nation state, he supposed must amount to an idea of the homogeneity of the people. Since liberal democracy is opposed to this kind of substance, Schmitt argued that liberalism cannot make the distinction between friend and enemy. It thus cannot defend itself against its enemies.

It is no wonder that he remains the leading theorist of fascism.