Carl Schmitt on Liberal Depoliticization
According to the German political theorist Carl Schmitt, cosmopolitan liberalism as a political force is poised to achieve hegemony in the political and social spheres of modern society, thus ending the practice of what he designated to be ‘true’ politics.
For Schmitt, the practice of genuine political agitation, debate, and discourse necessarily entail his infamous ‘concept of the political’, namely the fundamental metapolitical distinction between friend and enemy. Without this elementary concept, there is no real politics.
Depoliticization occurs when this distinction dissipates, and the juggernaut of this sociopolitical development is identified as liberalism by Schmitt.
Neutralization of the public sphere is both the catalyst and the enabler of liberal cosmopolitan hegemony, the modern day version of which we can observe in the technocratic and rational mechanisms of neoliberalism, which masquerades as a post-ideological and post-political force, only serving to apparently increase the general welfare of mankind under the auspices of deregulated free trade agreements, international institutions, and the globalist lingo of ‘we are one’.
The purported credo of neoliberalism is to reject all explicitly ideological binary labels and the polarizing two-party system by embracing openness, transparency, bipartisan and international cooperation, and a global effort towards a mutual understanding of ‘the complex and multi-faceted world that we live in.’
However, this seemingly innocuous elitist sentiment merely serves as a vehicle of subterfuge in place of the actual mission of the power brokers in question: to subvert sincere forms of party politics and international cooperation that genuinely seek the betterment of the people, in order to turn a profit and amass influence for themselves.
Neoliberals do not seek to exercise direct power through political appointments per se, as its hierarchical and macroscopic features render them more vulnerable to being toppled from their dynamic positions. They operate through opaque channels of influence that get the job down while providing a convenient horizontal escape, if that should ever come in handy.
Liberal depoliticization is at its most obvious when powerful individuals like Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris wear dresses in purple, the non-partisan colour of ending discord, division, and hate on both sides of the political aisle, whilst settling for moderate compromises and half-way solutions that keep the status quo intact, big business booming and the multinational corporations evermore expansive.
This should be an ominous foretoken of the situation to come: oppression and exploitation will resume as usual, but in different modes of production and distribution under biopolitical and socializing measures such as diversity training.
Fukuyama’s conception of the end of history, if it ever comes into fruition, is not the triumphal ending credits of liberal democracy, but the deliberate functioning of liberal hegemony championing a radically cosmopolitan, open, and borderless world where atomized individuals may consume to their heart’s content, growing evermore spiritually void, personally detached from any authenticic purpose, and culturally deracinated than ever, grievously alienated while their corporate masters continue to secure their wealth and control, as surreptitiously as ever.
