The Third Nomos of the Earth: The Decline of Western Hegemony and the Continuity of Capitalism
Carl Schmitt traced the emergence and history of the second nomos of the earth from the sixteenth century to the end of WWI. Anibal Quijano traced the history of the colonial matrix of power from the sixteenth century until today. Reading Schmitt from Quijano, this chapter recasts both stories in terms of – on the one hand – Westernization of the world (1500–2000), the emergence of inter-state de-Westernization and the drive toward multipolarity, and the counterreformation of re-Westernization to maintain unipolarity of the global order. And, on the other hand, it also traces the emergence of pluriversality and the closing of universality in the sphere of ideas and praxis of living managed by the people, neither by the State nor by consumer persuaders and digital managers of desires. Both de-Westernization and pluriversality are signs of the emergence of the third nomos of the earth under the hegemony of capitalist economy.
