Civil Society

Classical Conceptions of Civil Society

The earliest uses of the term in philosophy were to contrast civil society with a hypothetical state of nature. Adam Ferguson used civil society to contrast Western societies and institutions from more despotic forms existing outside the West. Others, such as Rousseau, Locke, Montesquieu, and Tocqueville, viewed civil society as an inclusive set of private and public associations based on trust and cooperation. Despite their differences, these theorists viewed civil society as a distinctively moral and ethical force that fosters the growth of public space, legal rights and institutions, and democratic political parties. Influenced by Tocqueville, Émile Durkheim identified several domains of civil society: the Tocqueville domain of political society (or the “public sphere”), the family, the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social movements, and forms of public communication. For Durkheim, these different spheres of civil society have an internal logic and a set of distinct practices that contribute to social integration, individual autonomy, and societal solidarity.

While some classical theorists viewed civil society as distinct from the economy, other theorists included capitalist social relations within their meaning of civil society. Immanuel Kant conflated civil society with the capitalist middle class, translating civil society as Burgerliche Gessellschaft, which meant burgher, city-dweller's society. In Adam Smith's work, civil society is a distinct sphere, separate from the political sphere, in which market competition and pursuit of individual self-interest would contribute to the common good of society by promoting economic growth. For Smith, market exchange and competition are what constitutes civil society. Georg Hegel has a radically different idea of civil society. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel maintains that civil society includes all those economic and familial institutions that exist outside the political state. It is a realm of unrestrained egoism, where each person is pitted against one another and the political state mediates particular interest through universal interest. As a sphere of self-interest and individual acquisition, civil society is opposed to political society and therefore separate from it. Thus, for Hegel, the political state mediates the conflicts between the self-interest of the individual and the public obligation of the citizen by promoting the common good.

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