Chapter 3 focuses on Hegel’s critique of liberalism. It starts by discussing the preface to the Philosophy of Right in order to challenge the widespread assumption that Hegel is averse to robust social criticism. Afterwards, the chapter considers two main causes for the limited recognition of his work’s critical dimension. The first is the tendency to read Hegel’s book as a horizontal progression, fuelled by the accumulation of different aspects or layers of freedom. This kind of approach misrepresents the qualitative transformation that is at stake in the transition from civil society to the state, which only a vertical reading can adequately convey. Second, the Philosophy of Right’s critical import has also been obfuscated by some of Hegel’s own philosophical positions. Despite his intended sublation of the stage of civil society, his account of the state remains wedded, in important ways, to the former’s underlying logic. As the chapter seeks to show, if we accept Hegel’s claim that a rational state must synthesize the particular and the universal dimensions of human freedom, we must reject some of his political options as partly or wholly un-Hegelian.

Chapter 2 discusses Hegel’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and reality, as well as the much-debated issue of whether the Philosophy of Right should be read as a normative enterprise. Focusing on the methodological argument outlined in the work’s preface and introduction, the chapter argues that Hegel is committed to a critical reconstruction of received reality, aimed at revealing the norms and institutions that best embody and promote human freedom. Moreover, it is claimed that this critical effort comprises a conceptual and a temporal dimension, corresponding to two different argumentative moments: the progression leading from the stage of ‘abstract right’ to that of the state, which deals with the immanent development of the concept of freedom, and the book’s final section, ‘world history’, which charts the historical actualization of the concept of freedom. While most interpreters tend to focus on the former dimension, the chapter shows that the latter is just as important to understand Hegel’s overall position.

Chapter 1 retraces the history of the critical reception of Hegel’s social and political thought, from the publication of the Philosophy of Right to the present. The chapter discusses the charges of conservatism raised by Hegel’s first critics, the liberal rehabilitation of his work in the second half of the twentieth century and the communitarian interpretation introduced in British and American debates from the 1980s. Finally, the chapter focuses on the ‘middle ground’ approach favoured today by most Hegelian scholars, based on a compromise between the liberal and the communitarian positions. This kind of interpretation is undoubtedly a step forward from the one-sided approach of many previous readings. However, by favouring the practical dimension of Hegel’s arguments over their logical or metaphysical foundations (an attitude referred to as methodological pragmatism) and by regarding the social dimension of freedom as an adjective rather than a substantive component of his position (an attitude referred to as structural individualism), this interpretative trend ends up reiterating the liberal framework Hegel seeks to transcend.

The Introduction reflects on Hegel’s unique approach to social and political philosophy, the distance that separates him from other modern thinkers and the contemporary reception of his ideas. Although the charges of conservatism and intolerance raised by Hegel’s early critics have since been discredited, the current tendency to regard him as a social-minded liberal fails to capture the true depth of his political thought. And this failure follows, it is argued, from the tendency to read the Philosophy of Right in a linear or horizontal manner, as a progression in which each dialectical stage is merely completed or expanded by subsequent ones. Introducing the book’s main thesis, the chapter claims that only a vertical reading, which recognizes the progression’s transformative nature, can do justice to Hegel’s overall argument. Moreover, anticipating the critical reconstruction of the Philosophy of Right undertaken in the book’s second part, it is claimed that such a reading leads beyond Hegel’s own political and economic views, towards a more progressive vision of modern society.

The Conclusion offers a brief recapitulation of the book’s main argument, highlighting its critical and reconstructive components. First, the criticism of the liberal reading that has come to dominate Hegelian scholarship is reiterated. The rational state envisioned in the Philosophy of Right, grounded in a dialectical synthesis of the particular and the universal dimensions of human freedom, is irreducible to the liberal state found today in most democratic nations. Second, the chapter insists on the need to move beyond Hegel’s own political and economic choices in order to bring out the true implications of his views. As argued throughout the book, only a fully democratic state, in which political and economic power are shared among all the citizens, can be deemed rational, in Hegelian terms. Finally, it is suggested that this alternative reading is not only more faithful to Hegel’s philosophical vision, but also more relevant for contemporary critical theory.

Chapter 6 focuses on the political structure of a rational state. In the Philosophy of Right, by handing the bulk of the state’s political power to unelected agents, Hegel is in effect compromising the reconciliation of particular and collective interests he regards as essential to a rational political order. However, his wariness of democracy is more than a mere relapse into some pre-modern, reactionary standpoint. This chapter argues that Hegel is right to denounce the atomism favoured by mass electoral systems, which tend to reduce the citizens’ political identity to that of individual voters, but that he is wrong to dismiss mass democracy altogether. His critique is overly severe because his conception of democracy presupposes the liberal logic of civil society, which he attempts to sublate in a strictly political manner. As this chapter seeks to show, the atomism he argues against is best avoided not by limiting democracy, but by extending it to the economic sphere. In a democracy that is both political and economic, individuals are no longer mere atoms, but part of collective social units organized around commonly held goals.

Chapter 5 discusses the economic structure of a rational state. Anticipating Marx’s critique of capitalism, Hegel associates the maximization of self-interest promoted by the modern market to an inconsistent and ultimately irrational conception of freedom. He argues that the elevation of freedom to a rational form requires not merely a readjustment of the economic sphere, but a change of paradigm, and this change is entrusted to a system of professional corporations in which competition is replaced by cooperation and trust. Yet although these groups can help mitigate capitalism’s worst excesses, they are not up to the conceptual role Hegel wants them to play. This does not mean, however, that his associative strategy cannot be successfully revived. The chapter’s final section shows that a rational economic sphere implies not only the common ownership of society’s productive resources, but also the democratization of the productive sphere. Drawing on the market socialist tradition, it is suggested that the corporations can be fruitfully reconstructed as worker-directed enterprises, capable of recapturing their communal spirit while avoiding their main limitations.

Chapter 4 reassesses Hegel’s views on property and its role within a rational state. In the Philosophy of Right’s initial stage, devoted to ‘abstract right’, each person is defined as an independent legal agent, with the right to own and exchange property. From this standpoint, the political sphere is but a prolongation of the legal sphere and the state is reduced to an external authority, charged with regulating existing property relations. As the progression unfolds, however, this legalistic framework is called into question: it turns out that individual rights are not the true foundation of the state, but a part thereof, subordinated to a wider commitment to the common good. Yet while this commitment is clearly affirmed by Hegel, it is at odds with the priority he accords to private property, in the progression’s later stages, over other forms of ownership. Taking a different path, the chapter argues that a Hegelian theory of property entails a critical revision of Hegel’s actual treatment of property rights. If the state is to bring together the citizens’ particular interests and the common good, the ownership of society’s productive resources must be shared by all of its members.

History for German idealism is the expression of practical reason, the process of gradually bringing about the accord of subject and object. In Hegel’s conception of the history of freedom, different configurations of ethical life embody changing assessments of the self and the world, and contain essential contradictions whose resolution is the key to progress towards new and more complex forms. The dialectic of the will in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is an exposition of the idea of spontaneity, endowing itself with concrete content as it moves through its dimensions of universality, particularity, and singularity. Hegel demonstrates that modern institutions are not mere limitations, but legitimate conditions for the exercise of freedom. The rationality of the real, however, does not preclude a critical engagement. Close examination of current relations and institutions as exemplifying ideas of freedom reveals nodal points where practical interventions are likely to be fruitful in effecting change. An implicit, historicised ‘ought’ in Hegel, arising from his reworking of the logical categories, marks his place within post-Kantian perfectionism.

Corporatism refers to the tradition of constitutional theories that argue that self-organized bodies, such as universities, churches, or labour unions, are independent and important components of a constitutional order. While in the twentieth-century corporatism became associated primarily with economic actors, a central question in corporatist theory was the broader constitutional status of non-state associations and organizations that had their own political powers to govern their members and engage in quasi-legislative activity. In arguing for the independent legitimacy of such diverse corporate actors, proponents of corporatism were united in criticizing more liberal visions of constitutionalism for its abstraction and formalism. Many corporatist theorists thus advocated a sort of societal constitutionalism, where constitutional norms are embodied in diverse institutions that are more proximate to individuals than the state – ranging from major professional and economic associations to a variety of civil society groups. This chapter analyses corporatism both as a tradition in constitutional theory and as an empirical phenomenon that arose in the interwar and post-war periods. It argues that corporatist ideas can contribute to a theory of democratic constitutionalism that emphasizes the importance of organized collective power, and not just the problem of regulating state coercion or distributing formal rights.

This chapter suggests that Auerbach’s quotation of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” on the title page of Mimesis sets a tone simultaneously coy and optimistic in its use of the tradition of Renaissance love lyric, and it traces that optimism in Auerbach’s reading of To the Lighthouse and his devotion to aesthetic historism.

This chapter examines Marx’s important but understudied text Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. It is shown that Marx, beginning from an enthusiasm he shares with Hegel for developing an organic theory of the state, shows Hegel’s execution of his project to be deeply flawed. Hegel’s defence of constitutional monarchy has the strange result of producing, when properly thought through, a defence of radical popular power. His attempt to use the ‘estates’ as an element in the state performing multiple many-way mediations further serves to reveal that something is amiss in the role that Hegel’s logic is being called upon to play.

There have been more than 400 years of research surrounding the state, but its concept remains iridescent and varies between different legal cultures. This contribution asks why and how the concept of the state evolved in continental Europe and examines why the term did not enter the legal terminology of England and later the US. It introduces four influential concepts of the state from the constitutional theory of the 19th and 20th century and shows how these concepts have set the paths on which debate around the state still moves today. Finally, the chapter revisits the most famous critiques of the concept, to then answer the central question surrounding the “state” in constitutional theory: what use does the concept retain today.

This chapter reconstructs Schopenhauer’s critical engagement with thinkers from his own era. It notes that Schopenhauer often focused his scrutiny of Kant and Hegel on their political arguments. In the former case, Schopenhauer claimed that Kant’s moral theory was in fact a concealed political theory. In the latter case, he claimed that Hegel’s philosophy of the state conflated politics, religion, and morality for the purpose of serving the Prussian state. The chapter concludes that Schopenhauer’s reputation as an apolitical thinker is misleading since his elaborate criticisms of Kant and Hegel are partly generated by his conception of politics. It also argues that Schopenhauer’s demystifying critique of statehood in German Idealism places him in a position similar to the radical Young Hegelians, including the early Marx. Yet while the young Marx attacked the bourgeois vision of state rule over a market society composed of atomized, competitive individuals, Schopenhauer affirmed it.

This chapter analyzes Schopenhauer’s political beliefs in the context of his biography. Schopenhauer was a well-traveled son of a merchant who failed to gain a foothold in academia and never pursued another career in the professions, business, or government. Without traditional prospects, he settled into a rentier existence. He retained much of his background’s bourgeois attitudes toward property, individual industry, and frugality, but since he was confined to a life outside professional circles, he came to occupy an outsider position and opposed both conservatives and progressives, orthodox Christians and secular radicals. Committed to the idea of a natural intellectual elite, he was skeptical of collective political movements, such as the nationalism and socialism of his own time. Yet he was also critical of the traditional aristocracy with its relative independence from the modern state. His preferred political regime was a nondemocratic, monarchical statism that would protect individuals and their property.