HEGEL

In civil society, a sphere of social interaction corresponds to economic life or the system of
needs. (civil society respond to the system of needs of the people e.g. those organizations that
has the agenda in human rights, environment etc.) Civil society engages individuals as bearers
of Abstract Rights, as owners of property and bearers of legal rights. In civil society, individuals
relate to one another in universal terms (through the civil society or the organization people can
understand each other especially those who have the same agenda).

the state is the actuality of concrete freedom, but that concrete freedom requires personal
individuality receive their own development and recognition. Hegel say that individuals must pass
over of their own accord into the interest of the universal, and, for another thing, they know and
will the universal; they even recognize it as their own substantive mind; they take it as their end
and aim and are active in its pursuit This means that for Hegel the state is the result of the
dialectical relationship between the universal and the particular wills of individuals.
Hegel identifies that this mass of individuals embodies a dual moment. On the one hand they
represent the extreme of individuality as well as the extreme of universality. Hegel says that they
can attain their right in both of these respects only in so far as they have actuality both as private
and as substantial persons. As individuals they earn their right through their family and civil
society, and they discover their right in regards to universality by discovering their essential self-
consciousness in institutions as that universal aspect of their particular interests which has being
in itself..and by obtaining through these institutions an occupation and activity directed towards
a universal end.
The relationship between the state and different spheres of civil society is by Hegel as being both
An external necessity and. their immanent end. Hegel advances this thought by discussing
the idea of rights and duties. For Hegel duty and rights are a package deal, and are not something
which can be separated apart from one another. Hegel says that my obligation towards the
substantial is at the same time the existence of my particular freedom; that is, duty and right are
united within the state in one and the same relation. Hegel argues that a person must, by acting
within the state, gain rights so that their individual, particular interests become united with the
universal interest. Hegel does not believe that the particular interest must be totally subservient
to the universal, but that on the contrary, they should be harmonized with the universal so that
both they themselves and the universal are preserved.
For Hegel, the political disposition can form by the various organisms of the state. Hegel says that
these different aspects are accordingly the various powers [within the state] with their
corresponding tasks and functions through which the universal continually produces itself.(Hegel,
2003: 290) Hegel calls this organism the political constitution. Hegel ends this section by saying
that the political constitution is first, the organization of the state and the process of its organic
life with reference to itself. (Hegel, 2003: 304) and secondly it is the state in its individuality is an
exclusive unit which accordingly has relations with others; it thereby turns its differentiation
outwards and, in accordance with this determination, posits its existing differences within itself in
their ideality. The dialectical relationship is very important for the understanding of what Hegel
say in how civil society was different from the state, due to its focus on the particular rather than
the universal.
civil society is subsumed under the category of ethical life. Ethical life consists in three
fundamental moments: the family (immediate unity); civil society(difference); and the state (unity-
in-difference)
What stands out in Hegel's account of civil society as the sphere of self-regarding aims is its
relation to historical developments. As a differentiated and institutionalised sphere, civil society is
the child of the modern world:
The creation of civil society is the achievement of the modern world which has for the first time
given all determinations of the Idea their due.
A distinction has to be made here between the principle of civil society as a sphere of universal
egoism, which exists in every society, and its fully developed institutionalisation into a distinct and
differentiated social sphere. It is the latter which is typical of modern societies, where individual
self-interest receives legitimisation and is emancipated from the religious and ethico-political
considerations which until then had hampered the free play of individual interests to their full
extent.
Hegel's definition of civil society follows the classical economists' model of the free market, and
Hegel's early acquaintance with Steuart and Smith is evident in this definition:
Civil society - an association of members as self-subsistent individuals in a universality which,
because of their self-subsistence, is only abstract. Their association is brought about by their
needs, by the legal system - the means to security of person and property - and by an external
organisation for attaining their particular and common interests.

here is Marx describing civil society, he says The family and civil society are elements of the
state. The material of the state is divided amongst them through circumstances, caprice, and
personal choice of vocation. The citizens of the state are members of families and of civil society.
(Marx, 1843)
civil society is the battlefield of private interest