131214840-Carl-Schmitt

most cogently set out by Locke, Bentham, Burke, and Mill in England and by Guizot in
France.
Page xviii
The first edition of Schmitt's essay on parliamentarism was completed before the onset of the
most severe crisis of early Weimar, in the autumn and winter of 1923, but it had been written
during and after the period of serious disturbances in Germany that persisted from November
1918. Nevertheless, the text makes no direct reference to these events. Rather, the first
edition concentrated on the essence of parliamentarism as it can be understood from the
classic theories and modern European political experience, especially in the nineteenth
century. The argument, which Thoma criticized in his review two years later, was that the
essence of parliamentarism is openness and discussion, because these are recognized in
liberal political philosophy as the means of political reason: One believed that naked power
and force—for liberal, Rechtsstaat thinking, an evil in itself, 'the way of beasts,' as Locke
said—could be overcome "through openness and discussion alone, and the victory of right
over might achieved." 20 But new political doctrines and movements now cast doubt on the
vitality of belief in these principles. Schmitt contended further that political experience under
the Weimar constitution revealed these ideas, and with them parliament as a political
institution, as outdated. The crisis of contemporary parliamentarism in Germany had become
so acute, he replied to Thoma in 1926, because "the development of modern mass democracy
has made public discussion an empty formality." 21 Thoma had agreed with Schmitt that the
principles he identified with parliamentarism—openness and discussion—were "outdated";
their disagreement arose from Schmitt's assertion that this also made parliamentary
government "outdated." Schmitt's contention was based ultimately on a claim about the logic
of propositions in the justification of political choice and action, and on Harold Laski's
definition of parliament as "government by discussion.'' 22 The first of these will be
considered in greater detail below; the second, borrowed from contemporary English political
thought, made strong claims for the
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