Against the ‘Holy Trinity’ of ‘The State’, ‘Civil Society’ and ‘The Economy’

Abstract

Just as the concepts ‘democracy’ or ‘socialism’ have been abused and muddied, so too the traditional concepts of ‘the State’, ‘Civil Society’ and ‘the Economy’ have lost their original meaning and their structural relationship with one another. While many people may be clear about what ‘the State’ or ‘the Economy’ means, there is much confusion concerning the realm of ‘Civil Society’. From the seventeenth century on, the notion of ‘civitas’, ‘commonwealth’, ‘Civil Society’, ‘bürgerliche Gesellschaft’ gained prominence in the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Smith, Hegel, Marx and many others. ‘Civil Society’ has been depicted as a realm where private property, labour, class divisions and all relations to do with the market are manifested. It has also been characterised as a realm which is separate from ‘the State’, the private ‘family’ and ‘the Economy’. Kant and others discussed ‘Civil Society’ as a ‘public sphere’ where it was hoped man [sic] could exercise his reason. ‘Civil Society’ was thus seen as being synonymous with the market or ‘the Economy’, or on the other hand, as a sphere which linked the family and individual to ‘the State’ via spiritual and rational discourse, toleration and civic duty. Depending on whether one saw ‘Civil Society’ as (a) conflict-ridden market relations — the war of all against all; (b) a natural outgrowth with principles of its own; or (c) a realm where reason or religious toleration could flourish in opposition to the absolutist monarch and/or feudal corporate structure, so too particular notions of ‘the State’ followed suit.