{"id":903193,"date":"2026-09-17T16:06:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903193"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:06:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:06:54","slug":"do-marxists-still-need-hegel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/do-marxists-still-need-hegel\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Marxists still need Hegel?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> Marx himself answered the question, and with yes. His first substantial work is a paragraph-by-paragraph critique of the Groundlines<\/em>; the analysis of civil society that he later developed he found already in Hegel. What is interesting today is less where Marx contradicts Hegel than where Hegel already sees the same thing \u2013 and has no solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Hegel sees before Marx<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00a7 243<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 245<\/a> are the place. \u00a7 243<\/a> describes the simultaneous accumulation of wealth and \u201ethe dependence<\/em> and want<\/em> of the class tied to this labour\u201c. \u00a7 244<\/a> calls the result the rabble<\/a> and notes that its production \u201ebrings with it, at the same time, the greater ease of concentrating disproportionate wealth in a few hands\u201c. And \u00a7 245<\/a> ends not with a solution but with an admission:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It becomes evident, here, that, in the face of the excess of wealth<\/em>, civil society is not wealthy enough<\/em> \u2013 that is, does not possess enough, of its own peculiar resources, to check the excess of poverty and the production of the rabble.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 245<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is written in 1820 and claims: the contradiction is not a malfunction of the system but its product. For the rest of the book it is never resolved \u2013 the corporation<\/a> mitigates, colonial trade displaces, the state looks on. Whoever wants to know where Marx takes hold will find the fracture here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Marx contradicts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the Critique of Hegel\u2019s Doctrine of the State<\/em> (1843, on \u00a7 261<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 313<\/a>) the charge is, in essence: Hegel turns the real relation upside down. Not the families and estates are the subject that gives itself a state; in Hegel the Idea becomes the subject and actual human beings its appearances. The point of attack is not chosen at random: Marx takes up \u00a7 279<\/a> and the derivation of the monarch \u2013 the weakest passage of the book, in the judgement of many who otherwise follow Hegel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this edition Marx\u2019s remarks are attached to the paragraphs concerned as a layer of their own. One can therefore read \u00a7 279<\/a> and the objection side by side instead of reading about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where Hegel asks back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two of Hegel\u2019s objections have accompanied the Marxist tradition through its whole history. The first stands in \u00a7 303<\/a> note and holds against any politics that appeals directly to \u201ethe people\u201c:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The many<\/em> as individuals \u2013 what is commonly understood by the people \u2013 are indeed a togetherness<\/em>, but only as the multitude<\/em> \u2013 a formless mass whose movement and activity would, for that very reason, be merely elemental, irrational, wild, and terrible.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 303<\/a> note<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The second is the warning of \u00a7 258<\/a> note against the attempt to begin a constitution \u201eentirely afresh, from thought<\/em> alone\u201c. Both sentences were written against the French Revolution and were quoted in the twentieth century by people who otherwise rejected Hegel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the charge of glossing over<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is old and not entirely wrong. Hegel\u2019s book ends with a state that does not resolve the contradictions of civil society but arches over them. Whether that fulfils or misses the task of thinking depends on what one expects of philosophy \u2013 see on this \u201eWhat is rational is actual\u201c<\/a> and The Owl of Minerva<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 182<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 187<\/a> (civil society), \u00a7 198<\/a> (division of labour), \u00a7 243<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 248<\/a> (wealth, poverty, rabble, colonisation), \u00a7 279<\/a> (sovereignty of the monarch), \u00a7 303<\/a> note. \u2013 Karl Marx, Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrechts<\/em> (manuscript 1843, MEW 1, 203\u2013333); Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung<\/em> (1844). \u2013 The Marx layer of this edition is attached directly to the relevant paragraphs. \u2013 In the glossary: Civil Society<\/a>, Poverty<\/a>, Alienation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n