Comments on: 290

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 11:00:03 +0000

§ 290: Division of Labor in Government

Government also has a division of labor.

The difficulty:

Down below, the life of the citizens is concrete. So there we must also govern it in a concrete way. At the same time the work must fall into abstract branches, each with its own authorities. And at the top everything must come together again into one overview.

Two ways:

We can steer everything from above, through chancellors and ministers. This is fast and effective. The French Revolution introduced it, and Napoleon built it up. But France lacks the local communities and corporations for this. In them, particular and universal interests meet.

Strength from below:

In the Middle Ages, local communities were too independent. They were states within the state. And yet the real strength of a state lies in its local communities. For a long time, people organized only from above. The lower levels stayed without structure. But the mass has power only if it too has a structure. Otherwise it is a heap of scattered atoms.

Summary: The government divides its work into branches that come together at the top. Steering from above alone is not enough. The strength of the state lies in local communities with a firm structure.

By: Karl Marx

Karl Marx — Sun, 11 Jun 1843 08:36:08 +0000

The Addition to this to be considered later.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 14:20:01 +0000

The main point on which everything turns in governmental power is the division of business: it has to do with the transition from the universal into the particular and the individual, and its business is to be divided according to the various branches. The difficulty, however, is that these come together again, both upward and downward. For police power and judicial power, for instance, diverge from one another, but they nevertheless meet again in some particular business. The expedient commonly resorted to here consists in appointing state chancellors, prime ministers, ministerial councils, so that the upper direction may be simplified. But through this everything can also proceed once again from above and from the ministerial power, and business can be, as one puts it, centralized. This brings with it the greatest ease, speed, and effectiveness for what is to be done in the general interest of the state. This system of government was introduced by the French Revolution, elaborated by Napoleon, and still exists in France today. France, however, lacks corporations and communes, that is, the circles in which particular and universal interests come together. In the Middle Ages, to be sure, these circles had gained too great an independence, were states within the state, and comported themselves harshly as bodies subsisting for themselves; but even though this need not be the case, one may nevertheless say that the true strength of states lies in the communities. Here government meets with rightful interests that must be respected by it, and inasmuch as the administration can only be of service to such interests, while also having to supervise them, the individual finds protection for the exercise of his rights, and thus his particular interest becomes bound up with the preservation of the whole. For some time now everything has been organized from above, and this organizing has been the chief effort, but the lower part, the mass of the whole, has easily been left more or less unorganized; and yet it is of the highest importance that it become organic, for only in this way is it power, is it force—otherwise it is merely a heap, a multitude of splintered atoms. Rightful power exists only in the organic condition of the particular spheres.