What is central within the Hegelian conception is people's organi- zation, the organic structuring of the communities and spheres of ac- tivity, which allows "to decide the people themselves", as Hegel tells us in
contrast
with the Greeks.
Hegel Was Right_nodrm
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
308 Hegel was right
man is not man and that the rise of self-consciousness is impossible without the social appeal that demands duties and rights. I beg to confer. Whatever Marx says, no one is man by birth without the inter- vention of society.
Besides this fundamental error, Marx makes the mistake of be- lieving that civil society can exist without a State, the mistake of not understanding the Hegelian thesis according to which "civil society [. . . ] supposes the State. " (Rph no. 182 Z) A thesis Aristotle insisted on relentlessly. The Marxian text I quoted offers the advantage of making apparent that Marx's is a core mistake; that Marx denies the interven- tion of society itself in the constitution of man as man. This fundamental mistake discredits the whole Marxian critique of Hegel's State and Le- gal philosophy. And it is important to remark that according to Engels (MEW 16 362s) this critique is the origin of Marxism.
Putting Marx aside, if we are to reject the accusations of statism, it is not to calm down its accusers telling them that there has been a misunderstanding and that in the end Hegel claims the same as them. It is not about an issue of terminology, as if after clarifying that Hegel does not understand by State the same that them, everything would be settled. It is not true that anyone can define State as it pleases him. Studying an author neither consists of verifying if he holds what I already knew.
The priority of State seems to them unbearable because they identify State with government. They overlook that the identity means Legal positivism because they make the existence of individual rights de- pend on the ruler. Only who defends human rights that do not depend on any authority can logically reprove statism.
In every single European country there is a real distinction between the head of State and the head of government, which logically implies a real distinction between State and government. A theory conscious of its duties has to define State in a way that government does not get included in the definition.
No doubt the definition proposed by Hegel was crystal clear since the beginning. For example, in his 1830 review, F. J. Stahl summarizes Hegel's ideas as follows: "According to his ideas, with the concept of Right the concept of State is already given; it is enough to scrutinize the former in order to find the latter. " (In Riedel ed. I 1975, 223)
In Philosophy of Right Hegel defines State since the preface: "the ethical universe" (das sittliche Universum) (Rph xxii), i. e. , the set of the ethical.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 309
And he said lines above: "The ethical world, the State. " (Rph ix) The same definition is found later in the main part of the book: "The State is by itself and for itself the set of the ethical. " (Rph no. 258 Z)
We have seen what the ethical is for Hegel: the intersubjective rights and duties free of, and contrasted with, a narcissist morality and a positive Right that would make them depend on legislations. The set of the true duties and rights is the State. By the time Hegel gave his legal lectures to the Gymnasium students at Nu? remberg he already held that: "The State is the association of men under legal relationships. " (NH 246) Afterwards, in his Philosophy of History, he held exactly the same: "We call State the spiritual individual, name- ly, the people as structured and transformed in an organic whole. " (VG 114)
The significance of both the government and the monarch are so diminished that the monarchist K. E. Schubarth attacked Hegel's doc- trine in 1839 with the following words:
The prince is not the substance of the State, which is really constituted by the set of the different particular organic spheres such as family and civil society according to its structuring in diverse social estates, corporations and chambers. All this makes the prince's importance completely acciden- tal. (In Riedel ed. I 1975, 254)
Both those that accuse Hegel of statism and those who with huge ease label him the ideologist of the Prussian monarchy should know that Schubarth's work is entitled: On the Irreconcilability of the Hegelian Doctrine of State with the Supreme Principle of Life and Development of the Prussian State.
Schubarth's fears were not groundless. Hegel expressly says:
For being a monarch it is just required a man who says 'yes' and who dots the i's and crosses the t's; since the tip should be such that the particu- larities of character are of no importance. Beyond this last decision, any other property the monarch possesses ought to be reduced to peculiarities anything could properly rely on. It is true that there might be stages in the development in which those peculiarities might stand out, but in that case we would be dealing with a State not fully developed yet, which is not well built. Within a well-ordered monarchy only law is concerned with the objective; what the monarch adds is just the subjective 'I want' (Rph no. 280 Z) (my emphasis).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 310 Hegel was right
It should not surprise us this kind of marginality of the monarch (and of the government itself, as I will say immediately) if we recall that since the preface we were warned that the State is the set of the ethical: "the rich structuring of the ethical in itself, which is the State. " (Rph xii) In Science of Logic is explicitly asserted that "State's reality is self-conscious individuals. " (WL II 410)
Regarding the State itself, I cannot see how we could doubt it is the set of duties and right that entwine individuals. Especially when it is obvious that a State remains existing even when a monarch van- ishes and another rises up, or even when a government vanishes and another rises up. Hegel just offers a definition of State that corresponds with the facts.
Previously, on the third part, we saw that it is not strength or posi- tive Right's sanctions what maintains a State in existence. There would not be strength or police enough if, as it were, 'some fine morning' the whole people decided to disobey. As Napoleon said, bayonets are good for many purposes but for sitting on them. In the transcribed paragraph (Rph no. 280 Z) is obvious that the word law does not refer to posi- tive Right as such; the objective part of State, in contrast with the mon- arch's subjectivity, is the true Right with the consequent articulation and structuring. As Hegel remarks in the corresponding section of the Encyclopedia: "Right should not be taken in the narrow sense of a legalist Right, but as covering every content of freedom" (EPW 486).
In his legal philosophy Hegel held the following perfect formula: "the commandment of Right is: be a person and respect others as per- sons. " (Rph no. 36) This is clearly not positive Right. Given that the aforementioned is the true content of Right, Hegel held this decisive thesis for science: "the State lies upon thought, its existence depends on men's mentality; it is a spiritual realm, not a physical realm; spirit is essential. " (GP I 507)
Government is a natural person or a group of natural persons. In their materiality, the sanctions applicable by the government are physi- cal deeds: imprisonment, death penalty, fine, etc. On the contrary, the fact that certain set of human beings constitutes a State is not a physical datum; there is no way in which the State could be empirically verifi- able. Physical presence at certain territory evidently is not the same that belonging to the State, since an individual does not stop being part of his State if he travels abroad. On the other hand, people that do not form part of a State can be physically present in its territory. It is not
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 311
empirical either that the government's physicalities and its sanctions constitute Right and have to do with the State; empirically they cannot be distinguished from the violence executed by a shear of criminals sufficiently strong and organized. The conformity of such physicalities with the constitution does not make them empirically Right and State, since the fact itself that the constitution is Right is not a physical or empirical datum. Both State and Right are ideas.
"The spirit is just the State in consciousness, just so far as it considers itself as object. " (Rph no 258 Z)
"The idea touches ground on the State the moment it acquires exis- tence and reality in knowing and willing" (Rph no. 270 Z) (Italics added). Rousseau had already said it: "Deep down, the political body, being
only a legal person, is nothing but a reason entity. " (1964, 608)
Since rulers are physical objects while the State is a group of ideas, the distinction between State and government is obvious. But Hegel goes further: he attributes governments of well structured States so little importance as he did to the monarch (head of State). The government is an instrument of the State, but in a well articulated State the important decisions are already made by the time they reach the governmen- tal level, so that the instrument is in charge just of executing them. "Governmental affairs are of an objective nature, already substantially decided, and it is duty of some individuals to carry out and realize them" (Rph no. 291). Hegel would concede, as he concedes regarding the monarch, that there are underdeveloped stages in which the govern- ment plays a preponderant role, "but then we deal with a non-fully de-
veloped State, which is not well built".
States' robustness properly resides in the communities. Government comes across with legitimate interests that it ought to respect; in so far the adminis- tration can only favor them but also custody them, the individual finds protection for the exercise of his rights and this is how his particular inter- est of conserving the whole arises. Recently the main efforts have been for organizing from above, but the lower parts, the massive about the whole remains somewhat inorganic; nevertheless, it is of supreme importance that it becomes organic, since only then it turns into strength and power. Other- wise it is just a heap, a multitude of atoms. There is legitimate strength only at the organized condition of particular spheres. (Rph no. 290 Z)
Only this is decisive. Hegel, it is true, adds there that power so characterized is monarchical. But I don't know how someone can be
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 312 Hegel was right
scandalized when, as we have seen, Hegel explicitly states the little im- portance of the monarch and the little importance of the government. He even adds right there that it should be distinguished between the antique monarchies and modern monarchies which are characterized by the autonomy that the particular spheres have from it. "A first mon- archy must be distinguished from a second one. " (VG 147)
The modern one is not juxtaposed on equality with democracy and oligarchy as a third form of government; that antique division was based upon quantitative criteria: it asked if it were one or few who governed. On the contrary, modern monarchy includes democracy: Rph no. 273 A. This is one of the most substantive theories that can be posed in philosophy of history.
It actually includes it, making that for the first time in history it is true democracy. Political thought cannot ignore this fact any longer: the Greeks invented the word 'democracy', but democracy is a modern Euro- pean invention, it is a quite recent discovery in human history. Among the Greeks, four fifths of the population were slave, and that cannot be called democracy. Besides, the strong decisions were made by the oracle, not the people: "That democracy did not have yet the strength and energy of self-consciousness, which consists in the fact that it is the people themselves who decide. " (PR II, II 189) (my emphasis) Whoever reads this expression cannot doubt about Hegel's democratic sincerity. It is related with what we were reading just a moment ago: "There is legitimate strength only at the organized condition of particular spheres (Rph no. 290 Z).
Whether we agree or not with monarchic form, I cannot see how one can doubt that Hegel is right when he says that modern Europe- an monarchy includes democracy: England, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark are monarchies and they cer- tainly are among the ten or twelve most democratic countries in the world. Hegel's critics would have to demonstrate that here are more democratic nations than these. Even an opponent as dumb as Findlay is forced to recognize:
Despite Hegel's strange belief in hereditary Monarchy as the crowning truth of the State Idea, his view of the Monarch's functions are far from feu- dal, and are, in fact, in accord with modern British constitutional practice. The Monarch is merely the necessary apex of the State-structure, and as such he is merely someone who dots the i's, and whose individual character is not of great importance. (1958, 325)
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 313
Regarding this latter claim it might be suitable to recover the testi- mony of a mere historian, David Harris: "In England it came to be of relatively little importance who wore the crown. " (EB 18, 745, 1)
Hegel insists in the little importance of what his critics, turning a deaf ear, consider central of his doctrine: "When there are firm laws and the organization of the State is well determined, the only thing that is left to decide to the monarch is, in comparison of substantial issues, rather unimportant. " (WG 937).
What is central within the Hegelian conception is people's organi- zation, the organic structuring of the communities and spheres of ac- tivity, which allows "to decide the people themselves", as Hegel tells us in contrast with the Greeks. This is why Hegel attributes so much relevance to the parliament:
This opportunity of knowledge has the universal quality that only through it public opinion is capable of reaching real thoughts, of understanding the situation and concept of State and its affairs; and along with it, the capacity to judge it in a more rational fashion (Rph no. 315).
And, with regard to public opinion:
Public opinion had great strength in all times and foremost in our time when the principle of the subject's freedom has so much importance and signifi- cance. Whatever is in vigor today is not in virtue of violence and much less in virtue of custom and habit, but in virtue of intellection and reasons (Rph no. 316 Z).
We have seen that the State really distinguishes from government and hence, those who accuse Hegel of propitiating authoritarianism have understood nothing. And we have seen that, despite the consistent appearances in the monarchic form, the decisive part of the democratic principle is present not only in the Hegelian system but it lucidly con- cretes in what we call today self-management. And it is, as sooner or later both left and right wings would have to face, the only way in which the democratic principle could be thoroughly realized.
All the misconceptions of the Hegelian political thought have just been useful impediments for the reception of a message of enormous importance precisely about democracy. A message capable of revolu- tionizing today's whole political thought. In order to deliver this mes- sage let us ask a crucial question.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 314 Hegel was right
If 80% of the population voted for the other 20% to become slaves, would all the supporters of democracy reject such decision? Why? Will it be congruous?
Evidently the way out claiming that the constitution prohibits it would be useless. Every constitution is modifiable by a supermajority and 80% is a supermajority. It would be enough voting first for a con- stitution modification.
This possibility is not unreal: remember that African-Americans in the United States are not even the 20% of the whole population. Other countries might think of persons having certain physical traits known to be possessed by less of the 20%: size, eyes color, blood type, birth weight, skin color, etc.
I repeat the question: If democracy consists on voting, with what logic could democrats deny the majority the faculty of deciding that certain minority should become slave?
This question shows that Hegel is right when he holds that the essence of democracy need not identify with the republican form, which is voting. Let it be clear that this book ? s author prefers, against Hegel, the republi- can form, but here we are analyzing this issue under strict logic. And at this level Hegel's following paragraph touches the heart of the matter:
From the viewpoint of the superior principle it becomes a subordinate and indifferent discrepancy what is usually considered as essential to a constitution, namely, if the individuals give their subjective acquiescence or not. It should first be determined if individuals are conceived as persons, if substantiality as spirit is present or not, i. e. , as an essence known by them. (VG 145) (my emphasis).
This is why Hegel told us, as we saw above, that in a real State really important decisions are already made.
If every individual is conceived as a person, neither the majority nor anyone can treat someone as a thing. The first thing we should say, regarding our crucial question, is that in a real democracy not everything is subject of vote. There are a lot of things, precisely the most important ones, which we cannot leave to majorities, neither regarding a minority neither a single individual or in relation to anything. Deep down, this is the truth: none of the important things are subject to voting.
It is absurd to forget universal history when speaking about the State. Those who believe that man is man by nature and not by history
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 315
forget that democracy did not exist from the beginning, neither did the Greeks who invented it. It was born in a time and in a civilization where all the people, including intellectuals and rulers, were iusnatu- ralists, i. e. , it knew that the criteria for good and bad does not depend on any ruler or legislation or voting. Hence, democracy was born con- vinced of the fact that nothing really important is subject to vote. The democratic principle survives only within the framework of iusnatu- ralism due to both history and strict logic, as we shall see.
In order to avoid slavery it must be known that man as such is free. But for that is required that man can be thought as a universal, without the particu- larity of being citizen from this or that State. The conception that man in general, as universal, is free, was not achieved by Socrates, Plato or Aristo- tle (WG 611).
"The situation is different at the European States; there the concep- tion is general. " (VG 145)
"Nowadays there cannot be legislators; legal institutions and judicia- ry relations are always present in our time. There is so little to add; just ulterior determinations of quite insignificant details can be provided by a legislator or a legislative assembly" (GP I 182).
If the aforementioned historical facts are forgotten, it is impossible to answer our question of reference. It is absolutely vital to realize this: every man is free, human beings are equal, and obviously none of this is empirical data. Therefore, this knowledge or conviction were not em- bedded in humanity from the beginning, they are not a natural endow- ment of the mind, and experience, for however bright we may suppose it to be, they cannot be acquired by the mind.
That such equality exists, that is man and not just some men like in Greece and Rome, etc. , who is recognized as a person with legal validity, is so far from being just by nature that, on the contrary, it is only a product and an outcome of the consciousness of the deepest principle of the Spirit and of the universality and development of consciousness (EPW no. 539 A).
That every man has infinite dignity, even though it is an absolute truth, by no means is an idea that humanity possessed from the be- ginning or that it could have acquired by nature. This is so because I would say, that is the most anti-empirical, affected and gothic idea that has ever been.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 316 Hegel was right
The civilizations that today have acquired it by contagion and uni- versalisation from a civilization that discovered it. Even back in his time, Hegel claimed:
Whole continents, Africa and the Orient, never had that idea and they still do not have it. The Greeks and the Romans, Plato and Aristotle and some Stoics did not have it. On the contrary, they just thought that man was really free depending on birth (as an Athenian citizen, Spartan, and so on) or by resolution of character or by education or by philosophy (the wise man is free even if he is made slave and gets shackled). Such idea was born by means of Christianity according to which the individual as such has an infinite value because he is object and end of God's love and is destined to have an absolute relationship with God as Spirit and to be inhabited by the Spirit, which means that by essence he is destined to supreme freedom. When within religion man acknowledges as his own essence the relation- ship with the Absolute Spirit, when entering the scope of mundane existence he also acknowledges that the divine Spirit is the substance of the State, family, etc. (EPW no. 482 A).
There is no historical objectivity in the political scientist that refuses to recognize that the idea of infinite dignity of all men is recent, con- sidering that the human race exists since half a million years ago. There is no objectivity if he refuses to acknowledge that the idea has been spread recently from one region of the planet, exactly in the same way as anthropologists have tracked the historical local origin of certain discoveries that have become univesal, and they do not build up their hopes on some kind of spontaneous generation all over the Earth. The wheel, for example, was never discovered by Native Americans and they knew it by the diffusion which originated somewhere else.
Actually, the idea we are dealing with commenced existing for the first time in Europe, and its birth was due to the conviction that Jesus Christ, true God, had suffered and died for all men and it was because of this that it was discovered that everyone has infinite dignity.
Subjectivity --regarding its infinite value-- has suppressed every external difference, of dominion, of power, of social rank, even of sex and wealth. Before God all men are equal. This presents for the first time here and now unto consciousness, through the reflection and negativity of the infinite suf- fering of love. It is there that possibility resides, the root of a truly universal Right, which is the realization of freedom(PR III 178s).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 317
It is, by the way, in this moment when the West discovered too that man by nature is not as he should be, since what man really is only in the Man-Christ had it been realized, in a total commitment for everyone's good. But there is nothing as forceful and revolutionary as the persua- sion that one is not as one should be. This persuasion made the West unbearably upset with itself, it moved it in such way that the remain- der cultures, in comparison with it are quite, static and inert. The West has set the whole world in motion.
We are now able to answer our old question. We said that not only historically but also logically, democracy supposes everyone's infinite dignity. The reason of being of democracy is the infinite dignity of everyone. Consequently, a democratic decision cannot condemn any- one to slavery. It would be a contradiction to itself and to undermine the only logical foundation that underlies it.
We are supposing, of course, that political thought pertains also to rationality. We are supposing that when we demand democracy and reject totalitarianism and dictatorship we do it rationally and not for aestheticism or whim or taste or strength, but because of reason. We are supposing that the demand of democracy has to demonstrate to be with fundament before those (and they really are out there) who prefer dictatorship and totalitarianism. It is not about oratory or poetry or strength, but of demonstration and objectivity. If the demand for de- mocracy were not rationally justified, democracy and totalitarianism or slavery would be the same.
And well, the justification is that all human beings are subjects and not objects, which is a way of claiming that they have infinite dignity. Were not everyone to decide their own concerning issues, the few de- ciders would be treating the rest of the population as objects and not as subjects. Not only historically, but also logically democracy, presup- poses a strict iusnaturalism.
How desirable it would be that the banal left-wing critique of 'for- mal democracy' at least understood it first considering its true consis- tency and its reasons, and only after that criticized knowing what it is about. If means of production are private property, the main economic decisions of the country are being made by a few individuals, who are treating the rest of the population as objects and not as subjects. Likewise, since there is no objective foundation (supply and demand is not) for assessing differently the different kinds of work that are necessary for society, it would be violating the equality and dignity to
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 318 Hegel was right
condemn the executers of certain kinds of work to an inferior way of life having them committed no crime. (It is another issue if I perform wrong my trade: that does deserve a sanction). One can even suspect intellectual dishonesty in the silence kept by liberals regarding the only possible justification of democracy, since that justification logically im- poses conclusions incompatible with capitalism and with any classist society. On the other side, the revolutionary movement, if it is about ratio- nality and not caprice, can not lay aside the infinite dignity of all human beings, for this is the only possible justification for their struggle.
Hegel denounces the incongruence of democrats that refuse to go to the rational bottom, to the ultimate reason of democracy's necessity: "Today we see the world full of the principle of freedom, and the latter specially related with the constitution of the State; these principles are true, but influenced by formalism they are mere prejudices because knowledge never gets to their ultimate reason" (PR I 309).
"The course that is in the grip of abstraction is liberalism, which is always beaten by the concrete and always goes bankrupt with the con- crete" (WG 925).
If it really is reason responsible of discovering these principles, it proves them so far as they are true and they do not remain purely formal, taking them to the knowledge of absolute truth, which is object only of philosophy. But Philosophy must get to the ultimate analysis, since if knowledge does not complete in itself, it is exposed to the unilaterality of formalism; but if it reaches the ultimate reason it reaches what can be considered supreme, it reaches God (PR I 309).
If liberals (and left-wings) realized how comical they look cau- tiously silencing the only possible justification of the demand of equality among men, sheltering at the irrational formalism that says 'we de- mand equality and democracy because we want to', political science will not be reduced nowadays to the enunciation of certain prejudices confronted with certain other prejudices.
Fortunately there is, as Hegel says, "the Right of the Absolute Spirit" (VG 147) and history laughs at the face of relativists and skeptics. The belief that every human being has infinite dignity has spread though the whole world. The essence of true civilization has won the battle against its rivals; it is still necessary to structure and articulate it in lots of places and in lots of aspects, but no one can doubt that we
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 319
are heading towards it. "We should consider the Right of the Spirit of the world against the States. " (VG 148). This is why Hegel told us that liberalism is in the grip of abstraction and the lack of content and always goes bankrupt with the concrete.
man is not man and that the rise of self-consciousness is impossible without the social appeal that demands duties and rights. I beg to confer. Whatever Marx says, no one is man by birth without the inter- vention of society.
Besides this fundamental error, Marx makes the mistake of be- lieving that civil society can exist without a State, the mistake of not understanding the Hegelian thesis according to which "civil society [. . . ] supposes the State. " (Rph no. 182 Z) A thesis Aristotle insisted on relentlessly. The Marxian text I quoted offers the advantage of making apparent that Marx's is a core mistake; that Marx denies the interven- tion of society itself in the constitution of man as man. This fundamental mistake discredits the whole Marxian critique of Hegel's State and Le- gal philosophy. And it is important to remark that according to Engels (MEW 16 362s) this critique is the origin of Marxism.
Putting Marx aside, if we are to reject the accusations of statism, it is not to calm down its accusers telling them that there has been a misunderstanding and that in the end Hegel claims the same as them. It is not about an issue of terminology, as if after clarifying that Hegel does not understand by State the same that them, everything would be settled. It is not true that anyone can define State as it pleases him. Studying an author neither consists of verifying if he holds what I already knew.
The priority of State seems to them unbearable because they identify State with government. They overlook that the identity means Legal positivism because they make the existence of individual rights de- pend on the ruler. Only who defends human rights that do not depend on any authority can logically reprove statism.
In every single European country there is a real distinction between the head of State and the head of government, which logically implies a real distinction between State and government. A theory conscious of its duties has to define State in a way that government does not get included in the definition.
No doubt the definition proposed by Hegel was crystal clear since the beginning. For example, in his 1830 review, F. J. Stahl summarizes Hegel's ideas as follows: "According to his ideas, with the concept of Right the concept of State is already given; it is enough to scrutinize the former in order to find the latter. " (In Riedel ed. I 1975, 223)
In Philosophy of Right Hegel defines State since the preface: "the ethical universe" (das sittliche Universum) (Rph xxii), i. e. , the set of the ethical.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 309
And he said lines above: "The ethical world, the State. " (Rph ix) The same definition is found later in the main part of the book: "The State is by itself and for itself the set of the ethical. " (Rph no. 258 Z)
We have seen what the ethical is for Hegel: the intersubjective rights and duties free of, and contrasted with, a narcissist morality and a positive Right that would make them depend on legislations. The set of the true duties and rights is the State. By the time Hegel gave his legal lectures to the Gymnasium students at Nu? remberg he already held that: "The State is the association of men under legal relationships. " (NH 246) Afterwards, in his Philosophy of History, he held exactly the same: "We call State the spiritual individual, name- ly, the people as structured and transformed in an organic whole. " (VG 114)
The significance of both the government and the monarch are so diminished that the monarchist K. E. Schubarth attacked Hegel's doc- trine in 1839 with the following words:
The prince is not the substance of the State, which is really constituted by the set of the different particular organic spheres such as family and civil society according to its structuring in diverse social estates, corporations and chambers. All this makes the prince's importance completely acciden- tal. (In Riedel ed. I 1975, 254)
Both those that accuse Hegel of statism and those who with huge ease label him the ideologist of the Prussian monarchy should know that Schubarth's work is entitled: On the Irreconcilability of the Hegelian Doctrine of State with the Supreme Principle of Life and Development of the Prussian State.
Schubarth's fears were not groundless. Hegel expressly says:
For being a monarch it is just required a man who says 'yes' and who dots the i's and crosses the t's; since the tip should be such that the particu- larities of character are of no importance. Beyond this last decision, any other property the monarch possesses ought to be reduced to peculiarities anything could properly rely on. It is true that there might be stages in the development in which those peculiarities might stand out, but in that case we would be dealing with a State not fully developed yet, which is not well built. Within a well-ordered monarchy only law is concerned with the objective; what the monarch adds is just the subjective 'I want' (Rph no. 280 Z) (my emphasis).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 310 Hegel was right
It should not surprise us this kind of marginality of the monarch (and of the government itself, as I will say immediately) if we recall that since the preface we were warned that the State is the set of the ethical: "the rich structuring of the ethical in itself, which is the State. " (Rph xii) In Science of Logic is explicitly asserted that "State's reality is self-conscious individuals. " (WL II 410)
Regarding the State itself, I cannot see how we could doubt it is the set of duties and right that entwine individuals. Especially when it is obvious that a State remains existing even when a monarch van- ishes and another rises up, or even when a government vanishes and another rises up. Hegel just offers a definition of State that corresponds with the facts.
Previously, on the third part, we saw that it is not strength or posi- tive Right's sanctions what maintains a State in existence. There would not be strength or police enough if, as it were, 'some fine morning' the whole people decided to disobey. As Napoleon said, bayonets are good for many purposes but for sitting on them. In the transcribed paragraph (Rph no. 280 Z) is obvious that the word law does not refer to posi- tive Right as such; the objective part of State, in contrast with the mon- arch's subjectivity, is the true Right with the consequent articulation and structuring. As Hegel remarks in the corresponding section of the Encyclopedia: "Right should not be taken in the narrow sense of a legalist Right, but as covering every content of freedom" (EPW 486).
In his legal philosophy Hegel held the following perfect formula: "the commandment of Right is: be a person and respect others as per- sons. " (Rph no. 36) This is clearly not positive Right. Given that the aforementioned is the true content of Right, Hegel held this decisive thesis for science: "the State lies upon thought, its existence depends on men's mentality; it is a spiritual realm, not a physical realm; spirit is essential. " (GP I 507)
Government is a natural person or a group of natural persons. In their materiality, the sanctions applicable by the government are physi- cal deeds: imprisonment, death penalty, fine, etc. On the contrary, the fact that certain set of human beings constitutes a State is not a physical datum; there is no way in which the State could be empirically verifi- able. Physical presence at certain territory evidently is not the same that belonging to the State, since an individual does not stop being part of his State if he travels abroad. On the other hand, people that do not form part of a State can be physically present in its territory. It is not
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 311
empirical either that the government's physicalities and its sanctions constitute Right and have to do with the State; empirically they cannot be distinguished from the violence executed by a shear of criminals sufficiently strong and organized. The conformity of such physicalities with the constitution does not make them empirically Right and State, since the fact itself that the constitution is Right is not a physical or empirical datum. Both State and Right are ideas.
"The spirit is just the State in consciousness, just so far as it considers itself as object. " (Rph no 258 Z)
"The idea touches ground on the State the moment it acquires exis- tence and reality in knowing and willing" (Rph no. 270 Z) (Italics added). Rousseau had already said it: "Deep down, the political body, being
only a legal person, is nothing but a reason entity. " (1964, 608)
Since rulers are physical objects while the State is a group of ideas, the distinction between State and government is obvious. But Hegel goes further: he attributes governments of well structured States so little importance as he did to the monarch (head of State). The government is an instrument of the State, but in a well articulated State the important decisions are already made by the time they reach the governmen- tal level, so that the instrument is in charge just of executing them. "Governmental affairs are of an objective nature, already substantially decided, and it is duty of some individuals to carry out and realize them" (Rph no. 291). Hegel would concede, as he concedes regarding the monarch, that there are underdeveloped stages in which the govern- ment plays a preponderant role, "but then we deal with a non-fully de-
veloped State, which is not well built".
States' robustness properly resides in the communities. Government comes across with legitimate interests that it ought to respect; in so far the adminis- tration can only favor them but also custody them, the individual finds protection for the exercise of his rights and this is how his particular inter- est of conserving the whole arises. Recently the main efforts have been for organizing from above, but the lower parts, the massive about the whole remains somewhat inorganic; nevertheless, it is of supreme importance that it becomes organic, since only then it turns into strength and power. Other- wise it is just a heap, a multitude of atoms. There is legitimate strength only at the organized condition of particular spheres. (Rph no. 290 Z)
Only this is decisive. Hegel, it is true, adds there that power so characterized is monarchical. But I don't know how someone can be
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 312 Hegel was right
scandalized when, as we have seen, Hegel explicitly states the little im- portance of the monarch and the little importance of the government. He even adds right there that it should be distinguished between the antique monarchies and modern monarchies which are characterized by the autonomy that the particular spheres have from it. "A first mon- archy must be distinguished from a second one. " (VG 147)
The modern one is not juxtaposed on equality with democracy and oligarchy as a third form of government; that antique division was based upon quantitative criteria: it asked if it were one or few who governed. On the contrary, modern monarchy includes democracy: Rph no. 273 A. This is one of the most substantive theories that can be posed in philosophy of history.
It actually includes it, making that for the first time in history it is true democracy. Political thought cannot ignore this fact any longer: the Greeks invented the word 'democracy', but democracy is a modern Euro- pean invention, it is a quite recent discovery in human history. Among the Greeks, four fifths of the population were slave, and that cannot be called democracy. Besides, the strong decisions were made by the oracle, not the people: "That democracy did not have yet the strength and energy of self-consciousness, which consists in the fact that it is the people themselves who decide. " (PR II, II 189) (my emphasis) Whoever reads this expression cannot doubt about Hegel's democratic sincerity. It is related with what we were reading just a moment ago: "There is legitimate strength only at the organized condition of particular spheres (Rph no. 290 Z).
Whether we agree or not with monarchic form, I cannot see how one can doubt that Hegel is right when he says that modern Europe- an monarchy includes democracy: England, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark are monarchies and they cer- tainly are among the ten or twelve most democratic countries in the world. Hegel's critics would have to demonstrate that here are more democratic nations than these. Even an opponent as dumb as Findlay is forced to recognize:
Despite Hegel's strange belief in hereditary Monarchy as the crowning truth of the State Idea, his view of the Monarch's functions are far from feu- dal, and are, in fact, in accord with modern British constitutional practice. The Monarch is merely the necessary apex of the State-structure, and as such he is merely someone who dots the i's, and whose individual character is not of great importance. (1958, 325)
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 313
Regarding this latter claim it might be suitable to recover the testi- mony of a mere historian, David Harris: "In England it came to be of relatively little importance who wore the crown. " (EB 18, 745, 1)
Hegel insists in the little importance of what his critics, turning a deaf ear, consider central of his doctrine: "When there are firm laws and the organization of the State is well determined, the only thing that is left to decide to the monarch is, in comparison of substantial issues, rather unimportant. " (WG 937).
What is central within the Hegelian conception is people's organi- zation, the organic structuring of the communities and spheres of ac- tivity, which allows "to decide the people themselves", as Hegel tells us in contrast with the Greeks. This is why Hegel attributes so much relevance to the parliament:
This opportunity of knowledge has the universal quality that only through it public opinion is capable of reaching real thoughts, of understanding the situation and concept of State and its affairs; and along with it, the capacity to judge it in a more rational fashion (Rph no. 315).
And, with regard to public opinion:
Public opinion had great strength in all times and foremost in our time when the principle of the subject's freedom has so much importance and signifi- cance. Whatever is in vigor today is not in virtue of violence and much less in virtue of custom and habit, but in virtue of intellection and reasons (Rph no. 316 Z).
We have seen that the State really distinguishes from government and hence, those who accuse Hegel of propitiating authoritarianism have understood nothing. And we have seen that, despite the consistent appearances in the monarchic form, the decisive part of the democratic principle is present not only in the Hegelian system but it lucidly con- cretes in what we call today self-management. And it is, as sooner or later both left and right wings would have to face, the only way in which the democratic principle could be thoroughly realized.
All the misconceptions of the Hegelian political thought have just been useful impediments for the reception of a message of enormous importance precisely about democracy. A message capable of revolu- tionizing today's whole political thought. In order to deliver this mes- sage let us ask a crucial question.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 314 Hegel was right
If 80% of the population voted for the other 20% to become slaves, would all the supporters of democracy reject such decision? Why? Will it be congruous?
Evidently the way out claiming that the constitution prohibits it would be useless. Every constitution is modifiable by a supermajority and 80% is a supermajority. It would be enough voting first for a con- stitution modification.
This possibility is not unreal: remember that African-Americans in the United States are not even the 20% of the whole population. Other countries might think of persons having certain physical traits known to be possessed by less of the 20%: size, eyes color, blood type, birth weight, skin color, etc.
I repeat the question: If democracy consists on voting, with what logic could democrats deny the majority the faculty of deciding that certain minority should become slave?
This question shows that Hegel is right when he holds that the essence of democracy need not identify with the republican form, which is voting. Let it be clear that this book ? s author prefers, against Hegel, the republi- can form, but here we are analyzing this issue under strict logic. And at this level Hegel's following paragraph touches the heart of the matter:
From the viewpoint of the superior principle it becomes a subordinate and indifferent discrepancy what is usually considered as essential to a constitution, namely, if the individuals give their subjective acquiescence or not. It should first be determined if individuals are conceived as persons, if substantiality as spirit is present or not, i. e. , as an essence known by them. (VG 145) (my emphasis).
This is why Hegel told us, as we saw above, that in a real State really important decisions are already made.
If every individual is conceived as a person, neither the majority nor anyone can treat someone as a thing. The first thing we should say, regarding our crucial question, is that in a real democracy not everything is subject of vote. There are a lot of things, precisely the most important ones, which we cannot leave to majorities, neither regarding a minority neither a single individual or in relation to anything. Deep down, this is the truth: none of the important things are subject to voting.
It is absurd to forget universal history when speaking about the State. Those who believe that man is man by nature and not by history
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 315
forget that democracy did not exist from the beginning, neither did the Greeks who invented it. It was born in a time and in a civilization where all the people, including intellectuals and rulers, were iusnatu- ralists, i. e. , it knew that the criteria for good and bad does not depend on any ruler or legislation or voting. Hence, democracy was born con- vinced of the fact that nothing really important is subject to vote. The democratic principle survives only within the framework of iusnatu- ralism due to both history and strict logic, as we shall see.
In order to avoid slavery it must be known that man as such is free. But for that is required that man can be thought as a universal, without the particu- larity of being citizen from this or that State. The conception that man in general, as universal, is free, was not achieved by Socrates, Plato or Aristo- tle (WG 611).
"The situation is different at the European States; there the concep- tion is general. " (VG 145)
"Nowadays there cannot be legislators; legal institutions and judicia- ry relations are always present in our time. There is so little to add; just ulterior determinations of quite insignificant details can be provided by a legislator or a legislative assembly" (GP I 182).
If the aforementioned historical facts are forgotten, it is impossible to answer our question of reference. It is absolutely vital to realize this: every man is free, human beings are equal, and obviously none of this is empirical data. Therefore, this knowledge or conviction were not em- bedded in humanity from the beginning, they are not a natural endow- ment of the mind, and experience, for however bright we may suppose it to be, they cannot be acquired by the mind.
That such equality exists, that is man and not just some men like in Greece and Rome, etc. , who is recognized as a person with legal validity, is so far from being just by nature that, on the contrary, it is only a product and an outcome of the consciousness of the deepest principle of the Spirit and of the universality and development of consciousness (EPW no. 539 A).
That every man has infinite dignity, even though it is an absolute truth, by no means is an idea that humanity possessed from the be- ginning or that it could have acquired by nature. This is so because I would say, that is the most anti-empirical, affected and gothic idea that has ever been.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 316 Hegel was right
The civilizations that today have acquired it by contagion and uni- versalisation from a civilization that discovered it. Even back in his time, Hegel claimed:
Whole continents, Africa and the Orient, never had that idea and they still do not have it. The Greeks and the Romans, Plato and Aristotle and some Stoics did not have it. On the contrary, they just thought that man was really free depending on birth (as an Athenian citizen, Spartan, and so on) or by resolution of character or by education or by philosophy (the wise man is free even if he is made slave and gets shackled). Such idea was born by means of Christianity according to which the individual as such has an infinite value because he is object and end of God's love and is destined to have an absolute relationship with God as Spirit and to be inhabited by the Spirit, which means that by essence he is destined to supreme freedom. When within religion man acknowledges as his own essence the relation- ship with the Absolute Spirit, when entering the scope of mundane existence he also acknowledges that the divine Spirit is the substance of the State, family, etc. (EPW no. 482 A).
There is no historical objectivity in the political scientist that refuses to recognize that the idea of infinite dignity of all men is recent, con- sidering that the human race exists since half a million years ago. There is no objectivity if he refuses to acknowledge that the idea has been spread recently from one region of the planet, exactly in the same way as anthropologists have tracked the historical local origin of certain discoveries that have become univesal, and they do not build up their hopes on some kind of spontaneous generation all over the Earth. The wheel, for example, was never discovered by Native Americans and they knew it by the diffusion which originated somewhere else.
Actually, the idea we are dealing with commenced existing for the first time in Europe, and its birth was due to the conviction that Jesus Christ, true God, had suffered and died for all men and it was because of this that it was discovered that everyone has infinite dignity.
Subjectivity --regarding its infinite value-- has suppressed every external difference, of dominion, of power, of social rank, even of sex and wealth. Before God all men are equal. This presents for the first time here and now unto consciousness, through the reflection and negativity of the infinite suf- fering of love. It is there that possibility resides, the root of a truly universal Right, which is the realization of freedom(PR III 178s).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 317
It is, by the way, in this moment when the West discovered too that man by nature is not as he should be, since what man really is only in the Man-Christ had it been realized, in a total commitment for everyone's good. But there is nothing as forceful and revolutionary as the persua- sion that one is not as one should be. This persuasion made the West unbearably upset with itself, it moved it in such way that the remain- der cultures, in comparison with it are quite, static and inert. The West has set the whole world in motion.
We are now able to answer our old question. We said that not only historically but also logically, democracy supposes everyone's infinite dignity. The reason of being of democracy is the infinite dignity of everyone. Consequently, a democratic decision cannot condemn any- one to slavery. It would be a contradiction to itself and to undermine the only logical foundation that underlies it.
We are supposing, of course, that political thought pertains also to rationality. We are supposing that when we demand democracy and reject totalitarianism and dictatorship we do it rationally and not for aestheticism or whim or taste or strength, but because of reason. We are supposing that the demand of democracy has to demonstrate to be with fundament before those (and they really are out there) who prefer dictatorship and totalitarianism. It is not about oratory or poetry or strength, but of demonstration and objectivity. If the demand for de- mocracy were not rationally justified, democracy and totalitarianism or slavery would be the same.
And well, the justification is that all human beings are subjects and not objects, which is a way of claiming that they have infinite dignity. Were not everyone to decide their own concerning issues, the few de- ciders would be treating the rest of the population as objects and not as subjects. Not only historically, but also logically democracy, presup- poses a strict iusnaturalism.
How desirable it would be that the banal left-wing critique of 'for- mal democracy' at least understood it first considering its true consis- tency and its reasons, and only after that criticized knowing what it is about. If means of production are private property, the main economic decisions of the country are being made by a few individuals, who are treating the rest of the population as objects and not as subjects. Likewise, since there is no objective foundation (supply and demand is not) for assessing differently the different kinds of work that are necessary for society, it would be violating the equality and dignity to
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 318 Hegel was right
condemn the executers of certain kinds of work to an inferior way of life having them committed no crime. (It is another issue if I perform wrong my trade: that does deserve a sanction). One can even suspect intellectual dishonesty in the silence kept by liberals regarding the only possible justification of democracy, since that justification logically im- poses conclusions incompatible with capitalism and with any classist society. On the other side, the revolutionary movement, if it is about ratio- nality and not caprice, can not lay aside the infinite dignity of all human beings, for this is the only possible justification for their struggle.
Hegel denounces the incongruence of democrats that refuse to go to the rational bottom, to the ultimate reason of democracy's necessity: "Today we see the world full of the principle of freedom, and the latter specially related with the constitution of the State; these principles are true, but influenced by formalism they are mere prejudices because knowledge never gets to their ultimate reason" (PR I 309).
"The course that is in the grip of abstraction is liberalism, which is always beaten by the concrete and always goes bankrupt with the con- crete" (WG 925).
If it really is reason responsible of discovering these principles, it proves them so far as they are true and they do not remain purely formal, taking them to the knowledge of absolute truth, which is object only of philosophy. But Philosophy must get to the ultimate analysis, since if knowledge does not complete in itself, it is exposed to the unilaterality of formalism; but if it reaches the ultimate reason it reaches what can be considered supreme, it reaches God (PR I 309).
If liberals (and left-wings) realized how comical they look cau- tiously silencing the only possible justification of the demand of equality among men, sheltering at the irrational formalism that says 'we de- mand equality and democracy because we want to', political science will not be reduced nowadays to the enunciation of certain prejudices confronted with certain other prejudices.
Fortunately there is, as Hegel says, "the Right of the Absolute Spirit" (VG 147) and history laughs at the face of relativists and skeptics. The belief that every human being has infinite dignity has spread though the whole world. The essence of true civilization has won the battle against its rivals; it is still necessary to structure and articulate it in lots of places and in lots of aspects, but no one can doubt that we
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Science and Literature 319
are heading towards it. "We should consider the Right of the Spirit of the world against the States. " (VG 148). This is why Hegel told us that liberalism is in the grip of abstraction and the lack of content and always goes bankrupt with the concrete.
