Learn: Weimar: Theory of a Crisis

Rosa Luxemberg

Strong critic of German militarism and imperialism. Advocated the "General Strike"-tactic of revolutionary Marxism. Staunchly, outspokenly anti-war (WWI).Writes a pamphlet going after the social democrats. Started Spartakusbund and German Communist Party.

Class:

- capitalism will constantly cause destruction; linked to imperialism/will take the form of imperialism

- Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society. Revolution is key, and should be allowed to run its course

-Anti-majoritarianism (don't just wait until you have the majority and then act, act first)

-Land reform is dangerous, no private property for anyone

-Revolution should be organic, not planned. Russian is too dictatatorial

Majoritarianism

when political leaders respond to the policy desires of the majority

The idea that the majority prevails not only in elections but also in policy determination

A political theory holding that in a democracy, the government ought to do what the majority of the people want.

Rosa Luxemburg's Vision of Democracy

She isn't happy with the parliamentary system, or with the dictator system the Russian revolution is bringing up. She believes these are both regressive authoritarian forms of government. So what does she want? A mix of parliamentary with a soviet system style. People form into councils, usually in their workplaces, or regional organizations. You have a group of people, they select certain people that go to the next, higher level of representation. It's sort of a pyramid form, with no separate branches of government. These levels go higher and higher depending on what you need.

Spartacist league

A group of far left-wing Germans who supported the revolutionary overthrow of democracy and the start of a true socialist anti-class German society.

Established by people from the SPD who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD as its left wing faction.

During the November Revolution of 1918 that broke out across Germany at the end of the war, the Spartacus Group re-established itself as a nationwide, non-party organization called the "Spartacus League" with the goal of instituting a council republic that would include all of Germany. It became part of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) when it was formed on 30 December 1918 and at that point ceased to exist as a separate entity.[4]

The International Group saw the SPD's approval of the war loans as a betrayal of the goals of pan-European social democracy and especially of the international solidarity of the workers' movement against the war.

Rosa Luxemburg was one of the founders

Spartacist Uprising

an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5-12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting.

Thomas Mann

Defends the position that german culture is not based on the same understanding of politics like the west, it has a culture of apoliticality that it deserves to preserve - In reflections of a non-political man

He starts more conservative, moves into a republican party during the weimar republic

He becomes a target for right wing people, nazi agitators, right wing groups

Thoughts in Wartime (1914)

War: "Wasn't it swarming with vermin of the spirit like maggots? Didn't it seethe and stink of civilisation's decay?"

"The powerful, enthusiastic unification of the nation in preparation for the greatest holland was unprecedented"

^bolded quotes from a larger quote

War is a force of purification, it can take a nation away from the decadence and she said a lot of great stuff but I missed it oops

Healthy political system doesn't show imperfections and fights, we're all united

Patriotism is established through unison

All of that is used as defences of the first world war, it will bind them all together

Industrialization comes very quickly and strongly to Germany, enters in extreme ways, source of these imperfections that Mann may be seeing/thinking of

Urbanization, mobilization of a place that used to be more rural and apolitical

Romanticism for them: A movement that opposes the republicanism of France and their revolution, the movement that comes about and opposed the universalist and napoleonic idea that emerges from the revolution. It tends to be anti democratic and anti liberal. Mann is trying to convince the students, who are following this genuine German tradition (anti napoleon and democracy)

Hans Kelsen

- ( including many other thinkers,) : argued that law and justice are two different things , each unrelated to the other

- wanted to achieve a 'pure science of law' in which law was ascertainable and predictable

"Nature itself demands freedom and, thus, rebels against society"

"Thus, the thoroughly negative and deeply antiheroic idea of equality come to justify the similarly negative demand for freedom"

-You lose your individual freedom, but everyone does, and their freedom is transformed into an abstract freedom called the state, which seemingly opposes you, but in a democracy that's the only place where you have freedom

-A democratic society can only exist when everyone is included in this project of state creation

-You have to reimagine where your freedom lies, it's not about individual liberties, and you should instead seek to integrate yourself in the different social channels through which you can form groups and articulate your political will and make the state operate according to their collective will

-The only way you can experience freedom is through an entity/through the state

-Our freedom manifests itself as a collective state

-People want to be freer than they can be

-In a democratic society, you are the state, the people form the structures that make the state

-The people are not uniform. A parliamentary system allows for the representation of the plurality, of the differing opinions

Hans Kelsen on Parties

Let's sanction parties! They bring demands from the regular people up to the level of parliamentary representation.

"The isolated individual lacks any real political existence"

"Collective bodies, which unity the common interests of their individual members as political parties, must come to mediate between the individual and the state"

Kelsen ideal system

Proportional representation (elections on the basic of party lists)

You don't have to compromise, you can directly vote for your beliefs

Parties s constitutional organs

They have to be integrated as legitame parts of the constitution

Parties may become bodies that are funded by the members, but also by the state itself, winning votes is winning funding

Parliamentarians who leave their party lose their mandate

Representative vs. delegate

When you're a representative, you're an individual person, you do what you think

A delegate goes back to their party "hey guys what do you think?"

For Kelsen, the delegate model is the proper one. There should be a process through which you can be removed from parliament if you consistently go against your party line, to be replaced by someone in your party.

Party discipline should be a constitutional thing

Politics of Compromise

Representation and the people (How do you make sure the people are heard, not just as party members?):

Introduction of referenda (constitutional and on specific laws)

Dissolution of parliament through popular petitions

Permanent control of parliamentarians (quasi-imperative mandates)

Abolition of legislative immunity

Minority rights and judical control

Introduction of qualified majority for the protection of minority rights-the majority-minority principle

Judicial control of the administration

For Kelsen, all of this is about reciprocal processes of control. It's not about a strict separation of powers, but about keeping them constantly in check, she said other stuff

Kelsen yay democracy

As soon as you enter a democratic representative chamber, if you say "I know the truth, follow me", you've made it impossible for a democracy. Democracy=compromise, relative truth. People have different life experiences and world views.

He wants expertise, not decision making (he proposed a potential idea of bringing in experts from each party, in the same proportions as the votes, for each topic, to try and avoid endless disagreement on something they didn't really know about. But he did not want someone to come in and just make a decision for the sake of having a decision.)

Max Weber

-Anti federalism, state powers break things down, it's better to have a unified vote/power/government, take Germany out of tradition of small, federal govenments

-In favor of a strong president, voted directly be the people, someone popular

-Economic reform shouldn't be dictated by the constitution, the constitution should set up the parameters

-Party politics produces mediocre people, party soldiers, not cut out to do the real work of politics. It needs to be done by a very different kind of person, someone independent intellectually, more charismatic, has his own personal ideals, really strong sense of moderation in terms of negotiations, etc.

-Proportional representation doesn't create real leadership

-Not a big fan of the party system/party people becoming powerful

("Vote for a man, not a party. Vote for Hindenburg" this idea basically)

-Dislikes the American spoil system

Because of german parliamentary system, the charismatic, individualistic leader is not able to gain power

For Weber, bureaucracy is necessary

Politics for weber still is about freedom

Charismatic Qualities of a Leader

The state has a monopoly of violence

You obey the leader because you believe in the leader

You have to believe in the leader and their "special qualities"

Why charisma and not just rule of law?

You get chaos if the bureaucrat is replaced, the power that the bureaucracy becomes overwhelming, which he does not think is good, it's bad for democracy. The citizens are left without rights, they are like cattle, or made part of state. Charisma is essential because it is the things that is able to prevent the total power going to the experts.

You become a dictator on the basis of people supporting you, this charisma gives you the ability to not be overpowered by the bureaucrats.

More things a President should have

A vocation

Three qualities

- Passion

- Sense of responsibility

- Sense of proportion

"Deadly sins"

- Lack of objectivity

- Lack of responsibility

Unintended consequences

If you're going to be thrown into a political world that is uncertain,you better have a compass that tells you where you want to go.

There need to be values, charisma can speak to a value

Gesinnungsethik

Ethic of ultimate ends

If you only do what you think is right, then the consequences can only be good

(weber thinks people like this can not deal with the real world, it's childlike, this isn't how the world works)

Verantwortungsethik

Ethic of responsibility, you take responsibility for the consequences of your action in relation to the cause that you have adopted

Max Weber's View of an Ideal President

-You make the goal of the leader your own goal, even if you think it's wrong. There's a discipline and self denial that is required. A bureaucrat is not responsible for the decisions, that responsibility rests with the political leader.

-Weber is a realist. He thinks there's a conflict between what you have to do in politics, versus what you have to do to be a good person

-They should fight all the time, politics is about the struggle for power. We need leaders who understand how to participate in that struggle, as opposed to leaders who only know how to be subordinate.

-Contrast between the leader and this sense of responsibility. The leader is in charge, the officer has to "dispassionately" implement the decisions of the leader. The officials should not be making their own decisions.

-He jumped very quickly between quotes, but discussed political leadership, who fights, who is subservient. Leaders should understand political combat, should make and take responsibility for those decisions

Living for vs. off of politics

- Off is a source of income

-for is wanting to, for the sake of politics and power and public service

-You need to have both of the weird german words. You need conviction so you're not someone who wants power for powers sake, but you also can't be someone who believes only good things can happen if you do good things

Elections of 1925

The first president was president from before the constitution was passed. In weber's thinking he doesn't have the crucial legitimacy of being elected by the people. In 1925 there's the first presidential election.

1925 is a very turbulent time, so theoretically a good time to test this theory

In the first election, you have to get a full majority to get elected, if no one gets the full majority, you run the election again, an entirely new candidate (which is what happened in 1925) (I don't think it has to be a new candidate, I just think it can be (but not sure))

The 2nd vote, you just need a plurality

The system isn't completely removed from the party system, each party nominates a candidate. The first round, it was more "party people," and that didn't work. The 2nd round, they moved farther away from "party" types. It was still someone nominated by the party, but it wasn't someone from the actual party/institution.

"Vote for a man, not a party. Vote for Hindenburg"

Hugo Preuss

Hugo Preuss was a liberal lawyer and politician. He was the principal author of the Weimar Constitution.

Max Adler

Adler shows that the so-called necessity of law as the neutral arbiter of a democratic society has been heretofore a flawed imposition of the authoritative understandings of the ruling classes. Adler's brings to his argument the Kantian concept of "sociation", where every human judgment perforce sets its determinations within its view of the social whole, demonstrating that an accurate comprehension of interdependent equality that realizes an objective "sociation" can only occur in a "classless" society.

Proposes idea of the commune

The Commune

"The first is the thorough... the core of this type of societal development"

We still have the problem that the state is like a monstrous form of organization, like weber, but unlike weber, he doesn;t agree that this is inevitable. We need to think about how we can slowly and steadily dismantle it. It's not about using the state as domination from the perspective of the workers (anti lenin and bolsheviks), you need to move beyond that and build a different kind of society that includes everyone and doesn't seek to dominate by a new set of people

So how do we do that?

Quote above

Attempt at integrating the workplace and economic relations into the democratic process

More communal forms of organization

This is the thing that's going to actually make democracy stable, everyone is capable of participating in the power

Dismemberment of the leviathan

Plurality of society is allowed to play out on a local self government level

If you create a purely parliamentary democracy, it will lead to an alienation between the people and the representatives. He doesn;t believe that is present in the commune

People hold authority not because of some weird social process, but because they've been selected among people they actually know

Idea of leadership that promotes personal excellence but on a much smaller scale, in much closer contact to the people that are being led and governed by this system. You can have a relationship with those leaders, like a teacher, someone you respect because you know their abilities

Pretty sure this leader is only in charge of this section of people?

Democracy as a conduit towards freedom

Context for Mad Adler

The austro marxists never really went below 40%. The possibility that they might be in the majority in the country in the near future was tangible

Rise of a social democratically led government, right very strongly attacks the institutions of the social democratic party, we get a demise of the institutions that are constitutionally meant to protect the parliamentary/democratic systems

Moves to delegitimize parliament towards the end of the 1920s

Takeover of an austro-fascist dictatorship until the invasion by germany

In the time of writing, 1922, it was still a question to be worked out. Entirely new state, entirely new constitution, how would the social democratic part go about forming this new system of democracy

Adler in relation to other guys

Kelsen is producing a democracy of the state that doesn't really ()ahhhhh

Weber is holding off democracy, individual

Kind of agrees with schmitt

Carl Schmitt

Conservative German jurist and political theorist

(1928)

- Constitution = Law of the Laws

- Special quality: a fundamental decision of people ( forma dn nature of its unity )

( By contrast - amendments are made more difficult because of its special quality )

CONSTITUTION VS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

Constitution - A fundamental decision

- Can only be amended by the holder go constituent power (the people)

Constitutional Law - concretizes the fundamental decision, adds provisions

- Open to amendments

Ex. Supra-constitutional norms (non-amendable)

- Germany: Rule of law, federal structure, social state

What is politics? (modern)

Rejection of natural harmony

Politics entails overcoming natural disunity by constructing artificial conditions that engender a common will

Mankind is not naturally harmonious, but someone with absolute power has no checks and balances

She talked about "you cut, I choose," encourages deliberation that considers the wants of others

Aim:

Diagnose why parliamentarianism is malfunctioning

Provide theory that justifies authoritarian decision making

He does this by reconceptualizing democracy as something compatible with authoritarian decision making and something incompatible with the liberal organization of parliamentarianism

While Weber regards the belief in legitimacy as the source of legitimate domination, Schmitt employs an existentialist interpretation by deriving legitimacy from the acknowledgement of the people.

Weber derives the legitimacy of the plebiscitary leader from charismatic grounds. In contrast, Schmitt maintains that the acknowledgement of the people of the already existing order constitutes the democratic legitimacy of the plebiscitary leader.

Adler on freedom

Quite similar to the way Kelsen thinks about freedom. Something socialized and not individually realized

Dichotomy between mass society that demons democracy, and liberal ideas of personal freedom is an erroneous dichotomy. You can't have individual freedom under the modern regime, but he doesn't want to accept that. He wants to create institutions that move past that problem, by creating individuality and freedom on a different level

Schmitt's View on Democracy

"Is where there is an explicit identity that identifies equals and excludes unequals"

Equals possess uniform wills which are immediate to their common identity

In this model democratic politics is no longer concerned with organizing a collective will from plural wills

Rather it is a task of maintaining homogeneity through exclusion

Promises to return political substance back into politics

Compatible with unilateral authoritarian action

Substative equality overcomes the barrier between representative and individual because they have the same rationality. This allows one person to rule as the people because they alone embody the people.

A dictatorship can be democratic if the dictator is the people

The dictator has the identity of the people (I don't exactly understand, but it seems you can't have this democracy if there are too many contrasting identities, so I guess people would have to give it up? But who chooses who gives it up? How do we get to that place? I don't really understand)

Schmitt on Liberalism

Due to its inclusivity, general equality engenders a common will void of political content "to be political people do not face each other as abstractions, but as politically interest and politically determined persons, as citizens, governors or governed, politically allied or opponents"

The common will must be a product of institutional procedures which channel plurality into compromise

People are equal because of a quality, it isn't human rights, people deserve to be equal because they're humans. It's a specific quality that makes someone worthy of being equal/a part of the group

The Task of parliamentarism

Parliament is a system of governmental organization which aims to bring forth confrontation of differences and opinions to form a political will through public deliberation, discussion, debate, argument, and counterargument. Organization is characterized by a principle of openness

Challenges of contemporary democracy reflected in the Weimar republic, and our own society

Mass democracy

Social Inequality

Mass Media

Party Politics

Legitimation

Mass Manipulation and Ideology

Direct Democracy

Key Issues

Mass politics - revolution- legitimacy

Constitutionalism - Law - Democratic politics

Social inequality - Economy - Social State

Sovereignty - Executive Authority - Emergency powers

Karl Liebknecht

was a German socialist and a co-founder of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany.

Socialism is going to take over, the rule of capitalism is broken

Philipp Scheidemann

Social Democratic politician who proclaimed the German Republic in November 1918 and later became the first Chancellor of the Weimar Republic.

The end of monarchy

"The old, the frail, the monarchy has collapsed. Long live the new! Long live the German Republic"

Weimar Constitution

Set up Germany's first modern democracy by providing for a directly elected president and parliament (the Reichstag), setting up a senate (Reichsrat), and providing a chancellor (prime minister).

Freikorps

Germany military (mostly volunteer troops) used by the government of the Weimar republic 2) put down Spartacist revolt in 1919

KPD

German Communist Party

Short Summaries she gave on the three takes on the president/democracy

Weber: Individual excellence, presidential democracy, democracy for the selection of leaders

Kelsen: Individual freedom only through the state, parliamentary democracy, democracy as party democracy

Schmitt: Democracy and individualism as antithetic, democracy as dictatorship, equality through sameness (they eradicate everything that isn't equal, that isn't same to them. Issues come from the outside, come from people who are not the same) (somebody picked acclimatzio (to be shouted out. Somebody shouts out a name and the populace agrees by not saying anything against it))

Ludwig Von Mises

Credits himself with having dissuaded the government from having joined the bolshevik political side

Advisor to political governments, particularly during the time of hyper inflation

Proponent of neo classical economic view/theory, fundamental structures of the economy

Becomes an important political theorist and actor in the interwar period, he becomes controversial, he is Jewish so ahs to flee the country

Student August Hayeck, important thinker in neo-liberalism, who also engages in this space of economic theory as a form of public, political theory

Author of The Road To Serfdom

Planning is becoming ever more pertinent, will lead to a form of autocracy that will quash individual freedom (I think that's what she said)

Together with his student, they become founders of Montpeliosuieiufrs (?? not an english word) society

Mises on Socialism

Not a fan!!

Socialism- It's unclear how much anything in that society is worth, how you would even value money, money loses its real value and becomes a very hard thing to understand

Socialists are on cloud cuckoo land

-You lose the ability to judge any part of the political (I think) process

Mises on importance of Capitalism

Normative political argument sneak into a "purely economic" theory.

Somehow, there is a unique rationality to the way in which markets calculate prices, and interact with each other because of these prices. That translates into a social and political rationality. People can make decisions based on money and the economic calculations, it provides the framework for political decisions and rationality

Abolishing market behavior risks abolishing rational behavior in society at large

Capitalist Democracy

a political, economic and social ideology that involves the combination of a democratic political system with a capitalist economic system.

A political-economic system that grants the most individual control over both political and economic life

Democracy as a form of consumer choice

"Liberalism," Mises cites Frank A. Fetter:

"Every buyer determines in some degree the direction of industry.. The market is a democracy where every penny gives a right of vote... for that is either a demand for gold or a gift to the issuer of paper currency"

Very different from a democracy with votes

Tension between this and a modern democratic state, It lives constantly within the demands of somebody who wants more choice than whether or not they will buy an ice cream (?)

Responses to inbtense hyper inflation

In response, there are lots of new parties that crop up, of people that demand there will be a reevaluation of their former assets, and that once the currency is stabilized, they will be reimbursed in the new currency

M/iddle Class? Something with von mises

Not conservative, not socialist, he's very important for the libertarian movement

SPD advertises the workplace reform they headed, the introduction of a whole new branch of the welfare state, touted by them as an achievement, but then becomes a difficult challenge because you see a huge growth in unemployment. This si the moment their alliance with more right wing parties breaks. Right wing parties say that furthering these endeavors will make things worse, this is the end of regular parliamentary rule in the weimar republic.

The unemployed become a big voting group, the economic instability intrudes on the political system, the political response to it are a big factor