,

THE UNIFIED STATE: HEGEL 653

forced to conform to wills that are not his own. How are the opponents at once free
and subject to laws they have not agreed to?
I is wrongly put. The citizen gives his consent to all the
retort that the question

which are passed in spite of his opposition, and even those

laws, including those
which punish him when he dares to break any of them. The constant will of all the
members of the state is the general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free. When
in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the people is asked is not exactly
whether it approves or rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the
general will, which is their will. Each man, in giving his vote, states his opinion on that
point; and the general will is found by counting votes. When therefore the opinion
that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was
mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so. If my particular
opinion had carried the day Ishould have achieved the opposite of what was my will;
and it is in that case that 1 should not have been free.

7 The Unified State - From Individual

Desire to Rational Self-determination:
Georg Hegel, The Philosophy of Right *
The ideal of freedom, which plays a central if This in a sense corresponds to the conception of
problematic role in the thinking of Rousseau (see the state to which contract theorists such as
preceding extract), is also themain theme of the Hobbes and Locke had subscribed - an organ-
Philosophy of Right a long and complex study of ization considered mainly as a means to provid-
political theory published in 1821 by the Ger- ing security of person and property. But civil
man philosopher G. W. E Hegel. Hegel sub- society risks degenerating, Hegel argues, because
scribed to the basic Aristotelian premise that of the conflict between particular private inter-
(as he put it) ‘the rational end of man is life in estsand the universal, rationally apprehended
1

the state’; he argued that only the state is cap- good of all. Individuals need to have the ‘singu-
able of providing the conditions for the fullest larity’ of their natural condition ‘raised to formal
human autonomy and self-determination. In the freedom and formal universality of knowing and
following set of extracts, Hegel presents the willing’. This process gives rise to the final phase
emergence of ‘ethical life’ ( Sittlichkeit ) in three of the state as ‘the actuality of concrete freedom’,
phases. First comes the family, characterized by a ‘self-dependent organism’ embodied in consti-
love and unity, where one is essentially ‘not an tutional government.
independent person, but a member’. But this The language Hegel uses can be off-putting,
cannot serve as a fully adequate model for but the central idea seems clear. The ultimate
human existence, and must give way to civil end of political life, for Hegel, is something
society, where ‘the particular person is essentially which transcends the merely private interests of
so related to other particular persons that separate individuals: ‘it is only as one of the
each . . . finds satisfaction by means of the others’. [the state’s] members that an individual has

* G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right Grundlinien der Philosophic des Rechts, 1821 ], extracts from §§ 142,
[

156-9, 182-3, 185, 187-8, 257-61, 261, 273, 279, 281, 308, 316-18. Trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1942).
1

Philosophy of Right, addition to § 75; for Aristotle’s view, see opening introduction to Part X, above.
 .

654 AUTHORITY AND THE STATE

objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical passage below indicates) he had an ambivalent
life’. But what does this come down to in prac- attitude to public opinion - a ‘repository of
tice? Hegel (elsewhere in the book) gives a genuine needs’, but at the same time easily
detailed account of the political structure he ‘infected by ignorance and perversity’. He is

favours, based on a constitutional monarchy - often characterized as having an ‘organic’ view

the ‘single individual’ (as he says below) sym- of the state, though this label is misleading if it

bolizing the ‘unity’ of the state. Perhaps because is taken to imply a conception in which all

his style can be hard to follow, Hegel has been individuality is submerged; nevertheless, Hegel
alternately championed and reviled by political often seems insufficiently concerned with the
theorists both of the right and the left. His practical safeguards needed to protect and foster
conception of monarchy is certainly not auto- the autonomy and individual freedom which his
cratic and absolutist, but (as the concluding state is supposed to realize.

E,hical life
E3
Ethical life is on the one hand it is the good become alive -
the Idea of freedom in that
the good endowed knowing and willing and actualized by
in self-consciousness with
self-conscious action - while on the other hand self-consciousness has in the ethical
realm its absolute foundation and the end which actuates its effort. This ethical life is
the concept of freedom developed into the existing world and the nature of self-
consciousness . .

The ethical substance, as containing independent self-consciousness united with its

concepts, is mind of a family and a nation.

the actual
The concept of this Idea has being only as mind, as something knowing itself and
actual, because it is the objectification of itself, the movement running through the
form of its moments. It is therefore
(A) ethical mind immediate phase - the Family. Thus substanti-
in its natural or
ality loses its unity, passes over into divisions and into the phase of relation, i.e. into

(B) Civil Society - an association of members as self-subsistent individuals in a

universality which, because of their self-subsistence, is only abstract. Their association
isbrought about by their needs, by the legal system - the means to security of person
and property - and by an external organization for attaining their particular and
common interests. The external state
(C) brought back to and welded into unity in the Constitutiot: of the State which
is

is the end and actuality of both the substantial universal order and the public life
devoted thereto.

The family

The family, as the immediate substantiality of mind, is specifically characterized by

love, which is mind’s feeling of its own unity. Hence in a family, one’s frame of mind is

to have self-consciousness of one’s individuality within this unity as the absolute

essence of oneself, with the result that one is in it not as an independent person, but as
a member.
The right which the individual enjoys on the strength of the family unity and which
is in the first place simply the individual life within this unity, takes on the form of
 . . . . . .

THE UNIFIED STATE: HEGEL 655

right (as the abstract moment of determinate individuality) only when the family
begins to dissolve. At that point those who should be family members both in their
inclination and in actuality begin to be self-subsistent persons . .

The family is completed in these three phases:

(a) marriage the form assumed by the concept of the family in

, its immediate phase;
(b) family property and capital (the external embodiment of the concept) and atten-
tion to these;
(c) the education of children and the dissolution of the family . .

Civil society

The concrete person, who is himself the object of his particular aims, is, as a totality of
wants and a mixture of caprice and physical necessity, one principle of civil society.
But the particular person is essentially so related to other particular persons that each
and finds satisfaction by means of the others, and at the same time
establishes himself
purely and simply by means of the form of universality, the second principle here . .

- an attainment conditioned
In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends
in this way by - there is formed a system of complete interdependence,
universality
wherein the livelihood, happiness and legal status of one man is interwoven with the
livelihood, happiness and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, &c„
depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured. This
system may be prima facie regarded as the external state, the state based on need, the
state as the understanding envisages it . .

Particularity by itself, given free rein in every direction to satisfy its needs, acci-
dental caprices and subjective desires, destroys itself and its substantive concept in this
process of gratification. At the same time, the satisfaction of need, necessary and
accidental alike, is accidental because it breeds new desires without end, is in thor-
oughgoing dependence on caprice and external accident, and is held in check by the
power of universality. In these contrasts and their complexities, civil society affords a
spectacle of extravagance and want as well as of the physical and ethical degeneration
common to them both . .

Individuals in their capacity as burghers in this state are private persons whose end
is their own interest. This end is mediated through the universal which thus appears as
a means to its realization. Consequently, individuals
can attain their ends only in so
far as they themselves determine their knowing, willing and acting in a universal way
and make themselves links in this chain of social connections. In these circumstances,
the interest of the Idea - an interest of which these members of civil society are as such
unconscious - lies in the process whereby their singularity and their natural condition
imposed by nature as well as of arbitrary needs,
are raised, as a result of the necessities
to formal freedom and formal universality of knowing and willing - the process
whereby their particularity is educated up to subjectivity. .

Civil society contains three moments:

(a) The mediation of need and one man’s satisfaction through his work and the
satisfaction of the needs of all others - the system of needs.
 . . .

656 AUTHORITY AND THE STATE

(b) The actuality of the universal principle of freedom therein contained - the
protection of property through the administration of justice.
(c) Provision against contingencies still lurking in systems (a) and (b), and care for
particular interests as a common interest, by means of the police and the corpor-
ation . .

The state

The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will
manifest and revealed to knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it
itself,

knows and in so far as it knows

The state exists immediately in custom, mediately
it.

in individual self-consciousness, knowledge and activity, while self-consciousness, in

virtue of its sentiment towards that state, finds in the state as its essence and the end
and product of its activity, its substantive freedom . .

The state is absolutely rational inasmuch as it is the actuality of the substantial will
which it possesses in the particular self-consciousness once that
consciousness has
been raised to consciousness of its universality. This substantial unity is an absolute
unmoved end in itself, in which freedom comes into its supreme right. On the other
hand this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to
be a member of the state.

If the state confused with

civil society, and if its specific end is laid down as the
is

and protection of property and personal freedom, then the interest of the
security
becomes the ultimate end of their association, and it follows that
individuals as such
membership of the state is something optional. But the state’s relation to the indi-
vidual is quite different from this. Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one
of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality and
an ethical life. Unification pure and simple is the true content and aim of the
individual, and the individual’s destiny is the living of a universal life. His further
particular satisfaction, activity and mode of conduct have this substantive and
universally valid life as their starting-point and their result . .

The Idea of the state

(a) has immediate actuality and is the individual state as a self-dependent organism —
the constitution or constitutional law;
(b) passes over into the relation of one state to other states - international law;
(c) is the universal Idea as a genus and as an absolute power over individual states -
the mind which gives itself its actuality in the process of world-history.

The state is the actuality of concrete freedom. But concrete freedom consists in this,
that personal individuality and its particular interests not only achieve their complete
development and gain explicit recognition for their right (as they do in the sphere of
the family and civil society) but, for one thing, they also 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 . . . The essence of the modern state is that the
universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with
 . . . .

THE UNIFIED STATE: HEGEL 657

private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate
themselves on the state, although the universal end cannot be advanced without the
personal knowledge and will of its particular members, whose own rights must be
maintained. Thus the universal must be furthered, but subjectivity on the other hand
must attain its full and living development. It is only when both these moments
subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely
organized . .

In contrast with the spheres of private rights and private welfare (the family and
civil society), the state is from one point of view an external necessity and their higher
authority; its nature is such that their laws and interests are subordinate to it and
dependent on it. On the other hand, however, it is the end immanent within them,
and its strength lies in the unity of its own universal end and aim with the particular
interest of individuals, in the fact that individuals have duties to the state in propor-
tion as they have rights against it . .

In the state everything depends on the unity of universal and particular. In the
states of antiquity, the subjective end simply coincided with the state’s will. In modern
times, however, we make claims for private judgement, private willing, and private
conscience. none of these in the modern sense; the ultimate thing
The ancients had
with them was the will of the state. Whereas under the despots of Asia the individual
had no inner life and no justification in himself, in the modern world man insists on
respect being paid to his inner life. The conjunction of duty and right has a twofold
aspect: what the state demands from us as a duty is eo ipso our right as individuals,
since the state is nothing but the articulation of the concept of freedom. The
determinations of the individual will are given an objective embodiment through
the state, and thereby they attain their truth and their actualization for the first time.
The state is the one and only prerequisite of the attainment of particular ends and
welfare . .

‘Who is to frame the constitution?’ This question seems clear but closer inspection
shows at once that it is meaningless, for it presupposes that there is no constitution
there, but only an agglomeration of atomic individuals. How an agglomeration of
individuals could acquire a constitution, whether automatically or by someone’s aid,
whether as a present or by force or by thought, it would have to be allowed to settle
for itself, since with an agglomeration the concept has nothing to do. But if the
question presupposes an already existent constitution, then it is not about framing,
but only about altering the constitution, and the very presupposition of a constitution
directly implies that its alteration may come about only by constitutional means. In
any case, however, it is absolutely essential that the constitution should not be
regarded as something made, even though it has come into being in time. It must
be treated rather as something simply existent in and by itself, as divine therefore, and
constant, and so as exalted above the sphere of things that are made . .

Sovereignty. . . comes into existence only as subjectivity sure of itself, as the will’s
abstract and to that extent ungrounded self-determination in which finality of
decision is rooted. This is the strictly individual aspect of the state, and in virtue of
which alone is the state one. The truth of subjectivity, however, is attained only in a

This paragraph is from the ‘Additions’ (based on notes from Hegel’s lectures) which Hegel’s editor
included in a later (1833) edition of the Philosophy of Right.
 . . . .

658 AUTHORITY AND THE STATE

subject, and the truth of personality only in a person Hence this absolutely decisive . . .

moment of the whole is not individuality in general, but a single individual, the
monarch . .

The usual sense in which men have recently begun to speak of the ‘sovereignty of
the people’
is that it is something opposed to the sovereignty existent in the monarch.

So opposed to the sovereignty of the monarch, the sovereignty of the people is one of
the confused notions based on the wild idea of the ‘people’. Taken without its
monarch and the articulation of the whole which is the indispensable and direct
concomitant of monarchy, the people is a formless mass and no longer a state. It lacks
every one of those determinate characteristics - sovereignty, government, judges,
magistrates, class-divisions, etc. — which are to be found only in a whole which is

inwardly organized . .

An elective monarchy seems of course to be the most natural idea, i.e. the idea
which superficial thinking finds handiest. Because it is the concerns and interests of
his people for which a monarch has to provide, so the argument runs, it must be left
to the people to entrust with its welfare whomsoever it pleases, and only with the
grant of this trust does his right to rule arise. This view, like the notion of the monarch
as the highest executive official in the state, or the notion of a contractual relation
between him and his people, etc., etc., is grounded on the will interpreted as the
whim, opinion and caprice of the many. A will of this character counts as the first
thing in civil society. or rather it tries to count as the only thing there, but it is not
. .

the guiding principle of the family, still less of the state, and in short it stands opposed
to the idea of ethical life . .

To hold that every single person should share in deliberating and deciding on
political matters of general concern on the ground that all individuals are members
of the concerns are their concerns, and that it is their right that what is
state, that its

done should be done with their knowledge and volition, is tantamount to a proposal to
put the democratic element without any rational form into the organism of the state,
although it is only in virtue of the possession of such a form that the state is an organism
at all. . . . The concrete state is the whole, articulated into its particular groups. The
member of a state is a member of such a group, i.e. of a social class, and it is only as

characterized in this objective way that he comes under consideration when we are
dealing with the state. His mere character as universal implies that he is at one and the
same time both a private person and also a thinking consciousness, a will which wills
the universal. This consciousness and will, however, lose their emptiness and acquire a
content and a living actuality only when they are filled with particularity, and particu-
larity means determinacy as particular and a particular class status . . . Hence the single
person attains his actual and living destiny for universality only when he becomes a
member of a corporation, a society, etc., and thereby it becomes open to him, on the
strength of his skill, to enter any class for which he is qualified . .

The formal subjective freedom of individuals consists in their having and express-
ing their own private judgements, opinions and recommendations on affairs of state.
This freedom is what is called ‘public opinion’, in which
collectively manifested as
what is absolutely universal, the substantive
and the true, is linked with its opposite,
the purely particular and private opinions of the many. Public opinion as it exists is
thus a standing self-contradiction, knowledge as appearance, the essential just as
directly present as the inessential.
 PROPERTY, LABOUR, ALIENATION: MARX AND ENGELS 659

Public opinion, therefore, is a repository not only of the genuine needs and correct
tendencies of common life, but also, in the form of common sense (i.e. all-pervasive
fundamental ethical principles disguised as prejudices), of the eternal, substantive
principles of justice, the true content and result of legislation, the whole constitution,
and the general position of the state. At the same time, when this inner truth emerges
into consciousness and, embodied in general maxims, enters representative thinking -
whether it be there on its own account or in support of concrete arguments about felt

wants, public affairs, the organization of the state, and relations of parties within it -
becomes infected by all the accidents of opinion, by its ignorance and perversity,
it

by its mistakes and falsity of judgement. Since in considering such opinion we have

todo with the consciousness of an insight and conviction peculiarly one’s own, the
more peculiarly one’s own an opinion may be the worse its content is, because the
bad is that which is wholly private and personal in its content; the rational, on the
other hand, is the absolutely universal . . . Public opinion therefore deserves to be as
much respected as despised - despised for its concrete expression and for the concrete
consciousness it expresses, respected for its essential basis, a basis which only glim-
mers more or less dimly in that concrete expression.

8 Property, Labour and Alienation: Karl Marx

and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology *
The influence of Hegel’s style (see preceding ex- society. The masses are forced to work in ways
tract) is apparent in our next passage, written in which ‘fix’them in a particular role, restricting
the middle of the nineteenth century by the their freedom, and robbing their lives of meaning.
founders of Communism, Marx and Engels. Alienation in turn generates the pressures for the
Their account begins, like Hegel’s, with an analy- revolution of the proletariat, in which the ‘prop-
sis of the family; but so farfrom being a form of ertyless workers’, driven to ever greater poverty by
‘ethical life’, the family for Marx and Engels turns the forces of capitalist competition, will rise up
out to harbour a ‘latent slavery’, where the wife and take power, and appropriate the means of
and children are the slaves of the husband. This production.
slavery is linked to the ‘power of disposing the What happens after the revolution? Marx and
labour-power of others’, and the argument is then Engels describe their ‘communist’ society in lyr-
generalized to show how the whole of society is ical terms, as ‘making it possible for me to hunt
structured in ways which reflect the unequal dis- in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle
tribution of power. The division of labour, which in the evening, criticize after dinner. .. without
forces people to work exclusively at a particular ever becoming hunter, fisherman, cowherd or
task to gain their livelihood, means that ‘man’s A spectacular improvement in economic
critic’.

own deed becomes an alien power opposed to and social conditions was supposed to result
him, which enslaves him instead of being con- from the abolition of capitalist exploitation,
trolled by him’. This ‘alienation’ brought about by and the substitution of common ownership for
the operation of the economic system is forMarx private property. The enormous influence
and Engels the key to the malaise of modern exerted by Marx’s thought in the twentieth

* K. Marx and F. Engels, Die deutsche Ideologic [The German Ideology, composed 1845—6; first published
1932], extracts from Part I, §A, §B, §D. Trans. S. Ryazanskaya (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1965),
pp. 44-8, 61, 82-7; with omissions and minor modifications.