Hayek the Schmittian: contextualising Cristi's account of Hayek's decisionism in the age of global wealth inequality

Abstract

DRAFT-FORTHCOMING IN GRIFFITH LAW REVIEW 2015 24(4) 687-06 HAYEK THE SCHMITTIAN Contextualising Cristi's Account of Hayek's Decisionism in the Age of Global Wealth Inequality  That capitalism, in all its variants, produces material inequality is beyond dispute. What is less clear, however, is not only whether Hayek's 'equality of opportunities' is immune to the inegalitarian trend, but also whether liberalism itself is the occult source of this outcome. This paper delves into this by offering a post-national contextualisation and partial critique of Renato Cristi's 1984 and 1998 scholarship on Hayek's decisionism. The aim is to investigate the relationship between liberal thought and wealth inequality in light of the global-order project and crisis in democratic decision-making procedures. This will uncover a clear zone of interaction between Hayek's notion of legal liberty and Schmitt's sovereignty that was not spotted by Cristi and that will shed new light on the dehumanising and inegalitarian essence of the universalisation of liberalism and its notion of 'civilised economy'. Under conditions of superficial political equality, another sphere in which substantial inequalities prevail will dominate politics.-Carl Schmitt 1 The Rule of Law produces economic inequality.-Friedrich Hayek 2 Draw a distinction. Call it the first distinction. Call the space in which it is drawn the space severed or cloven by the distinction.