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Guide to Marxist Philosophy, Social Theory and Economics

Marxist Theory

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Chapter 3: Hegel and

the completion of

German idealistphilosophy

BY SIMON

The True is the Whole

Hegel

Whilst Kant took key aspects ofphilosophy forward with hisarguments, to some they felt he alsoleft many other questionsunanswered. His philosophy formedan im ortant bedrock to ideas of

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liberalism but was transcendentalphilosophy sufficient to reallyunderstand the human world and itsrelations? It was left to otherphilosophers to explore the ideasthat Kant had raised. One of thesewas George Hegel, a professor ofphilosophy whose philosophy inmany ways represents the highestachievement of German philosophy.

Marx had a high opinion of both men, saying that Kant was the firstand Hegel the last word in German idealism.

Although Hegel followed on with some of the themes of Kant, hestrongly criticised his arguments and developed concepts which wereentirely new. Hegel criticises Kant for empiricism because he seesKants philosophy as an attack on metaphysics Hegel for his partwanted to maintain a form of metaphysics and incorporate it into ahistorical narrative of change.

So, Kant argues there are two primary categories, phenomena andnoumena. Hegel agrees that there is a divergence betweenappearance and essence, but for Hegel there is no unknowable ding ansich. The fact that Kant argues this actually leads Kants entirephilosophy into the realm of appearances alone, since appearancesare all that we can really know this leads directly to scepticism inthe philosophical sciences. Hegel wanted to go deeper, into theessence of things which he believes we can know. The whole ofhuman history is actually the struggle of the human mind to know

itself better, to reach an understanding of the what Hegel calls theAbsolute.

In Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel is exploring the system of howthe phenomena of the mind can appear to the mind itself, in otherwords, how do we think? Hegel criticises two commonly held views ofthe faculty of thought. The first is that thought is the means (mittelhere understood as a tool or an instrument) through which we graspthe absolute (din an sich). For others thou ht is a assive medium

Introduction: What is being discussed?

Chapter 1: The Enlightenment

Chapter 2: The breakthrough in philosophy

Chapter 4: The early utopian socialists

Chapter 5: The beginnings of scientific

socialism

Chapter 6: The materialist dialectic

Chapter 7: Historical Materialism

Chapter 8: The method of abstraction

Chapter 9: Alienation

Chapter 10: Social Oppression

Chapter 11: Surplus value, the working class

and ideology

Chapter 12: Boom and bust and the limits of

capitalism

Chapter 13: Revolutionary crises under

capitalism

Methodology I: Scientific Socialism as aWorld-view

Methodology II: Marxism and determinism

Chapter 14: The capitalist state, workers

state, socialism and communism (the riddle

of history solved)

Chapter 15: The Second International

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through which the absolute passes to reach us. This has problems fornatural consciousness, if consciousness is a tool then it is used toshape the thing we are thinking about, if it is a medium then itprevents us from really knowing the truth (ding an sich) since we onlyconceptualise the medium.

In Kants preface to Critique of Pure Reason,he argues that since wecannot know the Absolute we must abandon any attempts toinvestigate it and instead focus on the subjective forms. Hence hisclaim that the objects must conform to our ideas and not vice versa.Hegel rejects the view that we must use thought as some kind ofseparate instrument, something that we use to understand realityfrom the outside. He does so because to do so implies we areseparate from reality.

Hegelian philosophy

Hegels philosophy is complex and it is possible to only give a verybroad outline here, primarily focussing on the important aspects like

the dialect and the relations of contradiction and motion. For Hegelthe task of philosophy is to contemplate the actuality in the process ofhistory as it reveals itself to be part of a greater whole. All thathumanity can do therefore is to reflect, Nachdenken (thinking after),so all true knowledge occurs after the fact as Hegel famously saidthe owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk. 1Ourknowledge first and foremost comes from sense certainty, the veryimmediate and utterly particular act of an object impinging on oursense. In this case it is a cup of tea which sits in front of me. I can see,taste, touch and smell it, I know it is there because of these things.

However I cannot ascribe it as a cup of tea, because to use languageto describe any sense perception involves utilising the universal cups of tea. It also locates it within a temporal context which bydefinition limits its truthfulness (since it can at some point dry up,becoming silt or be drunk and cease to be tea). In Hegels model thetask of our thought process is to actually liberate itself from thematerial world. The material world appears immediate, but in factHegels idealism means that he rejects sensory data as purely comingfrom a material relationshi , instead he sees consciousness as

Chapter 16: The debates over historical

materialism

Chapter 17: Fabianism in Britain

Chapter 18: Revisionist controversy in

Germany

Chapter 19: Reform or revolution 1914-1919

Part Four The struggle for the soul of

Marxism

Chapter 20: Ultra leftism and the Third

International

Chapter 21: Hegelian Marxism, Lukcs and

Korsch

Chapter 22: Antonio Gramsci theories of

hegemony, civil society and revolution

Chapter 23: Soviet philosophy

Chapter 24: Leon Trotsky and the fight for

the International

Part Five The post war world

Chapter 25: The Frankfurt School and critical

theory

Chapter 26: Maoism in East and West

Chapter 27: The New Left

Chapter 28: Existentialism: a philosophy of

reality

Chapter 30: Structuralist Marxism

Chapter 31: Poulantzas and Eurocommunism

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ascending by gradually emancipating itself into purer forms ofthought. Our consciousness must be a self-consciousness and it mustrecognise other forms of consciousness, other objects around us.

As such, the beginning of true knowledge, or knowledge of theAbsolute, is self-consciousness. But Hegel does not think that selfconsciousness is automatically given, self consciousness is in fact onlyrealised when it comes into contact with an external object which islike it, another self-consciousness. The Descartian starting point forself knowledge, I think therefore I am is up rooted and replaced withby the act of others thinking, and my recognition of that, I come intoself realisation and conscious being. (Marx and the left wingmaterialists would transform the famous I think therefore I am into Iam therefore I think)

In a sense we can use the modern concept of the Other to illustrateHegels point. It is only through the existence of the Other that the Uscan be formed, in opposition and by excluding that which is not Us.But Hegel takes it a step further, w-e in fact Desire this Other which is

not Us. By desiring it we want to possess it, make it one with us, andin doing so incorporate it into our own being. We originally start off inan undifferentiated but primitive unity with nature, before becomingalienated from it. Only in this way does the self-consciousness cometo recognise itself as Spirit (or mind in some translations) and achievea higher synthesis, a unity with the world by seeing consciousness ofitself as its own world, and of the world as itself. 2

This concept is central to Hegels famous Master/slave relationship.3In this analogy, Hegel asks us the question, who is really the master

in such a relationship? At first glance of course the master (slaveowner) has all the power, even the power to kill a slave if they wish,since they are often considered no better than cattle. But if the slavedies, then the master is left alone, unable perhaps to even cook orclean. In this instance, who is the real master? Under capitalism theworking class seems to be the slave and in fact does exist as a wageslave at the mercy of their capitalist masters. But if the workers strike,then the workplace ceases to function, it ceases to make money orroduce commodities or answer the hones or t e at a com uter

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terminal. The master is left at the mercy of their slaves. Such an actof slave rebellion poses the Hegelian question who really rules?Indeed, the master must act as they do because by recognising theother they come to hate its existence, whilst at the same time feelslove (desire) for the material goods that they can produce or theservice they provide.

What is the method by which Hegel arrives at these kind of insights?Hegel uses a method from Ancient Greek philosophy, called thedialectic, in so doing reintroduced it into western thought. 4Thismethod is best observed in Platos writings, for instance the Republic,where Socrates has various conversations and debates with Atheniangentlemen. Through asking questions and working through theanswers they arrive at a higher plane of understanding, the dialogue isthe process which helps clarify the terms of the debate and arrive at anew conclusion.

The method of the dialectic that is developed in Phenomenology is abreakthrough as far as modern philosophy is concerned, though of

course Kant and Hegel had salvaged the idea from the ancient Greeks.Whereas formal logic can only refer to identity and proceed alongexplicit lines the dialectic analyses the relationship between contentand form and therefore allows us to overcome formal content as thesole reach of analysis. Whereas Platos dialectic was inductive,starting from relatively small statements and limited questions toarrive at a universal truth, Hegel is (generally speaking) deductive, hebegins from the big idea and works out its its grounding in the world.

The dialectical approach to thinking does not see the world in fixed

categories, so much as a series of processes and motions. Everythingis a unit of many determinants, each one in possible conflict with theothers, each one not dissolving the others but forming a highersynthesis. Within these processes are moments or rather processes of transition, both quantitative and qualitatively, as things areconstantly becoming something else. The dialectical method seesthings as a whole, but also the parts of the whole and crucially howthey relate to each other. Importantly, contradiction is immanentwithin thin s, chan e comes from within not outside. 5The unit of

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opposites (in logical terms that both A and non-A co-exist) is acontradiction which causes motion and change. This was differentfrom Aristotles concept of change which started from outside, from anunmoved mover who could really only be God.

In his Science of Logicand Encyclopedia, Hegel undertakes the task ofexplaining how ideas are formed and enter the world. His methodbegins with the abstract and proceeds to the concrete through a seriesof categories and relations, each of which deals with a different stagein the process of and Idea as it makes its way into reality. He beginswith Beingwhich is simply abstract pure thought, it is ideas withoutany sensual results (touching, smelling, etc) and as such it is Nothing.But Being both exists and does not exist, in the same way that anabstract idea exists in our heads but not in the world, as such itemerges out of Nothing, it is always becoming. Being contains bothquantities and qualities which can create new forms of Being whichHegel calls measure, effectively the moment when numerous qualitiesculminate in something which achieves recognition. Being is a stage ofsimple determinate objects'[refJames, Notes on Dialectics 2p/ref]. But

Hegel was not just interested in being, he wanted to understand theessence of thinking and social relations. It is in the second realm, thatof Essence that the contradictions emerge because it is the phase ofreflection in which ideas compete and clash with each other.6Essence is what happens when Being begins to take form, when therelation of Being to not-Being and to other forms of being (otherabstract ideas for instance) begin to take shape into a commonrelation, something tangible. At first as new information or data isprocessed and understood there is a stage of Identity when this agreeswith what we already know, but simple Identity eventually breaks

down and gives way to a Diversity of views, then a Difference thenwhat Hegel calls Ground, the separation of differences into newIdentities so that the process can begin again. 7 He summarises thisprocess as Distinction, Relativity, Mediation. 8At its root, this shiftfrom Being to Essence can be summarised as the shift from a simpleto a complex view of social relations, because in essence all relationsare mediated, they are no longer immediate. Essence contains morecomplex forms of contradiction and motion, for instance between formand content (appearance) and eventually achieves an in the unity of

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opposites, the unity of Being and Essence, which is the final stage ofthe motion of thought the Notion.

The Notion emerges from a long process of sublation, incorporationand re-establishment between Being and Essence, it is thereforeconcrete, the highest expression of ideas and also human activity.Whereas the previous stages examined some of the most abstractaspects of intuition and knowledge, Notion concerns more palpableconcepts because it deals with a more concrete apparatus of thought.It is the moment that subjective logic gives way to objective logic. TheNotion begins as as subjective concept, it is self referential. workingout its own internal mediated relations. Just as Being and Essencehave three stages of movement so does Notion, between Universal,Particular and Individual. Universal is easy to see, the nation state is auniversal concept, the market economy is another one. Communismis another universal idea. The Universal is very concrete and abstractat the same time. The Particular can exist as the social, material formof the Universal whilst the Individual is our subjectivity. For example,ideas begin in the universal, descend into the particulars which are

made up of individuals (though not necessarily people). The notion ofGod is a universal one, the Church is the particular and the individualis Psalm 23, the Lords Prayer. After the Notion has completed itssubjective working out, it becomes Objective (although in reality thisstage would almost certainly be commensurate with the former), itrelates to the otherness in the world and establishes relations andprocesses externally. Finally the Notion becomes the Idea, it takesshape as a fully worked out and coherent argument. We canunderstand the different sub-divisions of logic as Being in the present,the Essence of the past (Hegel uses the phrases

Wesenist wasgewesen ist Essence is what has been, or what ispast) and the Concept of the Notion belongs to the future, to Being asit is to be. Hegel also explains this transition as the difference betweenconsciousness, self consciousness and finally, reason. There are manyother points after this in which the Concept and the Idea developthrough different stages and inter-relations, before finally arriving atthe Absolute Idea which is the unity of practical and theoretical ideas,but we will return to this later.

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To extend the analogy of the Church a little further, the idea of theChristian God emerges in opposition to Other concepts of divinity,salvation and worship. The ideas begin to connect to other ideas, toelaborate and form new relations until the essence of Christianityemerges, Jesus as the Messiah, rejection of aspects of Jewish law andso on. The essence takes the shape of both appearance and actuality,the cross is the appearance, the actuality of holy communion andphysical locations for worship (early churches). The notion ofChristianity has both a subjective side and an objective side, theparticulars of the Church become objective when people formrelations which constitute the church, after all the Church is nothingwithout the congregation (after all, the English word Church is acorruption of Ekklesia, meaning congregation or assembly). Theobjective form of the Church is both the embodiment of and embodiedin the idea of Christianity, the life of a Christian, the Christian way ofthinking. The absolute idea of the Church made into reality is the unityof the practice of Christian worship and the theory of salvation throughChrist. At each stage of this process there has been or remainscontradiction and even conflict (the splits in the Christian Church areproof of this), and a struggle over the essence or appearance of theChurch in reality.

If the reader takes anything away from that it should be two things.First that each category and concept has a relationship to the restwhich influences each process and outcome and that we can know theresult of these deliberations. Secondly, the idea of mediation is veryimportant in Hegel, each concept is mediated due to its relationshipand dependency on what came before and what comes after. Oneexample would be that the universal and the individual are mediated

by the particular. Lenin noted everything is vermittelt=mediated,bound into one, connected by transitions. 9meaning not only theunity of opposites, but the transition or every determination, quality,feature, side, property in every other. 10This notion of a mediatedrelation between objects and subjects is an important part of whatsubsequently came to be termed totality by 1920s Marxists. 11

As a general principle we can say that Hegel starts from the conceptof the livin whole and its movement caused b contradictions and

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interactions. This is the essence of dialectical thinking, to seeeverything in motion. Everything is considered in relation to otherthings, and since it is in motion the analysis must also take intoaccount the synthesis. Hegel primarily sees dialectical motion inthought and concepts, not living things which is why he is an idealist.For instance Hegel believed that the concept made up reality thetotality but for Engels it was matter in motion (as we shall see later).In Hegels system the central dynamic of dialectics was negation;The fundamental prejudice here is that the dialectic has only anegative result 12 everything is in fact critique, drawing on thecontradictions between what things appear to be or claim to be andtheir reality. The divergence between Being and Nothing whichproduces becoming is the starting point for the constant negation ofthings within themselves. The unity of identity and non-identity is thedriving force of ideas and concepts and produces constant change.

The drive of thought which yields positive results from the negationproduces the universal and seizes the particular in it. It is thisdynamic contradiction which, according to Rosa Luxemburg, is thecutting weapon of the Hegelian dialectic.

Some have attacked dialectics as pure metaphysics a system sovague that it can be applied to anything and therefore is meaningless.

This is based on a misunderstanding. Let us start from the world. It isan well-worn phrase that nothing ever changes it is also totallywrong. It would be a strange person indeed who could survey thewhole history of humanity and come to the conclusion that nothinghad seriously changed, from hunter gatherers living in caves to 9-5workers living in apartment blocks, things have changed a great deal.Of course what people really mean is that things like war, sexism, a

social divide between rich and poor has always existed and indeedsocialists would agree. So why do some things change rapidly butothers not at all? A dialectician would locate the phenomena whichremained constant throughout human history and analyse it within itsproper social historical context, why do wars happen? Most occurbecause of a fight over resources (the sanskrit word for war translatesinto wanting more cows), we can begin to construct a theory of warlinked to scarcity or a drive for greater accumulation of goods at theexpense of other people. Connected to a theory of class we can begin

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to see how war has been used throughout history to actually createtremendous changes. From the warmongery of Atilla the Hun and thedownfall of the Roman empire to the construction of the modern statewar has played a very important part in historical change. Of courseHegel did not have a class analysis in his philosophy, that would haveto be added by subsequent thinkers.

Even some things which historically have remained the same, forinstance the existence of a ruling class and a subservient, subalternclass, is only true on one level of analysis. These are categories whichmust be filled with social labels. The ruling class in Rome existed in avery different economic and political context to todays ruling class ina modern liberal democracy. The intention of dialectical thinking wasto allows vulgar historical myths to be stripped away, in order toarrive at a more authentic and well rounded analysis.

So why was this system of Philosophy so popular in Germany at thetime? When reviewing the role of Hegels logic in his own work, Marxlater commented, This dialectic is to be sure, the ultimate word in

philosophy and hence there is all the more need to divest it of themystical aura given it by Hegel.15 The mystical aura that surroundsHegels approach is the Absolute Idealism the Idea takes the form ofan actually existing independent subject, a thing out there and theworld is thephenomenal representationof this Idea. This is the core ofHegels non-materialism, the dialectic takes place in thought, sincethinking and our conceptualisation of freedom of ideas is thecornerstone of human development. Indeed the dialectics of nature isonly a miserable copy 13of the dialectical journey that the conceptof freedom takes.

Hegel and history

How did this complex model of philosophy affect how Hegel saw thedevelopment of human civilisation? In case anyone was of the opinionthat Hegels philosophy was just abstract word play and had nobearing on his politics or historical theories, we can briefly sketch outsome of German professors ideas and see how they relate to hisphilosophy. He was critical of how history was approached and studied

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at the time, referring to history as the slaughter-bench at which thehappiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue ofindividuals have been sacrificed 14. In the context of the reformationand the enlightenment, with the incredibly rapid process ofdevelopment that was taking place in nearly all corners of westernsociety, there was more to history than just one damn thing afteranother, there had to be a purpose, a thread running through it. Hewas inspired by the Enlightenment ideas of the time that history wasactually progressive, that ideas were developed and refined, and thatthe human condition improved steadily over time. Hegel developed aphilosophy of History which was both idealist and teleological.

He saw history as made up of a series of societies which in a sensewere a paradigm for the time in which they existed. He argued thatthe Persian, Greek and Roman empires all represented particularstages in the development of the Geist, the spirit of reason which runsthrough all of humanity. He thought that mankind was alienated fromitself, and that history would only become complete (or finished) whenthe subject-object became aware of itself, when it becomes identical

with itself.

Hegel believed that the history of the world is none other than theprogress of the consciousness of freedom 15. The very early empires,which Hegel terms the Oriental World are located in China, India andPersia (modern day Iran). These civilisations are stationary, theyreached a certain level of development and went no further. This wasa popular idea in Hegels time, western thinkers like John Mill wereobsessed with the idea of stagnant Asian economies and fearful itcould happen to the growing European empires as well. Hegel

believed that these ancient societies were stationary because no onehad freedom apart from the despotic ruler, be they a Pharaoh or anemperor.

When the Persian empire fought the Greek city states at the battle ofSalamis, the victory of the Greeks was in actuality a victory for theidea of individual freedoms are personified by the Greek city states.

The torch of history passed onto Athens, a superior form of social andolitical or anisation. The Greek cit states were the hi hest for of

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democracy yet achieved by humanity. The citizens of Athens werepart of the polity, the rule of the people, and had to take part inregular discussions at the Agora over political matters. The problem isthat the Greek system was freedom and democracy only for somepeople the entire civilisation was built on slavery and the subjugationof women in the home. The Greeks saw slavery as a necessarycondition for the democratic rights of others, whilst they were awaymaking political decisions about the fate of the city their home affairsand daily work was being carried out by the slaves 16.

On a more philosophical level, Hegel believes that the Greeks were sotied to their sense of community within the city state that they had noreal grasp of individual freedoms, but only a sense of the collective.

Their urge to do right by their community came from an internalimpulse, not external decrees by an emperor, but it still meant thatthey were not totally free, from Hegels point of view.

The collapse of the Greek empire was an inevitable result of the failureto overcome this lack of genuine individual freedoms. The emergence

of the Roman empire was in some ways a step backwards and twosteps forward. It was a step backwards for Hegel because it was muchmore authoritarian and disciplined by military rule than the Greek citystates had been, in this sense it was more of a return to the Asiandespotic model. But there was an antagonism, because at the sametime the principle of individual freedom was contained within thecomplex legal judicial system, enshrined in the culture of Rome in away that had not been seen before. It is only with the arrival ofChristianity that humanity makes a real break through in the idea ofpersonal freedoms. The Christians abolished slavery, introduced a cult

of moral and spiritual love and end the use of oracles, which representthe domination of chance over human will in the world ref]Singer P,Past Masters: Hegel p18[/ref].

All the way through his philosophy of history we see Hegel identifyingtheir eternal Geist with the forms of institutions and cultures thatexisted in any given stage of human society. As Hegel finishedthe Phenomenology of Spirit on the eve of the battle of Jena, he spokeabout how he looked out from his window to see the victorious

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Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte riding by on his horse. This connectedwith Hegel on a very deep level, Napoleon represented the FrenchRevolution and the pinnacle rationalising spirit of the age, defying oldconventions along with religious obscurantism and absolutism. Thenew age was being born and was finally coming to Germany. Theconclusions that Hegel drew about the world and history changed ashe grew older. After his initial enthusiasm for the French revolution hequickly became disillusioned with its failures, ultimately adopting amore conservative outlook. Towards the end of this life Hegelconcluded that it was in the present day Prussian state in which helived which was the culmination of all historical progress towardsreason. For Hegel the early 19th century was the end of history in anymeaningful sense, the state in his time was the representation of theDivine Idea as it exists on Earth 17. Some have criticised Hegel for

justifying the status quo, point to his well known phrase: What isrational is actual, what is actual is rational 18, as proof that he wastheorising the existance merely of the Prussian monarchy. But whatHegel is saying is more complex, it is that that the rational choice, themost logical and thereforeprogressive outcome, is actual it really

exists. Because this exists it is rational. This is somewhat of atautology, but rather than simply being a conservative phrase which

justifies the status quo, in fact it is something that the Russianrevolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin would later take up. Arguably, theactuality of the revolution is a concept which comes directly fromHegels concept of rationality and actuality.

His idea of history gave prime position to the idea of Reason as themotor force of change, and it was teleological, in that everything wasmoving towards a certain end point. History was on a fixed trajectory

towards a set goal, it contained a narrative and was made up ofindividuals striving, mostly unconsciously towards that goal. His viewswere romantic and imbued with the spirit of the age, rational progress,the contradiction between the lofty promise of modernity and thetrauma of the modern condition. The world spirit was at work, stridingthe world like a colossus, always seeking to overcome alienation, thedialectic was playing louder and louder as the falling away from theself was met with the return to the self, as reconciliation loomedcloser and closer.

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Approaching the Absolute

As the mind develops its own faculties, urged on by the necessity ofits own self realisation, it passes through three stages. The first is Art,because it is beautiful and it has a moral value, it tells us some truthsabout the world. The second is religion, because it is through thereligious symbols and institutions that we can practice faith and reachGod. The third, higher than even religion, is philosophy, which is thesense of truth itself. 19This is why, despite his idealism, Hegel to somedegree a rationalist at the same time. It is also what opened him up tocriticism from the Church during his life time as an alleged atheist orpantheist (or even a panentheist!).

Importantly, freedom in Phenomenology is not something akin topolitical freedom, but is the freedom of a free mind using reason tomake rational choices. Hegel believes that our rational choices areobscured by all the clutter of the world around us, and it is only byovercoming this self limitation that we can truly be free. This explainsthe apparent dichotomy between his claim that the entire course of

human history is the search for freedom and his conclusion that it hasended with the Prussian monarchy. For Hegel the political forms werenot analogous to what he understood to be real freedom.

Hegel rejected the singular notion of knowledge that Kant inheritedfrom Descartes, whereby the individual is the nexus through whichknowledge is gained. Instead, Hegel socialises ethics into thecommunity, making it a collective effort of achievement. For Hegel always a man who liked a triad there are three moments of ethics the family, market and state, which all together form civil society (in

German brgerliche Gesellschaf). The concept of civil society is animportant one in Hegel. Whilst civil society is a struggle betweencompeting bourgeois and private interests the state is the actuality ofconcrete freedom 20 because it not only mediates the relationshipbetween the atomised individual and society but it provides the moraland legal framework for us to carry out our duty, in duty that theindividual finds his liberation. 21For Hegel the modern German statewas therefore the pinnacle of human achievement precisely because itallowed for the national interest to be formulated and embedded in

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the peoples consciousness and thereby resolved the contradictions ofcivil society. Living life according to the civil duty, mores and mutualsocial agreements under the rule of the state is the Sittlichkeit, theethical life. Life is not a selfish take-what-you-can dog eat dog world,it should be one in which the social contracts we all establish witheach other are mutually recognised and reciprocated, living to thesesocial determinations is the highest form of ethical existence.

The key question is does the state separate from civil society anddoes it confront it? For Hegel the answer is that there is a certaindegree of harmony, that the state works as an integral part of thewhole to manage the whole. The role of government was to actualiseand maintain the universal contained within the particularity of civilsociety. For Hegel there is unity in the appearance and content, thesesocial relations represent the objective spirit of the rational idea, theyare the absolute made manifest in the state which is acting tonegotiate and balance civil society. The unity of civil society the statewas therefore the point at which the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) begins we can now live rational lives in an ordered world.

This concept of the civil society was crucial to Marxs early politicaldevelopment, in fact as he worked through his thinking on socialstructure and the possibility and method of creating change he wrotean entire critical essay on just two paragraphs of Hegels position onit. Ultimately, it was Marxs critique of the idea of civil society inHegel which contributed to the development of his socialist theory.

But Hegel did not simply praise the modern world, he was also criticalof the condition of modernity. We are not complete beings as such, we

are still alienated through our work. He wrote of how a vast numberof people are condemned to utterly brutalising, unhealthy andunreliable labour in workshops, factories and mines, labour whichnarrows and reduces their skill. From Hegels perspective every act oflabour which produces something real and outside of us is alienating.Every kind of objectification is alienating to us, we are constantlysuffering under the general malaise of modern production and labour.Hegel also criticised the divisions between the rights and freedoms ofthe individual and the existence and necessit of the communit . Both

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had to exist, but under capitalism they existed in an antagonisticrelationship to each other. But once again, the only way to over comeit for Hegel is through the Rechtstaat (the state of right) theaufhebung of all the contradictions of the modern world. Ina Rechtsstaat individuals can live moral lives within civil society,social peace can be achieved and the end of history can be reached,namely the identical subject-object becomes aware and rational. Assuch, he is a thoroughly enlightenment thinker, seeking to provide thephilosophical basis for a rational community. Hegels state is not thekind of thing we imagine today, but, as Pelczynski explains, anyethical community which is politically organised and sovereign,subject to a supreme public authority and independent from othersuch communities. 22

In conclusion, two possible readings of Hegels politics are possible.The first is as a liberal in which emphasises the individual rights withinthe state and the states role in defending those rights (privateproperty, liberty, etc). Alternatively he can be understood from acommunitarian perspective, as a Republican calling for an organic

community and the unity of the state and the individual in an ethicalwhole. Either way, Hegel also believes that the society only worksbecause everyone knows there place it is ethical because peoplefulfil their duties assigned to them by the social order. Whatever hemay have beenn, Hegel was certainly not a revolutionary.

Death of Hegel and the rise of the Young Hegelians

Hegels ideas were a powerful force in Germany by the 1820s, but hislife was cut short when he died on 14 November 1831. The doctors

believed it was caused by cholera, which at that time was epidemicacross Europe. Germany had been deprived of one of its chiefintellectuals. Those students influenced by his work were now largelydivided into two groups, the Right Hegelians and the Left (also knownas the Young) Hegelians. The Right Hegelians understood Hegel in aconservative manner, one which emphasised its compatibility withChristianity and the orthodox support for the rational Prussianmonarchy and its state. The Left Hegelians were much more radical.

The em hasised the conce ts of Reason and the teleolo ical drive of

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human history towards a more rational and just society. Theydisagreed with the German liberal programme at the time that aconstitutional monarchy was the highest form of statehood. Theywanted to explore more radical democratic options, ones thatemphasised collective freedoms and a criticism of the new powers asmuch as the old. It was from the intellectual debates among the leftHegelians that the young Marx and Engels were to fully explore andfinally grasp scientific socialism.

To some degree the Young Hegelians were one of the most importantintellectual movements in Germany at that time. Their influence wasgrowing in various universities and they acted as persistent critics ofthe Prussian monarchy, the church and even the emerging bourgeoiscapitalist order, through people like Feuerbach who advocated a truesocialism (which Marx and Engels would later criticise in theCommunist Manifesto). One of the young Hegelians, David Strausspublished a book, The Life of Jesus in 1835. This book was adeconstruction of the Gospels and caused a tremendous controversyfor its atheism. It was reflective of a wider trend within the Left

Hegelians to identify with the alleged pantheism within Hegel,although some, such as Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, drewmore radical conclusions.

When the new King of Prussia, Fredrick William IV came to power in1840, he was initially welcomed by even some of the radical students,who believed that he would further the pace of democratic reform andnational unity. Many hoped hoped he might be an enlightened despotlike Fredrick the Great or Joseph II of Austria. Their hopes were cruellydashed, William IV, although he briefly allowed more press freedom

than hs father had, he actually turned back the clock on progress inthe German states, promoting a romanticist ideal of the organiccommunity (a phrase not unfamiliar to Hegel) and refusing to allow aconstitution to be drawn up, in the hopes of slowing down movestowards more democracy. Left Hegelians like David Strauss satirisedthe reforms by William IV, comparing him to the Roman emperorulian who attempted to restore Paganism to the Roman empire afterthe death of Constantine. Strauss of course, thought that William IVwould eventually fail just as Julian had before him.

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As part of their counter reforms William IV and his advisor ChristianBunsen wanted the naturalist philosopher Fredrich Schelling teachingin Berlin. Schelling had been recommended to Fredrick William by hisnephew, the Crown Prince Maximillian of Bavaria. At this time Berlinwas the heart of Hegels intellectual authority, even after his death,and had the greatest number of Young Hegelians studying there. Thetwo philosophers had a history together stretching back to theirstudent days, Schelling and Hegel had been room mates at universityin 1790. Legend has it that they celebrated the French revolution,along with the Friedrich Hlderlin who went onto become a famouspoet, by going onto a hill and planted a liberty tree . They eventranslated La Marseilles, the anthem of the French revolution, intoGerman, though no reports survive as to whether the rendition carriedthe same lyrical power of the original.

When the students, including Schelling, formed a readers club to studyKant, Hegel did not join, claiming that he was too busy readingRousseau. After university they both traveled to Jena where Schellingand Hegel worked together editing a journal The Critical Journal of

Philosophy. But Schelling was forced to leave the city due to anundisclosed personal scandal. It was with the publicationof Phenomenology of the Spirit in 1807 that Hegel broke withSchellings philosophy. The two became opponents after that, andSchellings brand of naturalism began to loose popularity in theuniversities.

The Minister for culture appointed Schelling to go to Berlin with a briefto purge the university of Left Hegelianism. His inaugural lectureswere widely publicised and attended by peoples whose names would

go down in history, men like Mikhail Bakunin, Sren Kierkegaard andFriedrich Engels key thinkers of anarchism, existentialism andsocialism. Schelling started his lecture with the words I feel the fullsignificance of this moment, I know what responsibilities I have takenupon myself. How could I deceive myself or attempt to hide from youwhat is made evident simply by my appearance at this place. 23Theaudience listened intently to his lecture, sensitive to the politicalmoment which was happening in this philosophical counter revolution.Afterwards, En els wrote in a re ort of the event for a Hambur

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newspaper; If you ask any man in Berlin who has any idea at allabout the power of the spirit over the world, where the battle site forcontrol over German Public Opinion in politics and religion, thus overGermany itself, lies, he would answer that the battle site is at theUniversity, and specifically in Auditorium Number 6, where Schelling islecturing on Philosophy of Revelation. 24

Engels was not exaggerating. This was not some simply some obscurephilosophical dispute. After all the king believed that the philosophical

question was ineluctably bound up with the wider issues of culturaland political counterreforms which he was committed to. In that senseAuditorium Number 6 was one of the central battlegrounds, a battlewhich would ultimately culminate in the revolutions of 1848-49 thatshook Europe.

Many in the Prussian state and wider German society did not have aproblem with Hegel as such, he had after all been considered the(un)official national philosopher, but now it seemed some of hisfollowers had gone to far. Bruno Bauer, Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach

were causing too much disturbance, their atheist propaganda and antimonarchical politics were dangerous and had to be confronted. AsEngels pointed out, Hegel may have been dead ten years but he wasmore alive than ever in his pupils. 25Schelling for his part had beenintellectually dead for over three decades, and now this livingphilosophical corpse had been dug up to purge the minds of Germanyouth. Schellings mission at the university was to root out as he sawthe methodological errors within Hegel that had led to this state ofaffairs. His brand of positive-philosophy stated that only divinerevelations could have any true, higher meaning, and anything

derived from rationalism or logic was alwasy inferior. This was atheological counter-attack against German idealism.

No doubt as Fredrich Engels sat in the audience at auditorium number6 listening to Schelling he would have had a look of disdain on hisface. In his youth he was a bohemian young man, disrespectful toauthority, estranged from his father and scornful of the obligations ofGerman society at the time, such as military service. Yes, Engels wasa draft dod er. En els initial motivation for movin in increasin l

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radical circles was no doubt his distaste at his own upbringing in hishome town of Barmen, located in the Wupper valley. He described itas the Zion of obscurantism, and satirised it in a series of articlesand letters in the newspapers of the Young German movement.

Engels was the type of young man who organised moustacheevenings with other young male friends growing facial hair as an actof rebellion and to look more Italian. Certainly he was a renegade, butnot yet a revolutionary. However he was grappling and thinking about

some of the most exciting ideas in the world, namely what was wrongwith it and how to change it. He wrote to Fredrich Graeber; I cannotsleep at night time, because the ideas of the century march throughmy head. Engels, like most Young Germans was a proud nationalist,who desired the unification of Germany into a single state. Heconsidered Fredrick the Great as an important reformer and wasdisappointed by the failure of unification which was dashed against therocks of the Prussian aristocracy. In these days the desire forunification was a progressive urge, as it fought against the power offeudal princely kingdoms, demanding a modern united capitalist state

as England and France had forged. It was in a letter in November 1839that he wrote to Graeber and announced; I am at the point ofbecoming a Hegelian. I cannot be certain now whether I will make thechange, but Strauss provided me with insights into Hegel that madehis system very plausible. [Hegels] history of philosophy strikes mebeyond doubt as written from his soul.

The year of 1841 is therefore something of a turning point.Feuerbachs book the Essence of Christianity was published.Elsewhere in Germany a young Jewish student called Karl Marx was

completing his doctoral theses in philosophy, titled The DifferenceBetween the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.Marxhad been born in 1818 in a well to do family, going onto university tostudy jurisprudence. Whilst studying he lost interest in legal theoryand became increasingly inspired by philosophy, coming under thesway of the popular Hegelian ideas. In his doctoral theses on Epicurusand Democritus he conducted a study of the atomist school of thoughtof the ancient Greeks. Marx refers to the differences of opinionconcernin the role of atoms, Democritus claimed that onl moved in

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a straight line or were repulsed from one another, but Epicurus positedthree possible paths for an atom to travel, in a straight line, curvedand the repulsion of many atoms. Even from his university studiesMarx was learning about matter, motion and the question of materialreality distinct from the world of ideas. These ideas had beenblasphemous in the middle ages, after all, Epicurus ended up inDantes Inferno for the sin of materialism. But in the context of theenlightenment and the progress of knowledge, Marx was movingrapidly in the direction of rejecting idealist philosophy and ideas and

towards a materialist world view.

After his academic hopes fell through as the Prussian monarchycarried out a purge of radical and atheistic university professors duringthe intellectual counter revolution, Marx turned to journalism, findingan outlet for his energies and increasing passion to engage in politicaland social matters. He found work at the Rheinische Zeitungandwithin a short space of time it became an increasingly oppositionalpaper critical of the Prussian authorities. He soon has a run in with thecensor and is forced to leave Germany for exile to France, eventually

ending up in Britain. The mood of Europe was ripe for new ideas andrevolutions. The growth of capitalism had brought without a growth inthe misery of the working classes and terrible conditions of existencesfor proletarians in the cities and towns. Many people were looking tochange the world, or at least challenge the capitalism systemsomehow. Before we consider Marxs contribution to this, we shouldtake a quick detour to examine some of the other anticapitalist ideaswhich existed around the same time.

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Notes:

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1. Hegel, Philosophy of Right pxxi2. The Phenomenology of Mind4383. System of Ethical Life

4. Most fully explained in The Science of Logic from 1812. Kant refers to it in his writings but

not in a systematic way as Hegel does.

5. Throughout Science of Logic, eg78, Shorter logic 416. Hegel Science 112

7. Hegel Science 115-117

8. Science of Logic 116

9. Lenins conspectus of Hegels science oflogic http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch01.htm

10. Lenins notes on dialectics http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-

logic/summary.htm

11. Hegel wrote in 1812 that There is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or

anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation The Science

of Logic

12. Hegel Science of Logic 1794

13. Cited by Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of German Classical

Philosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1941), p43

14. Hegels Philosophy of History, part 3 Philosophic History

15. Philosophy of history 2116. Philosophy of History

17. Hegel Philosophy of History 41

18. Philosophy of Right p xix also translated as what is rational is real and what is real is

rational

19. Philosophy of the Mind sections on the Church and the philosopher

20. Philosophy of Right para 260

21. Philosophy of Right para 149

22. Pelczynski A, 1984 The State and Civil Society, Cambridge University Press

23. Towes J E, 2004, p1

24. Engels, MECW Volume 2, p. 18125. ibid

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