131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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an unscientific socialism if a description of the proletarian state of the future were to be
painted into this picture. It is a systematic necessity that everything affecting the proletariat
only allows itself to be negatively determined. Only when one had completely forgotten that
could one attempt to determine the proletariat positively. Accordingly all that can be said
about this future society is that it will have no class contradictions, and the proletariat can
only be defined as the social class that no longer participates in profit, that owns nothing, that
knows no ties to family or fatherland, and so forth. The proletarian becomes the social
nonentity. 13 It must also be true that the proletarian, in contrast to the bourgeois, is nothing
but a person. From this it follows with dialectic necessity that in the period of transition he
can be nothing but a member of his class; that is, he must realize himself precisely in
something that is the contradiction of humanity—in the class. The class contradiction must
become the absolute contradiction so that all contradictions can be absolutely overcome and
disappear into pure humanity.
4—
The Marxist Tautology
The scientific certainty of Marxism, therefore, only relates to the proletariat negatively
conceived, insofar as it is economically the dialectical contradiction of the bourgeoisie. In
contrast, the bourgeoisie must be known positively and in its full historicity. Because its
essence lies in the economic, Marx has to follow it into the economic realm in order to
understand it fully and in its essence. If he could succeed, if he could know the bourgeoisie
absolutely, then that would prove that the bourgeoisie belonged to history, that it was
finished, that it represented a stage of development the spirit had consciously overcome. For
the scientific claim of Marxist socialism it is really a question of life and death, whether it is
possible to analyze the bourgeoisie correctly and to grasp it intellectually. Here is the deepest
motive for the demoniac assiduity with which Marx delved into economic ques-
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