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Was Carl Schmitt's View Of Individualism Justified?

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Carl Schmitt spoke about how there had been a loss in the sense of common good in society and paralysed as capitalism made economic concerns individuals top priority, which undermined political togetherness. Hans Freyer was also a fascist, advocated for a spiritual togetherness in society, and despised the individualism of capitalism. I think the west perceived this as an attack on their democratic capitalist values as they think that because they have given their citizens these rights that people in, say, Singapore also deserve them too and that they ought be given them, but forget that those people too have the capability to decide for themselves and that it is incredibly paternalistic to tell a government that their constitution is “wrong.” …show more content…

Withal, I think there was a lot of academic freedom to come up with ideas about how to economy should be run which lead to the entrance of the Austrian school of thought growing in the US. Hayek and Milton Friedman were both strong advocates of individual liberties in an economic sense. Ludwig Von Mises, Hayek’s teacher, believed that when people are moving away from freely established prices of a good, people are moving towards irrational behaviour. He describes socialism as causing the breakdown of society and the whole world order. Hayek on the other hand believed that even welfare state capitalism isn’t justified because it would in a time of depression a fiscal policy of reducing interest rates would only provide a short-term relief but that in the long term it would lead to more problem as people would not spend on productive solutions. Furthermore, in the Road to Serfdom he refers to intervention of economic planners who are pursuing issues of income inequality, and criticises them for using coercive policies that the government think will be …show more content…

The rise of socialist and communist fascist states deeply contradicted the democratic capitalist values the US held. There is a strong tension between the individualism advocated by Hayek and Mises and the calling for a return to a more collectivist society by Schmitt and Freyer. Furthermore, while the US was moving towards a less interventionist fiscal policy, Europe was moving in the other direction towards socialist or communist states in which there was a lot an intervention through fiscal policy. So, when fascism rose advocating these ideas and when it wreaked havoc while trying to enforce their policies. This led to the American public to think that that was the only way in which socialist or communist ideas could be maintained. Since, as I mentioned in the last essay, I agree with Schumpeter I think capitalism has its own institutions that maintain it through force that may seem justified to many but not

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