Property in the tension between family and civil society

Abstract

This chapter examines the work of Hegel and Gans and its applicability to inheritance in its contemporary form. Inheritance lies at the intersection of family structure, individual property rights, and the economic structure of society. Laws concerning who gets to bequeath what to whom, and who gets to inherit what from whom, play an important role in tracing the outlines of the family by giving economic structure to its multigenerational nature. Such laws also directly constrain and enable distinctive sorts of property rights, as individuals find their options for the transfer of their property expand or contract according to the rights of family members to that property. Finally, the work of recent authors such as Piketty and Beckert has made us painfully aware of the role that intergenerational wealth transfer plays in economic inequality and class structure. When we approach Hegel’s theory of inheritance from this point of view and think through the fundamental issues involved, we find a theory that is simultaneously embedded in Hegel’s particular social context and yet of wider contemporary relevance. These are key to Hegel’s theory: (1) a distinction between two forms of property: personal property (Eigentum) and economic resources (Vermögen); and (2) a theory of social institutions in which such property is embedded. Finally, in Eduard Gans’s lectures on Hegel’s doctrine, we find both a clarification of Hegel’s views and a conceptual innovation which reverses the relative priority of family structure versus individual property rights usually assumed in discussions of inheritance.