The Revival of Civil Society pp 11-37 | Cite as
Civil Society and the Idea of a Commercial Republic
Abstract
The term ‘civil society’ figures prominently in contemporary political debate, but the meaning of this term is as contested as the social and political institutions it purports to describe. While there is general agreement that the sphere of civil society falls somewhere between the individual and the state, there is widespread disagreement about both the extent of civil society and the institutions included within its sphere. Does civil society, for example, include the institution of the family? Or is there a tension, as Hegel suggests, between the affective bonds of family membership and the looser, more individualistic, ties of civil society? What is the relationship between civil society and the market economy? Is a market economy either a necessary or a sufficient condition for the existence of civil society? What is the relation between civil society and the welfare functions of the modern state? Is civil society undermined by the dependency generated by the welfare state or is it threatened rather by the consumerism encouraged by a market economy?
Keywords
Civil Society Market Economy Commercial Society Moral Sentiment Affective BondPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
- 1.There is a useful introduction to the range of historical and contemporary views on civil society in Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
- 2.Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).Google Scholar
- 4.Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), Vol. I, p. 37.Google Scholar
- 7.Rousseau, ‘Discourse on the Sciences and Arts or First Discourse’, in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 18.Google Scholar
- 8.Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), p. 28.Google Scholar
- 9.Karl Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’, in Selected Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), p. 19.Google Scholar
- 11.James Steuart, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), Vol. I, p. 17 (my emphasis).Google Scholar
- 12.Manfred Riedel, Between Tradition and Revolution: The Hegelian Transformation of Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
- 33.David Hume, ‘Of Commerce’, in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), p. 257.Google Scholar
- 41.Ferguson, Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia (London, 1756).Google Scholar
- 42.John Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1985).Google Scholar
- 45.Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1776), p. 241.Google Scholar
- 57.Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 59.F. Hirsh, The Social Limits of Growth (London: Routledge, 1995).Google Scholar