Differentiated estates necessarily arise with the existence
of civil society and the State.
“Where civil society, and with it the State, exists, there
arise the several estates in their difference: for the universal substance, as
vital, exists only so far as it organically particularizes itself (527).”
Premises
1.
The abstract disruption of the spirit objective
constitutes persons in their individual subjectivities.
a.
See, “The Idea,” pp. 170-189.
2.
The particularities of each of these individuals
is firstly, their wants, which can be satisfied only when their labor creates
the general stock.
a.
Such wants can be satisfied through the immediate
seizure of external objects, but this practice barely exists.
i. Objects
are already the property of individuals.
ii. Exchange
can only occur if the possessor of an object wills it and if this exchange
satisfies his interest.
b.
Exchange is conditioned by the continual
creation of new exchange mechanisms created by the labor of the exchangers.
c.
This exchange, made possible by will and
conditioned by the means of exchange, constitutes the general stock.
3.
Culture is the product of the division of labor,
which arises naturally from the way in which intellect creates difference in
individuals. This demonstrates the glimmer of the universal in the particular.
a.
Intellect creates differences in the wants of
particular people.
b.
There is thus a multiplication of both wants and
the means by which they are fulfilled.
c.
This renders both wants and means increasingly
abstract.
d.
This abstraction gives rise to the division of
labor.
e.
Habits of enjoyment, information, learning, and
demeanor develop from this division of labor insofar as each sphere requires
particular training.
f.
Taken as a whole, this abstraction forms
culture.
4.
This abstraction of labor makes labor easier and
increases production, but also produces an unconditional dependence on the
social system, the deskilling of labor, and the eventual replacement of human
with machine labor.
5.
The difference of Estate is also the rise of
civil society and the State.
a.
Civil society and the State is the existence of
each particular individual as he or she is a part of the universal substance.
i. The
universal is given only in its instantiation as a particular.
ii. Estates
are differentiated masses of people.
1.
Such estates are apportioned through natural
talent, skill, option, and accident
2.
Differentiation is a product of each masses’
particular basis of subsistence and its corresponding form of labor, its means
and the ways in which those are satisfied, its aims and interests, and finally,
the mental cultures and habits of each.
b.
Each person thereby belongs to a definite and
stable sphere through which is given their social morality, recognition, and
honor insofar as they are both particular and universal.
This is an interesting theory on Hegel's part but a seemingly fairly common one. There are some things that I feel either the author here or Hegel may have left out being 1) the human condition that will create certain specific desires universally in all humans despite social status and type of labor 2) that there isn't necessarily a causal relationship between the rise of State and division and specialization of labor, in fact I think recent history shows that the two can potentially work against each other.
ReplyDeleteAside from these points I also feel the 4th premise is not relevant to the argument