Comments

2 responses to “301”

1. 

   Eduard Gans (Additions)

   29. May 1833

   The position of the government toward the estates should not be an essentially hostile one, and the belief in the necessity of this hostile relationship is a sad error. The government is not a party confronted by another party, such that the two would have much to win and wrest from each other, and if a state comes into such a situation, this is a misfortune, but it cannot be called health. Furthermore, the taxes that the estates grant are not to be regarded as a gift given to the state; rather, they are granted for the good of those who grant them themselves. What constitutes the true significance of the estates is that through them the state enters into the subjective consciousness of the people, and that the people begins to take part in it.

   Log in to Reply
2. 

   Karl Marx

   20. July 1843

   The estates element is a deputation of civil society to the state, to which it stands opposed as »the many.« The many are, for a moment, supposed to treat the universal affairs consciously as their own — as objects of public consciousness, which, according to Hegel, is nothing but the »empirical universality of the views and thoughts of the many« (and in truth, in modern monarchies, including the constitutional ones, it is nothing else). It is characteristic that Hegel, who has such great respect for the spirit of the state, the ethical spirit, the consciousness of the state, formally despises it wherever it confronts him in a real, empirical shape.

   This is the riddle of mysticism. The very same fantastic abstraction that rediscovers the consciousness of the state in the inadequate form of the bureaucracy, a hierarchy of knowledge, and uncritically accepts this inadequate existence as the real existence, as fully valid, this same mystical abstraction confesses just as unselfconsciously that the real, empirical spirit of the state, public consciousness, is a mere potpourri of »the thoughts and views of the many.« Just as it foists an alien essence upon the bureaucracy, so it leaves the true essence with the inadequate form of appearance. Hegel idealizes the bureaucracy and empiricizes public consciousness. Hegel can treat real public consciousness very much à part, precisely because he has treated the à part consciousness as the public one. He needs to concern himself all the less with the real existence of the spirit of the state, since he believes he has already properly realized it in its soi-disant |so-called| existences. So long as the spirit of the state haunted the antechamber mystically, it was shown great reverence. Here, where we have caught it in persona, it is scarcely even looked at.

   »The estates element has the determination that the universal affair should come into existence within it not only in itself, but also for itself.« And indeed it comes into existence for itself as »public consciousness,« as »the empirical universality of the views and thoughts of the many.«

   The becoming-subject of the »universal affair,« which is thereby made independent, is here represented as a moment in the life-process of the »universal affair« itself. Instead of the subjects objectifying themselves in the »universal affair,« Hegel lets the »universal affair« arrive at »subjecthood.« The subjects do not need the »universal affair« as their true affair; rather, the universal affair needs the subjects for its formal existence. It is a concern of the »universal affair« that it, too, exist as subject.

   Here we must especially keep in view the difference between the »being-in-itself« and the »being-for-itself« of the universal affair.

   The »universal affair« already exists »in itself« as the business of government, etc.; it exists without really being the universal affair; it is anything but this, for it is not the affair of »civil society.« It has already found its essential, in-itself existence. That it now also really becomes »public consciousness,« »empirical universality,« is purely formal and, as it were, attains actuality only symbolically. The »formal« existence, or the »empirical« existence, of the universal affair is separated from its substantial existence. The truth of the matter is: the »universal affair« that is in itself is not really universal, and the real, empirical universal affair is only formal.

   Hegel separates content and form, being-in-itself and being-for-itself, and lets the latter be added externally as a formal moment. The content is finished and exists in many forms that are not the forms of this content; whereas it goes without saying that the form which is now supposed to count as the real form of the content does not have the real content as its content.

   The universal affair is finished without being the real affair of the people. The real cause of the people has come about without any action by the people. The estates element is the illusory existence of state affairs as a cause of the people. It is the illusion that the universal affair is a universal affair, a public affair — or the illusion that the cause of the people is the universal affair. Things have gone so far, both in our states and in Hegel’s philosophy of right, that the tautological sentence, »the universal affair is the universal affair,« can appear only as an illusion of practical consciousness. The estates element is the political illusion of civil society. Subjective freedom appears in Hegel as formal freedom (it is indeed important that what is free also be done freely, that freedom not rule as an unconscious natural instinct of society) — precisely because he has not represented objective freedom as the realization, the confirmation, of subjective freedom. Because he has given the presumptive or real content of freedom a mystical bearer, the real subject of freedom acquires only a formal significance.

   The separation of the in-itself and the for-itself, of substance and subject, is abstract mysticism.

   In the Remark, Hegel expounds the »estates element« very much indeed as something »formal,« something »illusory.«

   Both the knowledge and the will of the »estates element« are, in part, insignificant, and in part suspect; that is, the estates element is no complement possessing content.

   »The conception that ordinary consciousness tends to have before it, at first, concerning the necessity or usefulness of the participation of estates, is chiefly something like this: that the deputies from the people, or indeed the people itself, must best understand what serves its own good, and that it undoubtedly has the best will toward this good. As for the former, the case is rather that the people — insofar as this word designates a particular part of the members of a state — expresses precisely that part which does not know what it wants. To know what one wants, and still more, what the will existing in and for itself, reason, wants, is the fruit of profound knowledge« (which presumably resides in the bureaus) »and insight — which is precisely not the affair of the people.«

   Further below it is said, with respect to the estates themselves:

   »The highest officials of the state necessarily have deeper and more comprehensive insight into the nature of the institutions and needs of the state, as well as the greater skill and habituation in this business, and can do the best even without the estates — just as they must, continually, do the best even at the assemblies of the estates.«

   And it goes without saying that, given the organization Hegel describes, this is completely true.

   »2. As for the especially good will of the estates toward the general good, it has already been remarked above […] that it belongs to the outlook of the rabble, to the standpoint of the negative in general, to presuppose an evil or less good will on the part of the government — a presupposition which, were one to answer in the same form, would immediately entail the recrimination that the estates, since they proceed from singularity, from the private standpoint and particular interests, are inclined to use their efficacy for these at the expense of the universal interest, whereas the other moments of the power of the state are already, in themselves, placed at the standpoint of the state and devoted to the universal purpose.«

   So knowledge and will of the estates are partly superfluous, partly suspect. The people does not know what it wants. The estates do not possess the science of the state to the degree the officials do, whose monopoly it is. The estates are superfluous for accomplishing the »universal affair.« The officials can accomplish it without the estates; indeed, they must do the best even in spite of the estates. As far as content is concerned, then, the estates are pure luxury. Their existence is therefore, in the most literal sense, a mere form.

   As for the disposition, the will, of the estates, this too is suspect, for they come from the private standpoint and private interests. In truth, private interest is their universal affair, and not the universal affair their private interest. But what a manner for the »universal affair« to gain form as a universal affair — in a will that does not know what it wants, or at least does not possess any particular knowledge of the universal, and in a will whose actual content is an opposing interest!

   In the modern states, as in Hegel’s philosophy of right, the conscious, the true actuality of the universal affair is only formal — or, only the formal is real universal affair.

   Hegel is not to be blamed for depicting the essence of the modern state as it is, but for passing off what is as the essence of the state. That the rational is actual proves itself precisely in the contradiction of the unreasonable actuality, which at every turn is the opposite of what it professes, and professes the opposite of what it is.

   Instead of showing how the »universal affair« exists for itself »subjectively, and hence really as such,« that it also has the form of the universal affair, Hegel shows only that formlessness is its subjectivity — and a form without content must be formless. The form that the universal affair acquires in a state that is not the state of the universal affair can only be a deformity, a self-deceiving, self-contradictory form, a semblance-form which will show itself to be just this semblance.

   Hegel wants the luxury of the estates element only for the sake of logic. The being-for-itself of the universal affair, as empirical universality, is supposed to have an existence. Hegel does not seek an adequate realization of the »being-for-itself of the universal affair«; he contents himself with finding some empirical existence that can be resolved into this logical category — and that then is the estates element, whereupon he does not fail himself to remark how wretched and contradictory this existence is. And then he further reproaches ordinary consciousness for not contenting itself with this logical satisfaction — for not wanting to see actuality resolved, by arbitrary abstraction, into logic, but rather wanting to see logic transformed into true objectivity.

   I say: arbitrary abstraction. For since governmental power wills, knows, and realizes the universal affair, proceeds from the people, and is an empirical plurality (that it is not a matter of totality, Hegel himself instructs us), why should governmental power not be capable of being determined as the »being-for-itself of the universal affair«? Or why not, conversely, the »estates« as its being-in-itself, since the matter first gains light and determinacy and execution and independence in the government?

   But the true opposition is this: the »universal affair« must, after all, be represented somewhere in the state as »real,« that is, as »empirical universal affair«; it must appear somewhere in the crown and the robe of the universal, whereby it becomes, of itself, a role, an illusion.

   What is at stake here is the opposition between the »universal« as »form,« in the »form of universality,« and the »universal as content.«

   In science, for example, a »single individual« can accomplish the universal affair, and it is always individuals who accomplish it. But it becomes really universal only when it is no longer the affair of the individual but of society. This changes not only the form but also the content. Here, however, what is at issue is the state, where the people itself is the universal affair; here what is at issue is the will that has its true existence, as the will of the species, only in the self-conscious will of the people. And here, moreover, what is at issue is the Idea of the state.

   The modern state, in which the »universal affair,« like the occupation with it, is a monopoly, while conversely the monopolies are the real universal affairs, has made the peculiar invention of appropriating the »universal affair« as a mere form. (The truth is that only the form is universal affair.) It has thereby found the corresponding form for its content, which is only apparently the real universal affair.

   The constitutional state is the state in which the interest of the state, as the real interest of the people, is present only formally — but as a determinate form alongside the real state; here the interest of the state has again received a formal actuality as the interest of the people, but it is supposed to have only this formal actuality. It has become a formality, the haut goût |the seasoning| of the life of the people, a ceremony. The estates element is the sanctioned, legal lie of the constitutional states — the lie that the state is the interest of the people, or that the people is the interest of the state. In content this lie will unmask itself. It has established itself as legislative power precisely because the legislative power has the universal as its content, is more a matter of knowledge than of will, is the metaphysical power of the state — whereas this same lie, as governmental power, etc., would have to dissolve at once or turn into a truth. The metaphysical power of the state was the fittest seat for the metaphysical, universal illusion of the state.

   »The guarantee that is supposed to lie in the estates for the general good and public freedom is found, on some reflection, not to lie in the particular insight of the estates themselves […] but lies partly, rather, in an addition (!!) of insight on the part of the deputies — chiefly into the doings of officials standing farther from the eyes of the higher offices, and especially into more pressing and more specific needs and deficiencies which they have before them in concrete view — and partly in that effect which the anticipated censure of the many, and indeed a public censure, brings with it: namely, of employing in advance the best insight into affairs and the drafts to be laid before them, and of arranging them only according to the purest motives — a constraint which is likewise operative for the members of the estates themselves.«

   »As for the guarantee in general, which is supposed to lie especially in the estates, every other institution of the state likewise shares in being a guarantee of the public welfare and of rational freedom, and there are among these institutions — such as the sovereignty of the monarch, the hereditary succession to the throne, the constitution of the courts, and so forth — in which this guarantee lies to a far greater degree still. The peculiar conceptual determination of the estates is therefore to be sought in the fact that in them the subjective moment of universal freedom, the estates’ own insight and their own will — the sphere that has, in this presentation, been called civil society — comes into existence in relation to the state. That this moment is a determination of the Idea developed into totality, this inner necessity which is not to be confused with external necessities and utilities, follows, as everywhere, from the philosophical point of view.«

   Public, universal freedom is supposedly guaranteed in the other institutions of the state; the estates are its supposed self-guarantee. It is understandable that the people places more weight on the estates, in which it believes itself to be its own guarantor, than on institutions which, without any action of its own, are supposed to be the assurances of its freedom — confirmations of its freedom without being activations of its freedom. The coordination that Hegel assigns to the estates alongside the other institutions contradicts their essence.

   Hegel solves the riddle when he finds the »peculiar conceptual determination of the estates« in the fact that in them »the estates’ own insight and their own will, that of civil society, come into existence in relation to the state.« It is the reflection of civil society upon the state. Just as the bureaucrats are delegates of the state to civil society, so the estates are delegates of civil society to the state. They are, then, always transactions between two opposed wills.

   In the Addition to this paragraph it is stated:

   »The position of the government toward the estates ought not to be essentially hostile, and the belief in the necessity of this hostile relationship is a sad error,«

   is a »sad truth.«

   »The government is not a party, over against which another stands.«

   The reverse is true.

   »The taxes that the estates grant are, moreover, not to be regarded like a gift given to the state, but are granted for the good of those granting them themselves.«

   In the constitutional state, the granting of taxes is, according to prevailing opinion, necessarily a gift.

   »What constitutes the actual significance of the estates is that the state thereby enters into the subjective consciousness of the people, and that the people begins to take part in it.«

   The latter is entirely correct. The people, in the estates, begins to take part in the state; and likewise the state, as something beyond it, enters into its subjective consciousness. But how can Hegel pass off this beginning as the full reality?

   Log in to Reply