Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Karl Marx, 1843
(c) The Legislature
§ 298. The legislature is concerned (a) with the laws as such in so far as they require fresh and extended determination; and (b) with the content of home affairs affecting the entire state (a very general expression). The legislature is itself a part of the constitution which is presupposed by it and to that extent lies absolutely outside the sphere directly determined by it; nonetheless, the constitution becomes progressively more mature in the course of the further elaboration of the laws and the advancing character of the universal business of government.
Above all it is noteworthy that Hegel emphasises the way in which
the legislature is itself a part of the constitution which is
presupposed by it and lies absolutely outside the sphere directly
determined by it, since he had made this statement neither of
the Crown nor of the Executive, for both of which it is equally
true. But only with the Legislature does Hegel construct the
constitution in its entirety, and thus he is unable to presuppose
it. However, we recognise his profundity precisely in the way
he always begins with and accentuates the antithetical character
of the determinate elements (as they exist in our states).
The legislature is itself a part of the constitution which lies
absolutely outside the sphere directly determined by it. But
the constitution is certainly not self-generating. The laws which
'require fresh and extended determination' must have received
formulation. A legislature must exist or have existed before
and outside of the constitution. There must exist a legislature
outside of the actual empirical, established legislature. But,
Hegel will answer, we presuppose an existing state. Hegel, however,
is a philosopher of right, and develops the generic idea of the
state [die Staatsgattung]. He is not allowed
to measure the idea by what exists; he must measure what exists
by the idea.
The collision is simple. The legislature is the power which is
to organise the universal. it is the power of the constitution.
It extends beyond the constitution.
On the other hand, however, the legislature is a constitutional
power. Thus it is subsumed under the constitution. The constitution
is law for the legislature. It has given laws to the legislature
and continues to do so. The legislature is only legislature within
the constitution, and the constitution would stand hors de
loi if it stood outside the legislature. Voilà la
collision! In recent French history much nibbling away
[at the constitution] has occurred.
How does Hegel resolve this antinomy?
First of all it is said that the constitution is presupposed by
the legislature and to that extent it lies absolutely outside
the sphere directly determined by it. 'Nonetheless' -
nonetheless in the course of the further elaboration of
the laws and the advancing character of the universal business
of government it becomes progressively more mature.
That is to say, then: directly, the constitution lies outside
the sphere of the legislature; indirectly, however, the legislature
modifies the constitution. The legislature does in an indirect
way what it neither can nor may do in a direct way. It picks
the constitution apart enti détail, since it cannot
alter it en gros. It does by virtue of the nature of things
and circumstances what according to the constitution it was not
supposed to do. it does materially and in fact what it does not
do formally, legally, or constitutionally.
With that, Hegel has not resolved the antinomy; he has simply
transformed it into another antinomy. He has placed the real
effect of the legislature, its constitutional effect, in contradiction
with its constitutionally determined character. The opposition
between constitution and legislature remains. Hegel has defined
the factual and the legal action of the legislature as a contradiction
- the contradiction between what the legislature should be and
what it really is, between what it believes itself to be doing
and what it really does.
How call Hegel present this contradiction as the truth? 'The
advancing character of the 'universal business of government'
enlightens us just as little, for it is precisely this advancing
character which needs explanation.
In the Addition [to this paragraph] Hegel contributes hardly anything
to the solution of these problems. He does, however, bring them
more into focus:
The constitution must in and by itself be the fixed and recognised
ground on which the legislature stands, and for this reason it
must not first be constructed. Thus the constitution is, but
just as essentially it becomes, i.e., it advances and matures.
This advance is an alteration which is imperceptible and which
lacks the form of alteration.
That is to say, according to the law (illusion) the constitution
is, but according to reality (truth) it becomes. According
to its determinate character the constitution is unalterable;
but it really is changed, only this change is unconscious and
lacks the form of alteration. The appearance contradicts the
essence. The appearance is the conscious law of the constitution,
and the essence is its unconscious law, which contradicts the
other. What is in the nature of the thing is not found in the
law. Rather, the opposite is in the law.
Is it the fact, then, that in the state - which, according to
Hegel, is the highest existence of freedom, the existence of self-conscious
reason - not law, the existence of freedom, but rather blind natural
necessity governs? And if the law of the thing is recognised
as contradicting the legal definition, why not acknowledge the
law of the thing, in this case reason, ,is the law of the state?
And how then consciously retain this dualism? Hegel wants always
to present the state as the actualisation of free mind; however,
re vera he resolves all difficult conflicts through a natural
necessity which is the antithesis of freedom. Thus, the transition
of particular interest into universal interest is not a conscious
law of the state, but is mediated through chance and ratified
contrary to consciousness. And in the state Hegel
wants everywhere the realisation of free will! (Here we see Hegel's
substantial viewpoint.)
Hegel uses as examples to illustrate the gradual alteration of
the constitution the conversion of the private wealth of the German
princes and their families into state property, and the conversion
of the German emperors' personal administration of justice into
an administration through delegates. His choice of examples is
unfortunate. in the first case, for instance, the transition happened
only in such a way that all state property was transformed into
royal private property.
Moreover, these changes are particular. Certainly, entire state
constitutions have changed such that as new requirements gradually
arose the old broke down; but for the new constitution a real
revolution was always necessity.
Hence the advance from one state of affairs to another, Hegel
concluded [in the Addition], is tranquil in appearance and unnoticed.
In this way a constitution changes over a long period of time
into something quite different from what it was originally.
The category of gradual transition is, first of all, historically
false; and secondly, it explains nothing.
In order not only that the constitution be altered, thus that
this illusory appearance not be in the end forcefully shattered,
but also that man do consciously what he is otherwise forced to
do unconsciously by the nature of the thing, it is necessary that
the movement of the constitution, that progress, be made the principle
of the constitution, thus that the real corner stone of the constitution,
the people, be made the principle of the constitution. Progress
itself is then the constitution.
Should the constitution itself, therefore, belong within the domain
of the legislature? This question can be posed only (1) if the
political state exists as the pure formalism of the actual state,
if the political state is a domain apart, if the political state
exists as constitution; (2) if the legislature is of a source
different than the executive etc.
The legislature produced the French Revolution. In general, when
it has appeared in its special capacity .is the ruling element,
the legislature has produced the great organic, universal revolutions.
It has not attacked the constitution, but a particular antiquated
constitution, precisely because the legislature was the representative
of the people, i.e., of the species-will [des Gattungswillens].
The executive, on the other hand, produced the small, retrograde
revolutions, the reactions. It revolted not against an old constitution
in favour of a new one, but against the constitution as such, precisely
because the executive was the representative of the particular
will, subjective caprice, the magical part of the will.
Posed correctly, the question is simply this: Does a people have
the right to give itself a new constitution? The answer must
be an unqualified 'yes!' because the constitution becomes a practical
illusion the moment it ceases to be a true expression of the people's
will.
The collision between the constitution and the legislature is
nothing ignore than a conflict of the constitution with itself,
a contradiction in the concept of the constitution.
The constitution is nothing more than an accommodation between
the political and non-political state; hence it is necessarily
in itself a treaty between essentially heterogeneous powers.
Here, then, it is impossible for the law to declare that one of
these powers, which is a part of the constitution, is to have
the right to modify the constitution itself, which is the whole.
In so far as we speak of the constitution as a particular thing,
however, it must be considered a part of the whole.
In so far as the constitution is understood to be the universal
and fundamental determinations of the rational will, then clearly
every people (state) presupposes this and must form it to its
political credo. Actually, this is a matter of knowledge rather
than of will. The will of a people can no more exceed the laws
of reason than can the will of an individual. In the case of
an irrational people one cannot speak at all of a rational organisation
of the state. In any case, here in the philosophy of right we
are concerned with the species-will.
The legislature does not make the law, it merely discovers and
formulates it.
The resolution of this conflict has been attempted by differentiating
between assemblée constituante and assemblée
constituée.
§ 299. Legislative business (the concerns of the
legislature) is more precisely determined in relation to private
individuals, under these two heads: (a) provision by the state
for their well being and happiness, and [b] the exaction of services
from them. The former comprises the laws dealing with all sorts
of private rights, the rights of communities, Corporations, and
organisations affecting the entire state, and further it indirectly
(see § 298) comprises the whole of the constitution.
As for the services to be exacted, it is only if these are reduced
to terms of money, the really existent and universal value of
both things and services, that they can be fixed justly and at
the same time in such a way that any particular tasks and services
which an individual may perform come to be mediated through his
own arbitrary will.
Concerning this determination of the legislature's business, Hegel
himself notes, in the Remark to this paragraph:
The proper object of universal legislation may be distinguished
in a general way from the proper function of administrative officials
or of some kind of state regulation, in that the content of the
former is wholly universal, i.e., determinate laws, while it is
what is particular in content which falls to the latter, together
with ways and means of enforcing the law. This distinction, however,
is not a hard and fast one, because a law, by being a law, is
ab initio something more than a mere command in general
terms (such as 'Thou shalt not kill'. . . ).
A law must in itself be something determinate, but the more
determinate it is, the more readily are its terms capable of being
carried out as they stand. At the same time, however, to give
to laws such a fully detailed determinacy would give them empirical
features subject inevitably to alteration in the course of their
being actually carried out, and this would contravene their character
as laws. The organic unity of the powers of the state itself
implies that it is one single mind which both firmly establishes
the universal and also brings it into its determinate actuality
and carries it out.
But it is precisely this organic unity which Hegel has failed
to construct. The various powers each have a different principle,
although at the same time they are all equally real. To take
refuge from their real conflict in an imaginary organic unity,
instead of developing the various powers as moments of an organic
unity, is therefore an empty, mystical evasion.
The first unresolved collision was that between the constitution
as a whole and the legislature. The second is that between the
legislature and the executive, i.e., between the law and its execution.
The second determination found in this paragraph [§ 299]
is that the only service the state exacts from individuals is
money.
The reasons Hegel gives for this are:
1. money is the really existent and universal value of both things and services;
2. the services to be exacted can be fixed justly only by means of this reduction;
3. only in this way can the services be fixed in such a way that the particular tasks and services which an individual may perform conic to be mediated through his own arbitrary will. Hegel notes in the Remark [to this paragraph]:
ad. 1. In the state it may happen, to begin with,
that the numerous aptitudes, possessions, pursuits, and talents
of its members, together with the infinitely varied richness of
life intrinsic to these - all of which are at the same time linked
with their owner's mentality - are not subject to direct levy
by the state. It lays claim only to a single form of riches,
namely money. (Services requisitioned for the defence of the state
in war arise for the first time in connection with the duty considered
in the next sub-division of this book.) We shall consider
personal duty with regard to the military only later - not because
of the following sub-division, but for other reasons.
In fact, however, money is not one particular type of wealth amongst
others, but the universal form of all types so far as they are
expressed in an external embodiment and so can be taken as 'things'.
In our day, it continues in the Addition, the
state purchases what it requires.
ad 2. Only by being translated into terms of this extreme culmination of externality (sc. wherein riches are transformed into the externality of existence, in which they can be grasped as an object) can services exacted by the state be fixed quantitatively and so justly and equitably.
The Addition reads: By means of money, however, the justice of equality can be achieved much more efficiently. Otherwise, if assessment depended on concrete ability, a talented man would be more heavily taxed than an untalented one.
ad 3. In Plato's Republic, the Guardians are left to allot individuals to their particular classes and impose on them their particular tasks ... Under the feudal monarchies the services required from vassals were equally indeterminate, but they had also to serve in their particular capacity, e.g. as judges. The same particular character pertains to tasks imposed in the East and in Egypt in connection with colossal architectural undertakings, and so forth. In these circumstances the principle of subjective freedom is lacking, i.e., the principle that the individual's substantive activity - which in any case becomes something particular in content in services like those mentioned - shall be mediated through his particular volition. This is a right which can be secured only when the demand for service takes the form of a demand for something of universal value, and it is this right which has brought with it this conversion of the state's demands into demands for cash.
The Addition reads:
In our day, the state purchases what it requires. This may at first sight seem ail abstract,
heartless, and dead state of affairs, and for the state to be satisfied with indirect services may also look like decadence in the state. But the principle of the modern state requires
that the whole of an individual's activity shall be mediated through his Will ... But nowadays respect for subjective freedom is publicly recognised precisely in the fact that the state lays hold of a man only by that which is capable of being held.
Do what you want, pay what you must.
The beginning of the Addition reads:
The two sides of the constitution bear respectively on the rights
and the services of individuals. Services are now almost entirely
reduced to money payments, and military service is now almost
the only personal one exacted.
§300. In the legislature as a whole the other powers are the first two moments which are effective, (i) the monarchy as that to which ultimate decisions belong: (ii) the executive as the advisory body since it is the moment possessed of [a] a concrete knowledge and oversight of the whole state in its numerous facets and the actual principles firmly established within it, and [b] a knowledge in particular of what the state's power needs. The last moment in the legislature is the Estates.
The monarchy and the executive are - the legislature. if, however, the legislature is the whole, then the monarchy and the executive must accordingly be moments of the legislature. The supervening Estates are the legislature merely, or the legislature in distinction from the monarchy and the executive.
§ 301. The Estates have the function of bringing public affairs into existence not only implicitly, but also actually, i.e., of bringing into existence the moment of subjective formal freedom, the public consciousness as an empirical universal, of which the thoughts and opinions of the Many are particulars.
The Estates are civil society's deputation to the state, to which
it [i.e., civil society] is opposed as the 'Many'. The Many must
for a moment deal consciously with universal affairs as if they
were their own, as objects of public consciousness, which, according
to Hegel, is nothing other than the empirical universal, of which
the thoughts and opinions of the Many are particulars. (And in
fact, it is no different in modem or constitutional monarchies.)
It is significant that Hegel, who shows such great respect for
the state-mind [dem Staatsgeist] - the ethical spirit,
state-consciousness - absolutely disdains it when it faces him
in actual empirical form.
This is the enigma of mysticism. The same fantastic abstraction
that rediscovers state-consciousness in the degenerate form of
bureaucracy, a hierarchy of knowledge, and that uncritically accepts
this incomplete existence as the actual and full-valued existence
- the same mystical abstraction admits with equanimity that the
actual empirical state-mind, public consciousness, is a mere potpourri
of the 'thoughts and opinions of the Many'. As it imputes to
the bureaucracy an essence which is foreign to it, so it grants
to the actuality of that essence only the inferior form of appearance.
Hegel idealises the bureaucracy and empiricises public consciousness.
He can treat actual public consciousness very much à part
precisely because he has treated the à part consciousness
as the public consciousness. He need concern himself all the
less with the actual existence of the state-mind in that he believes
he has sufficiently realised it in its soi-disant existences.
So long is the state-mind mystically haunted the forecourt it
received many plaudits. Now that we have caught it in persona
it is barely respected.
'The Estates have the function of bringing public affairs into
existence not only implicitly [an sich], but also actually
[für sich].' And indeed it comes into existence
actually as the public consciousness, as 'an empirical universal,
of which the thoughts and opinions of the Many arc particulars'.
The process in which 'public affairs' becomes subject, and thus
gains autonomy, is here presented as a moment of the life-process
of public affairs. Instead of having subjects objectifying themselves
in public affairs Hegel has public affairs becoming the subject.
Subjects do not need public affairs as their true affairs, but
public affairs needs subjects for its formal existence. It is
an affair of public affairs that it exist also as subject.
Here the difference between the 'being-in-itself' [Ansichsein]
and the 'being-for-itself' [Fürsichsein]
of public affairs must be especially considered.
Public affairs already exists 'in-itself' [i.e., implicitly] as
the business of the executive etc. Thus, public affairs exists
without actually being public affairs; nothing less, for
it is not the affair of civil society. It has already found its
essential existence, its being-in-itself. The fact that public
affairs now actually becomes public consciousness, or empirical
universal, is purely formal and, as it were, only a symbolic coming
to actuality. The formal or empirical existence of public affairs
is separated from its substantial existence. The truth of the
matter is that public affairs as being-in-itself is not actually
public, and actual empirical public affairs is only formal.
Hegel separates content and form, being-in-itself and being-for-itself,
and allows the latter the superficial status of formal moment.
The content is complete and exists in many forms which are not
the forms of this content; while, clearly, the form which is supposed
to be the actual form of the content doesn't have the actual content
for its content.
Public affairs is complete without being the actual affairs of
the people. The actual affairs of the people have been established
without the activity of the people. The Estates are the illusory
existence of the affairs of the state as being an affair of the
people. The illusion is that public affairs are public affairs,
or that truly public affairs are the affair of the people. It
has come to the point in our states as well as in the Hegelian
philosophy of right where the tautological sentence, 'The public
affairs are the public affairs', can appear only as an illusion
of practical consciousness. The Estates are the political illusion
of civil society. Subjective freedom appears in Hegel as formal
freedom (it is important, however, that what is free be done freely,
that freedom doesn't prevail as an unconscious natural instinct
of society), precisely because Hegel has not presented objective
freedom as the actualisation, the activity, of subjective freedom.
Because he has given the presumed or actual content of freedom
a mystical bearer, the actual subject of freedom takes on a formal
meaning. The separation of the in-itself and the for-itself,
of substance and subject, is abstract mysticism.
Hegel, in his Remark to § 301 presents the Estates quite rightly as something 'formal' and 'illusory'.
Both the knowledge and the will of the Estates are treated partly as unimportant and partly as suspect; that is to say, the Estates make no significant contribution.
1. The idea uppermost in men's minds when they speak about the necessity or the expediency of 'summoning the Estates' is generally something of this sort: (i) The deputies of the people, or even the people themselves, must know best what is in their best interest, - .and (ii) their will for its promotion is undoubtedly the most disinterested. So far as the first of these points is concerned, however, the truth is that if 'people' means a particular section of the citizens, then it means precisely that section which does not know what it wills. To know what one wills, and still more to know what the absolute will, Reason, wills, is the fruit of profound apprehension (which is found, no doubt, in the bureaus) and insight, precisely the things which are not popular.
Further along in the paragraph we read the following about the
Estates themselves:
The highest civil servants necessarily have a deeper and more
comprehensive insight into the nature of the state's organisation
and requirements. They arc also more habituated to the business
of government and have greater skill in it, so that even without
the Estates they are able to do what is best, just as they also
continually have to do while the Estates are in session.
And it goes without saying that this is perfectly true in the
organisation described by Hegel.
2. As for the conspicuously good will for the
general welfare which the Estates are supposed to possess, it
has been pointed out already. . . that to regard
the will of the executive as bad, or as less good [than that of
the ruled] is a presupposition characteristic of the rabble or
of the negative outlook generally. This presupposition might
at once be answered on its own ground by the countercharge that
the Estates start from isolated individuals, from a private point
of view, from particular interests, and so are inclined to devote
their activities to these at the expense of the general interests,
while per contra the other moments in the power of the
state explicitly take up the standpoint of the state from the
start and devote themselves to the universal end.
Therefore the knowledge and will of the Estates ire partly superfluous
and partly suspect. The people do not know what they want. III
the possession of political knowledge [Staatswssenschaft]
the Estates are not equal to the officials, who have a monopoly
on it. The Estates are superfluous for the execution of public
affairs. The officials can carry out this execution without the
Estates; moreover they must, in spite of the Estates, do what
is best. Thus the Estates, with regard to their content, are
pure superfluity. Their existence, therefore, is a pure formality
in the most literal sense.
Furthermore, the sentiment of the Estates, their will, is suspect,
for they start from the private point of view and private interests.
In truth, private interest is their public affairs, not public
affairs their private interest. But what a way for public affairs
to obtain form as public affairs - i.e., through a will which
doesn't know what it wills, or at least lacks any special knowledge
of t he universal, a will, furthermore, whose actual content is
an opposing interest!
In modern states, as in Hegel's Philosophy of Right, the conscious, true actuality of public affairs is merely formal, or only what is formal constitutes actual public affairs.
Hegel is not to be blamed for depicting the nature of the modern state as it is, but rather for presenting what is as the essence of the state. The claim that the rational is actual is contradicted precisely by an irrational actuality, which everywhere is the contrary of what it asserts and asserts the contrary of what it is.
Instead of showing how public affairs exists for-itself, 'subjectively, and thus actually as such', and that it also has the form of public affairs, Hegel merely shows that formlessness is its subjectivity; and a form without content must be formless. The form which public affairs obtains in a state which is not the state of public affairs can be nothing but a non-form, a self-deceiving, self-contradicting form, a form which is pure appearance [eine Scheinform] and which will betray itself as this appearance.
Only for the sake of logic does Hegel want the luxury of the Estates. The being-for-itself of public affairs as empirical universal must have an existence [ein Dasein]. Hegel does
not search for an adequate actualisation of the being-for-itself of public affairs, but contents himself with finding an empirical existent which can be dissolved into this logical category. This is the Estates. And Hegel himself does not fail to note how pitiful and full of contradiction this existent is. Yet he still reproaches ordinary consciousness for being discontent with this satisfaction of logic, for being unwilling to see actuality dissolved into logic by this arbitrary abstraction, for wanting logic, rather, to be transformed into concrete objectivity.
I say arbitrary abstraction, for since the executive power wills, knows, and actualises public affairs, arises from the people, and is an empirical plurality (Hegel himself tells us that it
is not a totality), why should we not be able to characterise the executive as the 'being-for-itself of public affairs'? Or, again, why not the Estates as their being-in-itself, since it
is only in the executive that [public affairs] receives illumination, determinacy, execution, and independence?
The true antithesis, however, is this: public affairs must somewhere be represented in the state as actual, and thus as empirical public affairs; it must appear somewhere in the crown and robes of the universal, whereby the universal automatically becomes a fiction,
an illusion.
Here it is a question of the opposition of the universal as 'form', in the form of universality, and the universal as 'content'.
In science, for example, an individual can fully perform public affairs, and it is always individuals who do so. But public affairs become actually public only when they arc no longer the affair of an individual but of society. This changes not only the form but also the content. In this case, however, it is a question of the state in which the people itself constitutes the public affairs, a question of the will which has its true existence as
species-will only in the self-conscious will of the people, and, moreover, a question of the idea of the state.
The modern state, in which public affairs and their pursuit is a monopoly while monopolies are the actual public affairs, has effected the peculiar device of appropriating public affairs as
a pure form. (in fact, only the form is public affairs.) With that, the modern state has found the appropriate form for its content, which only appears to be actual public affairs.
The constitutional state is the state in which the state-interest is only formally the actual interest of the people, but is nevertheless present as a distinct form alongside of the actual state. Here the state-interest has again received formal actuality as the people's interest; but it is to have only this formal actuality. It has become ) formality, the haut gout of the life of the people - a ceremony. The Estates are the sanctioned, legal lie of constitutional states, the lie that the state is the people's interest or the people the interest of the state. This lie will betray itself in its content. The lie has established itself as the legislature precisely because the legislature has the universal as its content and, being more an affair of knowledge than of will, is the metaphysical power of the state; whereas had the same lie established itself as the executive etc., it would have had either immediately to dissolve itself or be transformed into a truth. The metaphysical power of the state was the most likely seat for the metaphysical, universal illusion of the state.
[Remark to § 301.] The Estates are a guarantee of the general welfare and public freedom. A little reflection will show that this guarantee does not lie in their particular power of insight ... the guarantee lies on the contrary [a] in the additional (!!) insight of the deputies, insight in the first place into the activity of such officials as are not immediately under the eye of the higher functionaries of state, and in particular into the more pressing and more specialised needs and deficiencies which are directly in their view; [b] in the fact that the anticipation of criticism from the Many, particularly of public criticism, has the effect of inducing officials to devote their best attention beforehand to their duties and the schemes under consideration, and to deal with these only in accordance with the purest motives. This same compulsion is effective also on the members of the Estates themselves.
As for the general guarantee which is supposed to lie peculiarly in the Estates, each of the other political institutions shares with the Estates in being a guarantee of public welfare and rational freedom, and some of these institutions, as for instance the sovereignty of the monarch, hereditary succession to the throne, the judicial system etc., guarantee these things far more effectively than the Estates can. Hence the specific function which the concept assigns to the Estates is to be sought in the fact that in them the subjective moment in universal freedom - the private judgment and private will of the sphere called 'civil society' in this book - comes into existence integrally related to the state. This moment is a determination of the Idea once the Idea has developed to totality, a moment arising as a result of an inner necessity not to be confused with external necessities and expediencies. The proof of this follows, like all the rest of our account of the state, from adopting the philosophical point of view.
Public, universal freedom is allegedly guaranteed in the other
institutions of the state, while the Estates constitute its alleged
self-guarantee. [But the fact is] that the people rely more heavily
on the Estates, in which the self-assurance of their freedom is
thought to be, than on the institutions which are supposed to
assure their freedom independent of their own participation, institutions
which are supposed to be verifications of their freedom without
being manifestations of it. The coordinating function Hegel assigns
to the Estates, alongside the other institutions, contradicts
the essence of the Estates.
Hegel solves the problem by finding the 'specific function which
the concept assigns to the Estates' in the fact that in them 'the
private judgment and private will ... of civil society... comes
into existence integrally related to the state'. It is the reflection
of civil society on the state. just as the bureaucrats are delegates
of the state to civil society, so the Estates are delegates of
civil society to the state. Consequently, it is always a case
of transactions of two opposing wills.
What is said in the Addition to this paragraph, namely:
The attitude of the executive to the Estates should not be essentially hostile, and a belief in the necessity of such hostility is a sad mistake.
is a sad truth.
'The executive is not a party standing over against another party.' Just the contrary.
The taxes voted by the Estates, moreover, are not to be regarded as a present given to the state. On the contrary they are voted in the best interests of the voters themselves.
Voting for taxes in a constitutional state is, by the very idea of it, necessarily a present.
The real significance of the Estates lies in the fact that it is through them that the state enters the subjective consciousness of the people and that the people begins to participate in the state.
This last statement is quite correct. In the Estates the people begins to participate in the state, just as the state enters the people's subjective consciousness as something opposed. But how can Hegel possibly pass off this beginning as the full reality!
§ 302. Regarded as a mediating organ, the Estates stand between the government in general on the one hand and the nation broken up into particulars (people and associations) on the other. Their function requires them to possess a political and administrative sense and temper, no less than a sense for the interests of individuals and particular groups. At the same time the significance of their position is that, in common with the organised executive, they are a middle term preventing both the extreme isolation of the power of the crown, which otherwise might seem a mere arbitrary tyranny, and also the isolation of particular interests of persons, societies, and Corporations. Further, and more important, they prevent individuals from having the appearance of a mass or an aggregate and so from acquiring an unorganised opinion and volition and from crystallising into a powerful bloc in opposition to the organised state.
On the one hand we have the state and the executive, always taken
as identical, and on the other the nation broken up into particulars
(people and associations). The Estates stand as a mediating organ
between the two. The Estates are the middle term wherein political
and administrative sense and temper meet and are to be united
with the sense and temper of individuals and particular groups.
The identity of these two opposed senses and tempers, in which
identity the state was supposed to actually lie, acquires . a
symbolic appearance in the Estates. The transaction between state
and civil society appears as a particular sphere. The Estates
are the synthesis between state and civil society. But how the
Estates are to begin to unite in themselves two contradictory
tempers is not indicated. The Estates are the established contradiction
of the state and civil society within the state. At the same
time they are the demand for the dissolution of this contradiction.
At the same time the significance of their position is that, in
common with the organised executive they are the middle term etc.
The Estates not only mediate between the people and the executive,
but they also prevent the extreme isolation of the power of the
crown, whereby it would appear as mere arbitrary tyranny, and
also the isolation of the particular interests etc. Furthermore
they prevent individuals from having the appearance of a mass
or an aggregate. This mediating function is what the Estates
have in common with the organised executive power. In a state
in which the position of the Estates prevents individuals from
having the appearance of a mass or an aggregate, and so from acquiring
an unorganised opinion and volition and from crystallising into
a powerful bloc in opposition to the organised state, the organised
state exists outside the mass and the aggregate; or, in other
words, the mass and aggregate belong to the organisation of the
state. But its unorganised opinion and volition is to be prevented
from crystallising into an opinion and volition in opposition
to the state, through which determinate orientation it would become
an organised opinion and volition. At the same time this powerful
bloc is to remain powerful only in such a way that understanding
remains foreign to it, so that the mass is unable to make a move
on its own and can only be moved by the monopolists of the organised
state and be exploited as a powerful bloc. Where it is not a
matter of the particular interests of persons, societies and Corporations
isolating themselves from the state, but rather of the individuals
being prevented from having the appearance of a mass or an aggregate
and from acquiring an unorganised opinion and volition and from
crystallising into a powerful bloc in opposition to the state,
precisely then it becomes evident not that a particular interest
contradicts the state, but rather that the actual organised universal
thought of the mass and aggregate is not the thought of the organised
state and cannot find its realisation in the state. What is it
then that makes the Estates appear to be the mediation against
this extreme? It is merely the isolation of the particular interests
of persons, societies and Corporations; or the fact that their
isolated interests balance their account with the state through
the Estates while, at the same time, the unorganised opinion and
volition of a mass or aggregate employed its volition (its activity)
in creating the Estates and its opinion in judging their activity,
and enjoyed the illusion of its own objectification. The Estates
preserve the state from the unorganised aggregate only through
the disorganisation of this very aggregate.
At the same time, however, the mediation of the Estates is to
prevent the isolation of the particular interests of persons,
societies and Corporations. This they achieve, first, by coming
to an understanding with the interest of the state and, second,
by being themselves the political isolation of these particular
interests, this isolation as political act, in that through them
these isolated interests achieve the rank of the universal.
Finally, the Estates are to mediate against the isolation of the
power of the crown as an extreme (which otherwise might seem a
mere arbitrary tyranny). This is correct in so far as the principle
of the power of the crown (arbitrary will) is limited by means
of the Estates, at least can operate only in fetters, and in so
far as the Estates themselves become a partaker and accessory
of the power of the crown.
In this way, either the power of the crown ceases to be actually
the extreme of the power of the crown (and the power of the crown
exists only as an extreme, a one-sidedness, because it is not an
organic principle) and becomes a mere appearance of power [eine
Scheingewalt], a symbol, or else it loses only the
appearance of arbitrary tyranny. The Estates mediate against
the isolation of particular interests by presenting this isolation
as a political act. They mediate against the isolation of the
power of the crown as an extreme partly by becoming themselves
a part of that power, partly by making the executive power an
extreme.
All the contradictions of modern state-organisations converge
in the Estates. They mediate in every direction because they
are, from every direction, the middle term.
It should be noted that Hegel develops the content of the Estates'
essential political activity, viz., the legislature, less than
he does their position, or political rank.
It should be further noted that, while the Estates, according
to Hegel, stand between the government in general on the one hand
and the nation broken up into particulars (people and associations)
on the other, the significance of their position as developed
above is that, in common with the organised executive, they are
a middle term.
Regarding the first position, the Estates represent the nation
over against the executive, but the nation en miniature. This
is their oppositional position.
Regarding the second, they represent the executive over against
the nation, but the amplified executive. This is their conservative
position. They are themselves a part of the executive over against
the people, but in such a way that they simultaneously have the
significance of representing the people over against the executive.
Above, Hegel called the legislature a 'totality' (§ 300).
In fact, however, the Estates are this totality, the state within
the state; but it is precisely in them that it becomes apparent
that the state is not a totality but a duality. The Estates represent
the state in a society that is no state. The state is a mere
representation [eine blosse Vorstellung].
In the Remark Hegel says:
It is one of the most important discoveries of logic that a specific
moment, which, by standing in an opposition, has the position
of ail extreme, ceases to be such and is a moment in an organic
whole by being at the same time a mean.
(Thus the Estates are at one and the same time (1) the extreme
of the nation over against the executive, but (2) the mean between
nation and executive; or, in other words, the opposition within
the nation itself The opposition between the executive and the
nation is mediated through the opposition between the Estates
and the nation. From the point of view of the executive the Estates
have the position of the nation, but from the point of view of
the nation they have the position of the executive. The nation
in its occurrence as image, fantasy, illusion, representation
- i.e., the imagined nation, or the Estates, which are immediately
situated as a particular power in dissociation from the actual
nation - abolishes [hebt auf] the actual opposition
between the nation and the executive. Here the nation is already
dressed out, exactly as required in this particular organism,
so as to have no determinate character.)
The Remark continues:
In connection with our present topic it is all the more important
to emphasise this aspect of the matter because of the popular,
but most dangerous, prejudice which regards the Estates principally
from the point of view of their opposition to the executive, as
if that were their essential attitude. If the Estates become
an organ in the whole by being taken up into the state, they evince
themselves solely through their mediating function. In this way
their opposition to the executive is reduced to a show. There
may indeed be an appearance of opposition between them, but if
they were opposed, not merely superficially, but actually and
in substance, then the state would be in the throes of destruction.
That the clash is not of this kind is evident in the nature of
the thing, because the Estates have to deal, not with the essential
elements in the organism of the state, but only with rather specialised
and trifling matters, while the passion which even these arouse
spends itself in party cravings in connection with purely subjective
interests such as appointments to higher offices of state.
In the Addition it says: 'The constitution is essentially a system
of mediation.'
§ 303. The universal class, or, more precisely, the
class of civil servants, must, purely in virtue of its character
as universal, have the universal as the end of its essential activity.
In the Estates, as an element in the legislative power, the unofficial
class acquires its political significance and efficacy; it appears,
therefore, in the Estates neither as a mere indiscriminate multitude
nor as an aggregate dispersed into its atoms, but as what it already
is, namely a class subdivided into two, one subclass [the agricultural
class] being based on a tic of substance between its members,
and the other [the business class] on particular needs and the
work whereby these are met . . . It is only
in this way that there is a genuine link between the particular
which is effective in the state and the universal.
Here we have the solution of the riddle. 'In the Estates, as
an element in the legislative power, the unofficial class acquires
its political significance.' acquires It is understood that the
unofficial, or private class [der Privatstand] this significance
in accordance with what it is, with its articulation within civil
society; (Hegel has already designated the universal class as
the class dedicated to the executive; the universal class, therefore,
is represented in the legislature by the executive.)
The Estates are the political significance of the unofficial class,
i.e., of the unpolitical class, which is a contradictio in
adjecto; or to put it another way, in class as described by
Hegel the unofficial class (or, more correctly, unofficial class
difference) has a political significance. The unofficial class
belongs to the essence, to the very political reality [zur
Politik] of this state, which thus gives it also a
political significance, that is, one that differs from its actual
significance.
In the Remark it says:
This runs counter to another prevalent idea, the idea that since
it is in the legislature that the unofficial class rises to the
level of participating in matters of state, it must appear there
in the form of individuals, whether individuals are to choose
representatives for this purpose, or whether every single individual
is to have a vote in the legislature himself. This atomistic and
abstract point of view vanishes at the stage of the family, as
well as that of civil society where the individual is in evidence
only as a member of a general group. The state, however, is essentially
an organisation each of whose members is in itself a group of
this kind, and hence no one of its moments should appear as an
unorganised aggregate. The Many, as units - a congenial interpretation
of 'people', are of course something connected, but they are connected
only as an aggregate, a formless mass whose commotion and activity
could therefore only be elementary, irrational, barbarous, and
frightful.
The circles of association in civil society are already communities. To picture these communities as once more breaking up into a mere conglomeration of individuals as soon as they enter the field of politics, i.e., the field of the highest concrete universality, is eo ipso to hold civil and political life apart from one another and as it were to hang the latter in the air, because its basis could then only be the abstract individuality of caprice and opinion, and hence it would be grounded on chance and not on what is absolutely stable and justified.
So-called 'theories' of this kind involve the idea that the classes
[Stände] of civil society and the Estates [Stände],
which are the 'classes' given a political significance, stand
wide apart from each other. But the German language, by calling
them both Stände has still maintained the unity which
in any case they actually possessed in former times.
'The universal class, or, more precisely, the class of civil servants.
Hegel proceeds from the hypothesis that the universal class is
the class of civil servants. For him, universal intelligence
is attached permanently to a class.
'In the Estates as an element etc.' Here, the political significance
and efficacy of the unofficial class is precisely its particular
significance and efficacy. The unofficial class is not changed
into a political class, but appears as the unofficial class in
its political significance and efficacy. It does not have political
significance and efficacy simply; its political efficacy and significance
are those of the unofficial class as unofficial or private. Accordingly,
the unofficial class can appear in the political sphere only in
keeping with the class difference found in civil society. The
class difference within civil society becomes a political difference.
Even the German language, says Hegel, expresses the identity of
the classes of civil society with the classes given a political
significance; it expresses a unity which in any case they actually
possessed in former times - a unity, one should thus conclude,
which no longer exists.
Hegel finds that, in this way there is a genuine link between
the particular which is effective in the state and the universal.
In this way the separation of civil and political life is to
be abolished and their identity established.
Hegel finds support in the following: 'The circles of association
(family and civil society) are already communities.' How can one
want these to break up into a mere conglomeration of individuals
as soon as they enter the field of politics, i.e., the field of
the highest concrete universality?
It is important to follow this development very carefully.
The peak of Hegelian identity, as Hegel himself admits, was the
Middle Ages. There, the classes of civil society in general and
the Estates, or classes given political significance, were identical.
The spirit of the Middle Ages can be expressed thus: the classes
of civil society and the political classes were identical because
civil society was political society, because the organic principle
of civil society was the principle of the state.
But Hegel proceeds from the separation of civil society and the
political state as two actually different spheres, firmly opposed
to one another. And indeed this separation does actually exist
in the modern state. The identity of the civil and political
classes in the Middle Ages was the expression of the identity
of civil and political society. This identity has disappeared;
and Hegel presupposes it as having disappeared. The identity
of the civil and political classes, if it expressed the truth,
could be now only an expression of the separation of civil and
political society! Or rather, only the separation of the civil
and political classes expresses the true relationship of modern
civil and political society.
Secondly: the political classes Hegel deals with here have a wholly
different meaning than those political classes of the Middle Ages,
which are said to be identical with the classes of civil society.
The whole existence of the medieval classes was political; their
existence was the existence of the state. Their legislative activity,
their grant of taxes for the realm was merely a particular issue
of their universal political significance and efficacy. Their
class was their state. The relationship to the realm was merely
one of transaction between these various states and the nationality,
because the political state in distinction from civil society
was nothing but the representation of nationality. Nationality
was the point d'honneur, the kat exhin political
sense of these various Corporations etc., and taxes etc., pertained
only to them. That was the relationship of the legislative classes
to the realm. The classes were related in a similar way within
the particular principalities. There, the principality, the sovereignty
was a particular class which enjoyed certain privileges but was
equally inconvenienced by the privileges of the other classes.
(With the Greeks, civil society was a slave to political society.)
The universal legislative efficacy of the classes of civil society
was in no way the acquisition of political significance and efficacy
by the unofficial, or private class, but was rather a simple issue
of its actual and universal political significance and efficacy.
The appearance of the private class as legislative power was
simply a complement of its sovereign and governing (executive)
power; or rather it was its appropriation of wholly public affairs
as a private affair, its acquisition, qua private class, of sovereignty.
In the Middle Ages, the classes of civil society were as such
simultaneously legislative because they were not private classes,
or because private classes were political classes. The medieval
classes did not, as political Estates, acquire a new character.
They did not become political classes because they participated
in legislation; rather they participated in legislation because
they were political classes. But what does that have in common
with Hegel's unofficial class which, as a legislative element,
acquires political bravura, an ecstatic condition, a remarkable,
stunning, extraordinary political significance and efficacy?
All the contradictions of the Hegelian presentation are found
together in this development.
1. He has presupposed the separation of civil society and the
political state (which is a modern situation), and developed it
as a necessary moment of the Idea, as an absolute truth of Reason.
He has presented the political state in its modern form of the
separation of the various powers. For its body he has given the
actual acting state the bureaucracy, which he ordains to be the
knowing spirit over and above the materialism of civil society.
He has opposed the state, as the actual universal, to the particular
interest and need of civil society. in short, he presents everywhere
the conflict between civil society and the state.
2. He opposes civil society as unofficial, or private class to
the political state.
3. He calls the Estates, as element of the legislative power,
the pure political formalism of civil society. He calls them
a relationship of civil society to the state which is a reflection
of the former on the latter, a reflection which does not alter
the essence of the state. A relationship of reflection is also
the highest identity between essentially different things.
On the other hand:
1. Hegel wants civil society, in its self-establishment as legislative
clement, to appear neither as a mere indiscriminate multitude
nor as an aggregate dispersed into its atoms. He wants no separation
of civil and political life.
2. He forgets that he is dealing with a relationship of reflection,
and makes the civil classes as such political classes; but again
only with reference to the legislative power, so that their efficacy
itself is proof of the separation.
He makes the Estates the expression of the separation [of civil
and political life]; but at the same time they are supposed to
be the representative of an identity - an identity which does
not exist. Hegel is aware of the separation of civil society
and the political state, but he wants the unity of the state expressed
within the state; and this is to be achieved by having the classes
of civil society, while remaining such, form the Estates as an
element of legislative society. (cf. xiv, x)'