The Withering of Civil Society

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The concept of civil society has enjoyed a new life in recent years, not Michael Hardt only in Western Europe and North America, where indeed it has had a long and varied career in support of various political positions, but in countries throughout the world, particularly in those countries today making the transition from socialism to capitalism in Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in the postdictatorial and postauthoritarian regimes in Latin America. Civil society is proposed as the essential feature of any democracy: the institutional infrastructure for political mediation and public exchange. However, while recognizing the democratic functions that the concept and reality of civil society have made possible, it is also important to be aware of the functions of discipline and exploitation that are inherent in and inseparable from these same structures. Furthermore, we must question whether the social foundations necessary for the construction and sustenance of civil society are themselves present in contemporary social formations. I want to argue, in fact, that in recent years the conditions of possibility for civil society have progressively been undermined in North America, Europe, and elsewhere (if indeed they ever really existed outside the European world).1 Even if we were to consider civil society politically desirable, any invocation of the concept under present conditions can only remain empty and ineffectual. Focusing specifically on the concept of civil society also affords us a new perspective on a more general contemporary problematic. In other words, recognizing the withering of civil society gives us terms for grasping more adequately the phenomena that are all too often vaguely indicated by references to the end of modernity or the end of modern society. The terms modern and postmodern lack the specificity to be useful beyond a certain point. The society we are living in today is more properly understood as a postcivil society.