Hegel: libération formelle et inégalité dans la société civile bourgeoise

Abstract

This article aims to show that, in the course of his analysis of Bourgeois Civil Society, Hegel formulates a philosophical theory of British society as it had been already described by A. Smith, and thereby anticipates our present “dual” societies which can be characterized by luxury and poverty. The Bourgeois Civil Society is seen as a necessary economical stage in the progressive satisfaction of social needs, but also as an insufficient one insofar as the abstract parallel sophistication of the needs themselves generates a plebeian class as a residue of the civil society which cannot be eliminated through colonial expansion. In Hegel's view, politics should remain in control of economics.