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204

b) The estate of trade has, as its business, the formation of the natural product, and, for the means of its subsistence, is dependent on its own labour, on reflection and the understanding, as well as, essentially, on mediation with the needs and the labour of others. What it brings forth and enjoys, it has chiefly to thank itself, its own activity, for. Its business further differentiates itself — as labour for individual needs, in a more concrete manner and at the demand of individuals, into the craft estate; as the more abstract, general mass of labour for individual needs, but of a more general requirement, into the manufacturing estate; and, as the business of exchanging isolated means against one another, chiefly through the universal medium of exchange, money, in which the abstract value of all goods is made actual, into the commercial estate.

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3 responses to “204”

  1. Hegel (Natural Right Essay 1803) Avatar
    Hegel (Natural Right Essay 1803)

    Hegel, On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Right (Critical Journal of Philosophy, vol. 2, part 3, 1803), p. 469:

    There must also be a reflex of the same in his empirical consciousness, and such a reflex must constitute the ethical nature of the second estate, which is in fixed reality, in possession and property, and outside of valor. It is this reflex of ethical life, then, for which the ordinary meaning of morality can more or less fit; the formal indifference-positing of the determinacies of the relationship, that is, the ethical life of the bourgeois or of the private person, for whom the difference of relationships is fixed, and who depends on them and is in them.

  2. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    The individual in the estate of trade is thrown back upon himself, and this self-feeling is most closely bound up with the demand for a lawful condition. The sense for freedom and order has therefore chiefly arisen in the towns. The first estate, by contrast, has little to think for itself: what it acquires is the gift of a stranger, of nature; this feeling of dependence is, for it, something primary, and with this there easily combines also this, on the part of human beings, of letting come upon oneself whatever may come. The first estate is therefore more inclined toward submissiveness, the second more toward freedom.

  3. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 204: The estate of trade

    The second estate works up the materials of nature. It lives from its labor, its understanding and its exchange with others. What it has, it owes above all to itself.

    Three groups:

    The craftsman works to order, for single customers. A tailor sews a suit to measure.

    The manufacturer produces goods in large amounts, for many people he does not know.

    The merchant exchanges goods. He works above all with money. Money contains the value of all goods.

    Freedom and the city:

    Whoever stands on his own like this gains a strong sense of self. He calls for right and order. That is why the sense of freedom arose above all in the cities.

    The farmer, by contrast, receives his goods from nature. He is used to dependence. He more readily puts up with whatever comes. So the first estate leans more toward submission. The second leans more toward freedom.

    Summary: The estate of trade lives from its own labor, understanding and exchange. It divides into craft, factory and commerce. In this estate, in the cities, the sense of freedom grew.

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