Compiled in 2002, it is here, and I am sorry to say that I have (so far) read none of these works.
Pointer from Amy Willis.
Mingardi writes,
Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political (University of Chicago Press, 1996, reprint) regarded by Leo Strauss as “an inquiry into the ‘order of human things,'” is fundamental. Schmitt conceptualizes the “political” in terms of a primordial and definitive antithesis between “friend” and “enemy” (“foe”). The very existence of the state rests on this dichotomy. This means that, far more than being a third, “impartial” actor, the state is always the expression of a particular group of individuals. Schmitt teaches that no political order can be conceived as universal, but always and only as a form that originates from a concrete partiality. Against the manipulated justification of government by law, Schmitt’s realism demonstrates how, in reality, there are no abstract institutions, but only clusters of men counterposed as “friends” and “enemies.”
This is what my father (no libertarian) always tried to impress upon me. Politics is about conflict. The “public good” is a woolly concept. So, for that matter is “the state.” Many of the other books on Mingardi’s list appear to treat “the state” as if it were a single individual, rather than an arena through which various individuals and groups engage in conflict.
If you have note read “The State” by de Jasay (free at Liberty Fund, and on their “Portable Library” disc) we must “shocked, shocked.”
I am a bit confused here. If we say that the state is an “arena” for conflict, that seems pretty impartial.
Clearly a legislature is composed of different partisan groups battling for control. But what about a judge? In a way, the judge is just imposing the result of whatever the legislature decides but people often approach a legal battle as if the judge were an impartial arbitrator, and the courtroom is an “arena”.
To me, the arena analogy puts the government institutions in a place of impartiality. Lets even go back to the legislature. Clearly it is composed of partisan battles, but what about the rules of the game. Is the constitution an impartial third party or is it the manifestation of someone’s attempt to impose their will?