Civil Society and the State: Origins and Theories
Two Dimensions of Freedom: Public and Private Spheres
There are two dimensions to the deployment of freedoms and interests of people:
- Private Life: The intimate and personal freedom of each individual, free from external interference.
- Public Life: The scenario in which individuals interact as social, political, or cultural actors within society.
To harmonize these two levels, politics emerged, encompassing administrative and coercive power to enable coexistence within organized civil society.
- Civil Society: A complex private formation of associations and relationships with diverse and heterogeneous objectives.
- Locke: The first philosopher to distinguish between independent civil society and political society. The liberal state must primarily serve to protect citizens’ liberties.
- Hegel: Systematized liberal thought, recognizing the autonomy of civil society, but stressed the need to prioritize the good of the state.
Civil society develops in the private realm, while the state and political institutions control and organize the public sphere.
The Individual and Society: An Inextricable Link
Society is inextricably linked to the individual; it is necessary for human life. Living in society is part of human nature, part of our essence.
Philosophical Perspectives on Sociability
- Antiquity:
- Plato: Man is not self-sufficient; he requires union with other men, each contributing according to their natural qualities.
- Aristotle: Society provides the ultimate fulfillment of human beings, their happiness. A man who does not live in society is not a man, but a beast or a god.
- Middle Ages: Scholastic philosophy, with Thomas Aquinas, followed Aristotelian theses, taken as a model by modern natural law.
- Modern Age: Thinkers like Hume criticized the rationalist conception. Men are born to be grouped by instinct or following a natural impulse, guided by interest and utility.
- Contemporary Era: Philosophers have defended the natural character of human sociability. For Marx, specifically human capacities are meaningless if expressed in isolation.
Social Contract Theories: Origins of Society and State
Society and the state owe their origin to a pact or social contract established freely by men. Individuals lose all or part of their freedoms, according to the specific philosophical approach. These theories generally follow this scheme:
- State of Nature: The starting point; imagining man without political organization.
- Social Contract: A necessary artifice; building a civil society from an artificial agreement between individuals.
- Political System: Based on the legitimacy of the contract, establishing rules and the resulting type of government.
Key Social Contract Theorists
Thomas Hobbes: Contract of Submission
- The natural state of mankind is a war of all against all, an unsustainable situation.
- The contract requires all individuals to become subjects, relinquishing freedom to a sovereign with full power.
- This irrevocable assignment of all rights to a single power gives rise to absolutist politics, the origin of the state.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract
- In his natural state, man is absolutely free, only concerned with self-preservation and satisfying natural needs. He has no need for others and no desire for harm.
- Through a contract, each individual cedes all their rights to the general will, representing the collective will. No one cedes to anyone in particular.
- The system where all individuals have the same degree of political participation is democracy.
John Locke: Liberal Contract
- In the state of nature, men are free and equal, subject to natural law, which establishes that life, liberty, and property are inalienable rights that must be respected.
- The contract obliges individuals who freely choose to sign it. The state exercises executive and judicial power.
- It preserves the natural right of private property. Government’s political power defends the natural rights of individuals. This leads to political liberalism.