131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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geneity and is therefore rightly excluded from it. According to Rousseau this unanimity must
go so far that the laws come into existence sans discussion. Even judges and parties in a suit
must want the same, 37 whereby it is never even asked which of the two parties, accused or
accuser, wants the same. In short, homogeneity elevated into an identity understands itself
completely from itself. But if unanimity and agreement of all wills with one another is really
so great, why then must another contract be concluded or even construed? A contract
assumes differences and oppositions. Unanimity, just like the general will, is either there or
not and it may even be, as Alfred Weber has accurately pointed out, naturally present. 38
Where it exists a contract is meaningless. Where it does not exist, a contract does not help.
The idea of a free contract of all with all comes from a completely different theoretical world
where opposing interests, differences, and egoisms are assumed. This idea comes from
liberalism. The general will as Rousseau constructs it is in truth homogeneity. That is a really
consequential democracy. According to the Contrat social, the state therefore rests not on a
contract but essentially on homogeneity, in spite of its title and in spite of the dominant
contract theory. The democratic identity of governed and governing arises from that.
The state theory of the Contrat social also proves that democracy is correctly defined as the
identity of governed and governing. When it has been noticed, this definition, 39 which
appears in my Politische Theologie (1922) and in the article on parliamentarism, was
partially rejected and partially taken over. Here I would like to mention that while its
application to contemporary state theory and its extension to a new range of identities are
new, it is ultimately an ancient, one can even say classical, definition that conforms to a
tradition that is for these reasons no longer well known. Because of its reference to
interesting and particularly urgent consequences in public law today, Pufendorf's formulation
should be quoted: 40 In a democracy, where those who command and those who obey are
identical, the sovereign, that is, an assembly composed of all citizens, can change laws and
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