The Concept of the Political

The Concept of the Political is Carl Schmitt’s attempt to define the political by its own criterion: the distinction between friend and enemy. In this wiki it is a non-libertarian critique of liberal depoliticization and the state’s claim to decide public conflict.

Text Status

The raw source is extracted from the Platypus-hosted PDF of the University of Chicago Press expanded edition, translated and introduced by George Schwab, with Tracy Strong’s foreword and Leo Strauss’s notes.

Argument Map

Schmitt argues that the political cannot be reduced to morality, economics, aesthetics, or private dislike. It appears where a collectivity distinguishes friend from enemy in a public and potentially existential sense. The concept is therefore about the intensity of association and dissociation, not about personal hatred.

This is a critique of liberal attempts to neutralize conflict into procedure, morality, or economics. But it is not a libertarian critique; it tends toward an anti-liberal theory of political unity and decision.

Place in This Wiki

Enemy Distinction broadens the wiki’s state-power map. It shows a non-libertarian route to the idea that the state is not merely an administrative service provider but an institution that claims the authority to identify enemies and demand sacrifice.

See Also

• Carl Schmitt - author reference
• Enemy Distinction - central concept from this work
• Political Theology - sibling Schmitt work
• State of Exception - sibling Schmitt concept
• Critiques of Sovereignty and Power - topic collecting non-libertarian power critiques
• War and State Formation - adjacent state-war concept
• The State as Parasite: A Thesis - adjacent thesis with brief Schmitt note

Sources

• The Concept of the Political - extracted Schwab translation text