The State of Capital: Hegel’s Critique of Bourgeois Society

Abstract

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right openly proclaims itself to be a work without a political agenda, an interpretation of politics rather than a political project. This essay contends that Hegel’s decision to locate the universality of the state as the culminating point of the political structure represents itself a political intervention that occurs through the act of interpretation. Hegel’s analysis of the relationship between capitalism (or civil society) and the state reveals that we must adopt the perspective of the state when looking at capitalist society. By doing so, we can recognize the political exigency of moving from capitalist particularism to the universality of the state form.