Civil Society

1. Conceptual innovation

Previously ‘civil society’ and its cognates (e.g. societas civilis, la société civile) used interchangeably with ‘political society’

Hegel separates civil society from political society (the state)

Civil society = Economic and social sphere within which individuals pursue particular and common interests without participating in political affairs

Made up of institutions and forms of association that perform a mediating function in that they overcome the individualism that otherwise characterises civil society

Move from particularity to universality

2. Particularity and Universality

Particularity must be accommodated within the modern form of ethical life:

The right of individuals to their particularity is … contained in ethical subjectivity, for particularity is the mode of outward appearance in which the ethical exists. (§ 154)

Ethical life would remain an abstraction in the absence of individuals who are motivated to act in accordance with its demands and thereby sustain (and in this sense produce) it

One way in which individuals are motivated to do this is by experiencing the satisfaction of their particularity

Civil society as ‘the external state’ (§ 183)

Civil society marks the point at which the family dissolves with

(1) The independence of the children who go on to form their own families

(2) The entry of relevant family members into ‘the system of needs’ with the aim of providing through acts of labour, production and exchange the goods that the family consumes

But civil society tears the individual away from family ties, alienates the members of the family from one another, and recognizes them as self-sufficient persons … and subjects the existence of the whole family to dependence on civil society and to contingency. Thus, the individual becomes a son of civil society, which has as many claims upon him as he has rights in relation to it. (§ 238)

The relations of these members of independent families, as ‘self-sufficient concrete persons’, to each other are of ‘an external kind’ (§ 181)

Given this ‘external’ relation, the identity of the particular (the family member) and the universal (the family as a whole) found at the first stage of ethical life is lost

Hegel therefore describes civil society as ‘the stage of difference’ and ‘the loss of ethical life’ (§ 181)

His account of civil society is one in which the purely ‘external’ relation between the particular and the universal is progressively overcome (though perhaps not completely so)

(1) ‘The concrete person, who as a particular person, as a totality of needs and a mixture of natural necessity and arbitrariness, is his own end’

The individual as a self-interested agent motivated by his or her own natural and artificial needs and who is capable of choosing between them and the means of satisfying them

(2) The universal in the form of the terms of social cooperation (embodied in laws, rights, and such practices as the payment of taxes etc.)

This universal is generated by individuals (with similar degrees of economic and social power?) seeking to meet their needs in a condition of human interdependence

This condition of human interdependence governed by norms of action is the ‘system of needs’

The selfish end in its actualization, conditioned in this way by universality, establishes a system of all-round interdependence, so that the subsistence and welfare of the individual and his rightful existence are interwoven with, and grounded on, the subsistence, welfare, and rights of all, and have actuality and security only in this context. (§ 183)

The division of labour ‘makes the dependence and reciprocity of human beings in the satisfaction of their … needs complete and entirely necessary’. (§ 198)

‘Invisible hand’ mode of explanation à la Adam Smith: I cannot pursue my own interests and welfare without unintentionally furthering the interests and welfare of others

In this dependence and reciprocity of work and the satisfaction of needs, subjective selfishness turns into a contribution towards the satisfaction of the needs of everyone else. By a dialectical movement, the particular is mediated by the universal so that each individual, in earning, producing, and enjoying on his own account, thereby earns and produces for the enjoyment of others. (§ 199)

Civil society as ‘the state of necessity’ (§ 183)

Individuals are constrained to behave in certain ways even if they are not inclined to do so

They conceive of these constraints (the terms of social cooperation) as some kind of necessary evil and in purely instrumental terms

Consequently, their identification with these constraints is weak – if they could satisfy their needs in other ways, they would no longer obey these constraints

These constraints are in this respect ‘alien’ or ‘external’ to their own wills

The unity of particularity and individuality ‘is present not as freedom, but as the necessity whereby the particular must rise to the form of universality and seek and find its subsistence in this form’. (§ 186)

Liberation from nature

Civil society enables human beings to become conscious of their freedom though

(1) The development of particularity

Human needs are malleable and capable of indefinite expansion, and they are in this sense not purely natural ones

Even a basic human need (e.g. for clothing or shelter) can be satisfied in a variety of ways, becoming ever more particularized along with the means of satisfying it

On the basis of the means available to satisfy their needs, individuals develop different representations of what would satisfy a particular need

No longer a matter of need as such but of opinion concerning needs

(2) Being subject to the constraints imposed upon them by civil society

Human beings learn to make their thoughts and actions conform to certain norms and to exercise the reflection and self-discipline that are conditions of free, rational agency

One must produce or sell goods that others actually want, obey certain social conventions that are integral to the effective functioning of the system of needs, such as having meals at specific times of the day, etc.

In this way, ‘subjectivity is educated in its particularity’ towards universality (§ 187)

Thus although ‘civil society affords a spectacle of extravagance and misery as well as of the physical and ethical corruption common to both’ (§ 185), it has a positive function

This function is to lead people to adopt a more universalistic standpoint which, at the same time, accords with the principle of subjective freedom

To suppress this principle would be to weaken the state

Earlier forms of the state were doomed to perish because:

[T]he simple principle on which they were still based lacked the truly infinite power which resides solely in that unity which allows the opposition [between universality and particularity, DJ] within reason to develop to its full strength, and has overcome it so as to preserve itself within it and wholly contain it within itself. (§ 185R)

By contrast

The principle of modern states has enormous strength and depth because it allows the principle of subjectivity to attain fulfilment in the self-sufficient extreme of personal particularity, while at the same time bringing it back to substantial unity and so preserving this unity in the principle of subjectivity itself. (§ 260)

Hegel clearly wants to accommodate subjective freedom and particularity in the modern state

Is he able to do so?

What about the ‘spectacle of … misery as well as … physical and ethical corruption’ associated with poverty?

3. The institutions of civil society (freedom institutionally mediated)

(1) Estates (not a socio-economic class in Marxist sense)

Members of an estate united by shared way of life and values, not by a specific relation to the means of production

(i) ‘Substantial or immediate’ estate - includes land-owning nobility and peasantry

United by unreflective, traditional form of life based on agriculture and ‘the family relationship and on trust’ (§ 203) - essentially pre-modern in its attitudes and values

Hegel recognises, however, the increasingly capitalist nature of agricultural production (cf. § 203A)

(ii) The ‘reflecting or formal’ estate or ‘estate of trade and industry’

Includes both employers and employees as members of business, professional or trade associations (corporations)

Associated with urban middle class made up of artisans, manufacturers and merchants, and thus with civil society in particular

It members are reflective and independent (and thus ‘modern’)

Natural products are treated only as raw materials that must be adapted to human purposes

This requires personal initiative and planning

An instrumental form of rationality concerned with the process and organisation of production (and exchange) is thereby fostered

(iii) The ‘universal’ estate

Bureaucracy and high-ranking state officials (thus associated with political state)

Concerned with common good or interest as opposed to particular interests of individuals or social groups

In accordance with the principle of subjective freedom, membership of an estate ought to be a matter of free choice so that

… what happens in this sphere through inner necessity is at the same time mediated by the arbitrary will, and for the subjective consciousness, it has the shape of being the product of its own will. (§ 206)

Such choice depends on skills, qualifications etc. that are themselves conditioned by nature and access to resources (necessity) (cf. § 200)

In entering an estate, an individual achieves a determinate ethical identity and status that is recognised by others, while being provided with a determinate context in which to act morally (§ 207)

The ‘abstract’ nature of right and the ‘formal’ nature of morality are thus overcome

(2) The legal system

Concerned with administering and promulgating legal code, thereby actualising abstract right

Institutions concerned with welfare

(3) The Police (or Public Authority)

An organisation that aims at overcoming the contingency that may otherwise characterise the satisfaction of needs, so as to meet the demand ‘that particular welfare should be treated as a right and duly actualized’. (§ 230)

It is therefore concerned not only with law enforcement, prevention of crime and public order (§§ 232-234) but also:

Provision of ‘public’ goods, especially infrastructure (§ 235, § 236A)

Regulation of commerce and industry, including price controls and consumer protection (§ 236)

Public health (§ 236A, § 239A)

Education (§ 239)

Welfare provision, oversight of the poor, social control (§§ 240-241)

(4) Corporation

Legally recognised small business, professional or trade associations characteristic of ‘the estate of trade and industry’

In the corporation, as in the family, the individual becomes the member of a greater whole, so that ‘the ethical returns to civil society as an immanent principle’ (§ 249)

The relation of particularity to universality is no longer an ‘external’ one

The corporation performs the following main ethical functions:

(i) Accords public recognition to the particular skills, capabilities and dispositions of people who are deemed qualified to become members – it is a source of ‘honour’

Individuals thereby achieve a determinate ethical identity and status

(ii) Protects its members’ livelihood, e.g., by supporting them and their families in times of need due to illness or underemployment

In this way, the individual’s sense of self-sufficiency is maintained, since such support is connected with his own (previous and possibly future) self-activity

This support also does not depend on the arbitrary wills of others

Not being a member of a corporation therefore has important negative ethical implications:

If the individual is not a member of a legally recognized corporation (and it is only through legal recognition that a community becomes a corporation), he is without the honour of belonging to an estate, his isolation reduces him to the selfish aspect of his trade, and his livelihood and satisfaction lack stability. (§ 253R)

4. Poverty

Since membership of a corporation depends on having an officially recognised skill or profession, unskilled workers as well as the unemployed necessarily fall outside this institution

The poor

(1) Suffer material and ‘spiritual’ deprivation (objective aspect)

Hegel recognizes that what counts as deprivation depends on the wealth of a particular society - poverty is relative

Civil society produces certain expectations in its members regarding their needs that cannot be met in the case of some of them

… despite an excess of wealth, civil society is not wealthy enough. (§244)

(2) Are deprived of the recognition that is the source of a sense of honour (subjective aspect)

Poverty has the tendency to produce a rabble mentality characterised by rebellion, idleness, loss of sense of shame or integrity, etc. (§ 244)

The very rich can also develop a rabble mentality, because they are not subject to the ethical constraints generated by membership of a corporation

(3) Lack any political representation – each corporation elects representatives who then form part of the legislative assembly (estates assembly) in third part of PR

Possible solutions and problems with them

S: Acts of charity

P: Make welfare into something contingent, whereas ‘public conditions should be regarded as all the more perfect the less there is left for the individual to do by himself in the light of his own particular opinion’. (§ 242R)

S: Welfare provision funded through taxation or some other means

P: The basic needs of the poor would be satisfied in such a way that it was not a result of their own activity and could not, therefore, be a source of ‘honour’ for them

S: The poor could be provided with work

P: This would result in overproduction which is itself a cause of unemployment and thus of poverty

(Hegel’s awareness of economic cycles and periodic crises – Does not consider Keynesian solution of government funding of public works)

S: Colonisation – Provides a new market for goods and thus allows production levels to be increased and some people to begin a new life in the colonised lands

(Hegel’s awareness of forces driving imperialism)

P: This is not something that could be endlessly repeated and therefore provides only temporary solution

Threats to ethical life posed by the existence of poverty:

• The disposition required of its members is replaced by a rabble mentality and lack of identification with the objective aspects of ethical life

• This problem is to be explained in terms of objective conditions – it is not, therefore, a matter of an individual’s having failed to comprehend the rationality of the modern state

• Rather, for the individual concerned the modern state is irrational in so far as it fails to actualise the right of subjective freedom

• Poverty and the rabble mentality that it generates suggest that there are limits to which freedom can be mediated by, and realised through, institutions

• Right is a human construct, and it therefore appears to be a matter of how things are organised rather than how they must be

No one can assert a right against nature, but within the conditions of society hardship at once assumes the form of a wrong inflicted on this or that class. The important question of how poverty can be remedied is one which agitates and torments modern societies especially. (§ 244A)