NHEAN Dalin

^_^

Summary: Chapter 1 (Civil Society and Classical Heritage)

Politically organized commonwealth (Politics creates civilization) received its first

formulation in the cities of Ancient Greece. People lived in separate spheres and complex
relations. There is the debate over human relations: Uniqueness & commonality, and
particularism & universalism.

Classical thought maintained that political power made civilization possible. Greece
couldn’t live without politics; otherwise, they will be considered as barbarians. There are two
kinds of people:

Idiots: (solitary man, barbarians, slaves, women, n children) driven by personal interests.

Self-governing citizens: reasonable and guided by public action.

Plato believed that common good is discovered by public debate and action, while civic decay is
inevitably caused by private spheres.

The Danger of Private Interest

Born during Peloponesian war (430B.C- 401B.C), Plato couldn’t theorized individual and
social life apart from the state. Plato knew that people lives in different spheres and it’s like
human body. C.S composed of different skills (division of labor). Guided by the master virtue of
reason, justice enables each part to contribute to the welfare of the whole. Thus, justice requires
understanding of division of labor and the consequent relation of subordination & guidance
appropriate to natural aptitudes (natural ability to do sth) of elements.

For Plato, the task of political theory was to address the twin problems of corruption and
decay. These will destroy the unity. Political disease=> injustice is strife and decay is disorder.
All of these are caused by the inability of the state’s constituent to perform the functions.

Unity was important for the soul as it was for the state. The unity he pursued required that
private interests and passions should be suppressed. Besides, in order to deal with corruption
effective political leadership requires knowledge & political power.
 Plato was certain that ambition greed, rivalry, and competition are constant threats to C.S
because it’s difficult to control private appetites. Of course, force can control this, but finally C.S
rests on the pattern of thought. The glue that holds together soul and C.S is supplied by the
integrative power of reason. His suspicion of private passions drove Plato’s theory of censorship
as well. He mentions that strong effective leadership could counteract the inner force of diversity
because it could root civil society in an ethical totality. At the same time, anyone could be
guardian, even women which surprised everyone. In avoidance of civil corruption, guardians
possess no property; he/she can just depend on its citizens. His drive toward unity rested on a
single Good, which effectively erased his great insight that a coherent public life composed of
different elements required an integrative moral purpose.

The Mixed Polity

Aristotle, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the GREAT, has a limited view of
political life, not a wide scope. Aristotle believes that man are good by nature (self-sufficient and
commitment to public debate). 2 observations of Aristotle are: 1) Most sovereign and inclusive
association is the polis (political institution), 2) All associations are instituted for the purpose of
attaining some good. Aristotle agreed with Plato that material is the primary basic needs of
human and the division of labor rests at the heart of civil society. He mentions that Polis is the
most inclusive and sovereign of all human association. Family and village exist only for the sake
of “mere life”, but the polis is for “good life” and is the self-sufficient & moral life. Polis is the
endpoint of all human. Of course, household and village produce private striving and inequality,
but to some extent they help to set the conditions for full realization of human potential and
ethical content of the polis.

3 sets of legitimate moral relation that Aristotle stated:

1. Master& Slave: Slavery for Aristotle was a system of household service, meaning that
slaves &masters were bound together in a network of mutual dependency that reach
deeper than domestic incompetency or laziness of the rich. Slaves contributed to the
development of the master by their labor and masters contributed to the development of
the slaves by providing moral guidance & rationality. But, the true is reversed & there is
a conflict of interest &enmity.
2&3. Husband &wife and Parents &children:

The moral superiority of the husband over the wife & of parents over children ultimately
served the development of all in natural economy, the private sphere was about the
production of subsistence but no sale or exchange. It took the form of barter eco. However,
soon there will be an accumulation of more product than needed=> private profits &
individual accumulation=> undermine C.S.

Market existed for a long but has come dominate social affair only recently. Markets
were more sufficient developed to organize C.S on their own. They would not be
independent or visible until capitalism gave rise to pursue eco. gain for its own sake. Money
is now required in the exchange of market. However, Aristotle suspected that commerce &
trade can limit the moral purpose. In order word, the pursuit of wealth destroyed the moral
potential of human activities cuz it threatened to subordinates all virtue to its own
imparatives & subject them to a foreign totalizing logic. Aristotle supported the moral and
public of commonwealth (private sphere enables public life). His dominant relation is
household (slavery, patriarchy, and parental).

Plato failed to understand that people moved & have different interest but they can
accomplish to attain better life. He denied private property and family life, while Aristotle
believed that no public purpose would be served by eliminating private life altogether. He
added that all the groups of people who live together do not necessary constitute a polis. For
Aristotle, citizen is best defined as a man who lives according to the rules that makes for the
welfare of the community as a whole. The purpose of the polis is to live well, not just living.

A healthy state is a mixed polity based on the middle class and combining the rich and
the poor because the healthy state require citizens who know how to rule (The rich) n obey
(the poor) and middle class makes this knowledge possible for peers & friends to practice
since they possess reason, discipline, and moderation. Aristotle’s understanding of
differential civil society was considerably more sophisticated than that of Plato. Plato failed
to understand that private interest is a permanent part of human condition, while Aristotle
pointed out that politics is the “master science of Good” since it moderated the impact of
individual interests with the generality of common concerns.
Civil Society and the Res Publica

Aristotle died just as the independent Greek city-states were disappearing. Doctrines of self-
sufficiency and individual well-being provided the foundation for theories of individual
autonomy, moral equality, & personal righteousness. However, self-sufficient & authenticity
replaced citizenship & public action, which led to the collapse of Rome. Individual well-
being is not disclosed in public activities anymore. All stoics agreed that human beings are
rational creatures made for social life. The whole universe is a civic community in which
everything alive shares in a harmonious unity organized by reason. Marcus Tullius Cicero
also agreed with Stoics, but he also suspected that private sphere could be dangerous. Thus,
we need to reform economically, socially, and politically. The res publica was the people’s
possession” associated to respect justice & common good. Chaos of private interests and
judgments could be overcome by reason and the creation of mixed constitution. A mixed
constitution would avoid tyranny and mob rule by providing institutional safeguards to
principles of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. He located the Senate at the heart of the
state power since it could prevent further degeneration of the Republic. Nevertheless, Cicero
‘s attempt was failed. Augustus separated politics from interest through a bureaucratized
legal system. Soon, Roman notion of res publica & res private is correlative. Public law
defined common interests, specified civic duties, & regulated the relation between citizens,
while private law regulated the relations between individuals, provided legal expression to
family & property, and recognized zone of private life.

Chapter 2: Civil Society and Christian Common Wealth By Malis Pich

I. Pride, faith, and the state

Augustine and view on Civil Society
Augustine’s book: “The City of God” in A.D 431
- He viewed human as too weak to draw moral value for themselves.
- The mysterious working of Holy Spirit could derive the standards of truth, beauty,
goodness, and meaning of life.
- History is the record of God’s presence in human affairs, not any products of human
mind.
- The Greeks and Romans, the ground for human happiness are the speech, deliberation,
and action in a politically organized civil society.
- Only Christian Principles could constitute the foundation for conduct of politics and the
organization of the civil society.
- The love of praise brings the human into a glorious life of the citizens.
- Augustine made a notice sentence: “Glory they most ardently loved; for it they wished
to live, for it they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by the
strength of their passion for that one thing”.
- 2 kinds of Cities existed, one serves for devil and one serves for god and angels. The
one, which serves the devil, represents the instability and conflict that accompany the
affairs of flesh, while the one, which serves the god, represents the unity and the peace.
- These are called the city of man, and the city of god, that it needs to coexist until the
end of the world
- “Sin” seems like the cancer for the human and the society. Human commit sin, and in
return they would get sin. Thus, the institution in civil society is very important that it is
made possible for the sin remedy.
- “To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man but also restrain him from sin or
punish his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit from his
experience, or others be warned by his examples”.
- The Church has ultimate responsibility for the civil society, which provides the safety
in a world. Church is the heart if a new universal community. Thus, the Church has to
be pure in its relation to God and to the world.
- True Church is the body of Christ and it is the most dependable defense against Sin and
to serve the human who lost in his world of sin to be back.
- To sum up, god and church is correlated, and is always greatest good for human in civil
society.
 II. The Christian Commonwealth:

Christian Commonwealth emphasizes the central roles of the god, and the god’s relationship with
the human. The Pope has power to connect the relationship of human and god. The Spiritual
interests and matters of salvation were properly the affair of the church, while temporal matters
of order, peace, and justice were the part of civil government.

- State existed to give order to public affairs. The church existed to provide moral guidance to
all its members. Each power was to be supreme within its own sphere.
- Aquinas and Aristotle share slightly different ideas. Both of them mainly believe that the
policy could form a better civil society. For Aristotle, political order is the highest form of
human association because it is the work of reason, aims at the satisfaction of human needs,
and makes it possible for life live well.
- ***Beast<Man<God
- A man is a beast when he is unable to participate in the civil society. And a Man is the
God when he does not need anyone, as he is self-sufficient.
- Thomas Aquinas sees that the politics could serve general moral purpose. Social and
political life is the fundamental to the human condition. There is the need for the agency to
take care and to be connected to the common wealth, for the human own interest. And the
human reasons are led by god, and to guide our own action, and that it leads us to live with
others in a political association.
- For Aquinas, all stage of human history and all form of human organization depend on
humanity’s relationship to god if they are to full fill their potential. And the human institution
is found by God’s universal moral law.

III.Early Fractures:

(Fracture refers to the crackdown)

There are 2 mains scholars critic on the civil society of the Christianity.

1. Dante Alighieri:
 - He focuses on the concept of the civil society, which is not depended on the authority
of the Church.
- He brings the standard debate about the Church and the states.
- The people pursue many goals and live in a variety of associations, but they need peace
to live a decent life at any level. Thus, only a single government can help us realize the
ethical potential of the people association.
- The political association existed before the Christ. Civil society is a natural community,
has always been a quality of settled people, and very essential to human well-being.
- The government is the independent body from Church, it does not need to answer or
derive its authority from the Church.
- Following the Christ cannot serve the model of the state.
- All priests may be subject to a single master pope for their religion only.
- The diversity of the human affairs and the existence of private property explain why
people live under the needs for the variety of political forms
2. Marsilius of Paudua:
The interests of the community could be contained within the boundaries of the secular
state (state that has no religion) that directly anticipated theories of civil society.
- State organizes the civil society so humans could live with one another with peace.
- The God intentions of no peace do not correlate with the welfare of the civil
community.
- The Church itself is created by human, and defined by political institution of the civil
society.
- Civil society originates in the fundamental principle of human association. The world
have the requirements, as such institutions for the stabilities, and that, the Church is just
part of it.
- The state is the sovereign source of law, it defines and constitutes the Church, and it is
to be obeyed because it is itself the expression of justice.
- The civil society is compiled by many different spheres, as the human has different
reasons to perform their own interest. Thus, the popes and their followers could not
claim their own authority to organize the public life.
 Chapter 3: Civil Society and the Transition to Modernity

by Ratanak Hoeun

I. Machiavelli

 At that time, almost everywhere the medieval structure of corporations and representation
was decaying and collapsing. Then, the monarchy system started to rise as monarchies
learned how to exploit natural resources, expand trade, wage war, and conduct foreign
relations. That is the prince. Machiavelli believed the Christianity could not get involved
with a framework for political activity. Political power is independent of religion, and the
end justifies the means (realism).
 Machiavelli explained that appropriate institutions, a vigorous public life, and creative
leadership can eliminate the social conflict of clash of classes in the society.
 When poor and hungry, people are industrious, it means men never does thing unless they
need to do ,so with law people are good

II. Martin Luther

 2 spheres coexisted: the sphere of God under Christ and the sphere of the world under the
state.
 Each has its own law and is independent of each other. The church has no business in
politics and a state has no business in the soul.
 For him, excluding the god, all—including prince or peasants—are equal in terms of soul,
and of course there inequalities of bodies. Therefore, he criticized the indulgence (ex.
building the church…) by the rich to pay for salvation.
 The state is to protect church, while civil society cannot because it does not have power,
domination, and authority.

III. Thomas Hobbes

 Civil society is made possible by sovereignty, is constituted by politics, and cannot be
formally distinguished from the state.
 In the state of nature, people are equal, insecure, and alone; their drive to protect
themselves will always undermine any effort to control disintegration unless it is
politically organized.
 Civil society and state existed at the same time; without state, we would live in the state
of nature. When living in a state of nature, we are men. When living in a state, we are
subjects, but we are secure.
 Hobbes also talked very little about personal welfare. He recognized that a state should
not interfere with self-interested activities unless the civil order is threatened.

Chapter 4 The Rise of “Economic Man” By: Siv Eang

 Rights, Law, and Protected Sphere

John Locke believed that humans are rational. If they own some property in the
society, they wouldn’t be interested in disordering the society because they want to put
their business in peace. Therefore he established the theory of prepolitical natural right in
which he stressed on property, rights, and private desire.
John Locke criticized Thomas Hobbes for giving too much power to the state. He argued
that when the state had too much power, it would undermine the security of the people
and make civil society impossible. To Locke, civil society is created by humans to protect
their rights and property. In the state of nature, humans are given equal rights and
property, but because of these equal rights, they are afraid that their property could be
competed away by others, so they created civil society and handed their rights to it to
protect their property, but civil society doesn’t have as much power as what Hobbes said
about the state.

 The Moral Foundation of Civil Society

An 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment thinker, Adam Ferguson based civil
society on a set of innate moral sentiments. He agreed that the care of private property
 did contribute to the creation of civil society, but it is not the factor that makes people tie
together in the society because it symbolized the selfishness of humankinds. If the society
failed to protect their interest, people would separate themselves from the society.
However, he argued, human tie themselves with the society not only to protect their
private interest, but it is their innate morality. He believed that altruism and generosity lie
in human mind since they are born. They don’t care only about their own interest they
think that the interest of the others also affect their own interest as well. Because of this
thought, the society is full of solidarity.
Ferguson also tried to find out where those innate moralities of humankinds
derive from. He went back to the transition of humankinds from barbarianism to
civilization. In barbarianism, humans are full of desire for security and unwillingness to
commit themselves to the public, while in civilization, humans are full of morality.
Hence, Ferguson came up with the idea that this change was derived from the unintended
human actions.
Ferguson also tried to explain self-sufficient market mechanism. He worried that a
society with free market could be in danger because people become individualistic and
care only about their own interest, and they would lose the sense of morality in their
mind.

 The Emergence of Bourgeois Civil Society

Adam Smith tried to opposed mercantilism which believes that the wealth of a
nation depends on how much gold and silver it has. He argued that property depends on
the market, and he believed that free trade in the international economy can bring
prosperity to all. He wrote a book called ‘The Wealth of Nation’ in which he stressed on
the existence of a natural order and the benevolent effects of economic freedom.
His greatest achievement was to link the division of labor to market. He believed
that a worker, regardless of he is poor or rich, as long as he is skilled and productive, he
will be able to enjoy the convenience of life. Market allows workers to multiply their
particular skill to the economic production and regularize the mutual dependence among
them.
 To Smith, civil society is a market-organized network of mutual dependence, each
individual apply his or her particular skill to the production and provide benefits to all.
Based on the interaction of those individuals, he classified them into three social classes
organized around agriculture, manufacture, and trade.

Area Agriculture Manufacture Trade

Who are they? Landlords Wage-earners Capitalists
What did they contribute to the society? Land Labor Capital
What they get from that? Rent Wage Profit

Smith was smart at creating a market-driven theory of civil society in which individuals
can pursuit their own interest and at the same time serve the interest of all.
He was famous for his theories of invisible hand and self-correcting market. He
believed that market-driven societies were more efficient and fairer than mercantilist
bureaucracies. In this system, every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of
justice, is free to pursuit his own interest and the public interest. Like the market, he
added, a civil society that gives freedom to individual can correct itself without the
interference from any political authority. However, he also worried that commerce and
property could make the rich soft, narrow, and corrupt. That’s why state is still important,
but it doesn’t have the arbitrary authority like Hobbes said. Adam Smith gave state only
the authority to protect the society from external danger, protect every member of the
society from injustice of every of every other member, and maintain public institution
and public work.

Sophyrum Chapter 5:

I. Civil Society and the Ethical Commonwealth

+ David Hume attacked natural law and asserted that reason and morality are in
different sphere and give different results, and there’s difference between “is” and
“ought”. Hume said that the common good can’t be revealed by moral reasoning, but
only the sum of individual goods. The rule of civil society can’t be achieved by moral
law. Civil society is the agreement of the pursuit of private goal and mutual pursuit of
interest. Civil society is constituted by external interactions of rational seekers after
individual self-interest.

+ Immanuel Kant:
 Civil society was a moral community that required autonomous people to
subject their action to the universal ethical standards of the categorical
imperative. People know what is right without being told. Morality can be
derived from reason and used to generate a set of principles and is
independent of the influence of experiences. Moral laws are like laws of
nature and also originate outside the realm of experience. Moral freedom is a
fundamental possibility of the human condition because the rational will is
determined by its own inner lawfulness.
 Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the
guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is “Have courage to use your
own understanding”. Maturity requires the “freedom to make public use of
one’s reason in all matters and can come to life only in the presence of others.
Private interests cannot be ignored for erased, for the human condition is
marked by a continual tension between what we want to do and what we
ought to do. Reasons constitutes Ought. These considerations led Kant to the
“categorical imperative”.
 There should be protected space- freedom as protected by the rule of law,
rights, and civil liberties- civil society reflects the common and equal moral
capacity of all its members. Kant found French revolution as the history of
signs of moral enlightenment. The people of France gave themselves the
constitution they wanted.
 People have basic right to be subjected only to laws that are capable of
receiving universal assent, and this requires publicness, no one can coerce
anyone else other than thought the public law and its executor, the head of the
state”. This requires equality of opportunity, the right to vote, the rule of law,
 the separation of powers, and a constitutional government. A sphere of moral
life: The principles needed for the civil state:
1. The freedom of every member of society as a human being
2. The equality of each with all the others as a subject
3. The independent of each member of a commonwealth as citizen.

II. The “Giant Broom”

Talking about the French revolution, it’s the sign that finally civil society and the
state could be organized on a rational basis. There were no longer three estates in the
French society, but the entire community and the agent of the universal values. The
abolition of feudal society directly affected the Church. Much Church property passed
to the nation. The nobility lost authority and privileges. It paved the way of the
modern state of universal citizenship and uniform laws. Soon after the revolution, the
French political structure and economic were weak, but then political structure began
to be more centralized and the economic was supervised by the political structure.
National unity was achieved through centralized administrative uniformity, a national
army, hostility to local particularism, and a single market with a uniform set of
customs and tariffs. The state was so powerful because the state was no longer
dependent on wealth, status, and other private attributes of feudalism. However, when
politics was separated from economic, there was economic and social inequality of
civil society, and now seen as the sphere of private pleasure.

III. The “System of Needs”

The “System of needs” is a state of mutual dependence. The individuals’ work can no
longer guarantee him that his needs will be met. Needs come from the interaction of
civil society, and needs become endless. It doesn’t arise within you directly, but it’s
suggested to you by those who hope to make a profit from its creation. Civil society
helps to maintain ethic there are three spheres of social life- the family, civil society,
and the state, which state is the fullest of freedom. The family expresses a set of
domestic duties. It consists in a feeling, a consciousness, and a will, not limited to
 individual personality and interest, but embracing the common interests of the
members generally. State must represent interests that are universal. The state rescues
humankind by transforming civil society’s dependence into interdependence. Its
preservation of universality fulfills the ethical potential of civil society’s
individualism, guarantees autonomy, and safeguards freedom.

IV. The politics of Social Revolution:

Marx and other European social theorists began to raise the question why the French
revolution cannot eliminate economic inequality. Marxism and liberalism share
modernity’s theoretical differentiation between the state and civil society while
retaining a sense of their connections. Civil society is formulated by the sphere of
economy. Marx claims that in bureaucracy, the identity of state interest and particular
private aim is established in such a way that the state interest becomes a particular
private aim over against other private aims. No class of civil society can makes real
and human emancipation. The bourgeoisie had been able to lead the struggle against
feudalism because its demand for liberty and protection had acquired a general force
across the entire social order. The mode production of Marxism is to abolish private
property. Wage, labor, production for exchange, and the accumulation of capital had
largely resulted to the chaos of the market and social class. Socialism cannot realize
without revolution. First, the working class has to overthrow the existing power and
seize the state power. This can be done by political act- destruction and dissolution.
Next, the ultimate result is social transformation.

Chapter 6 By: Soukim

To the pre-modern theorists of civil society, economic affairs were the threats of civil society.

There are two strands of modern thought concerning civil society. The first one is that civil
society is a market-organized sphere of necessity. Hegel and Marx agreed that class, production, interest
and competition are civil society’s core. They also believe that it is a process, which creates and distribute
wealth. The second strand is that civil society is an intermediate sphere of voluntary association and
activity standing between the individual and the state. This second strand leaves economics out of sight.

The Aristocratic Republic

Montesquieu was born in 1689. He was the first generation of Enlightenment thinkers. He was
attracted to England because England seemed to have ended the century of upheaval without falling into
extreme despotism or anarchy. England divided the society into 3 categories: King, nobility, and people;
and this is shown in her institutions of Crown, Lords, and Commons.

Aristocracy said that since its power and property were independent of the will of the monarch
and the passion of the crowd, aristocracy is the only estate that could mediate between the monarch and
the crowd. This is how it justified its monopoly of the land.

The defense of intermediate associations and theory of a balanced constitution are Montesquieu’s
important contribution to the modern theories of CS. He distinguished 3 forms of government: a republic
- people as a whole (democracy) or certain families (aristocracy) hold sovereign power, a monarchy – a
prince holds power but uses it according to the laws, and despotism – a lawless corruption of monarchy
in which a prince governs alone according to his own wish. Monarchy and despotism are governed by a
prince, but stable monarchies are marked by a complicated gradation of intermediate institutions that
make the law possible. Despotism is an absolute monarchy without the aristocracy’s intermediate bodies.

Men are all equal in republican government (democracy) because they are everything; they are
equal in despotic government because they are nothing.

Secondary associations must be unsupported by culture and protected by law otherwise it cannot
protect the liberty. Traditional customs, manners and past examples work with a body of law to protect
the integrity of civil society’s intermediate, subordinate, and dependent bodies.

Civil Society and Community

Community is the closeness of the ones you live with. Jean Jacques Rousseau claimed that man is
naturally good and it is entirely by his institutions that he is made wicked. If CS makes human evil, it can
also rescue them.
 Rousseau proclaimed that man is born free, and everywhere he is in chain. Civil society is formed
by individuals who are naturally free and potentially moral. The social order serves all the others because
it is a moral association.

American Lessons

The weakness of America was the about the state, said Tocqueville (1835). He marked America
as a strong society, but weak state, opposite of Europe. He stated this because he saw that in America, it
lack of great cities, absence of bureaucracy and tradition of decentralization, a culture of self-reliance,
low level of class conflict, geographical isolation, absence of large social inequality, and so on. “Nothing
is more striking to a European traveler in the US than the absence of what we call the government, or the
administration.”

Local self-rule was perfectly suited to an American culture of self-reliance. Everyone is the best
judge of what concerns himself alone, and the most proper person to supply his own wants. The township
(one level bigger than country) and the country are bound to take care of their special interests. The state
governs, but doesn’t execute the law. The permanent associations that are created by law under a
townships, cities, and countries are formed and maintained by the agency of private individuals.

A brilliant achievement may bring a person with a favor of people at one stroke, but to earn the
love and respect of the population that surround you, a long succession of little services rendered and
good deeds, constant kindness, and established reputation for disinterestedness will be required. Freedom
will brings men together and forces them to help one another.

Tocqueville’s theory of civil society: government’s responsibility must be limited to its political
sphere. Civil society is populated by voluntary associations that pursue private matters and are not
concerned with broad political or economic affair.

What Tocqueville worried was that the capacity for statism, rich network of intermediate
associations, tradition of localism, and political freedom might not be enough to turn the commercial
society’s isolated individuals toward the common good. Though Americans have strong local
volunteerism, it has to learn the importance of tempering the French Revolution’s universalism with the
recognition of local inequalities.
Chapter 7: Civil Society and Communism By: Sunly

 In 1980s, revolution of civil society against the state was a common crisis and it
happened in Eastern Europe. The liberalists said that Marxism lack of limits on activities
from civil society and had tendency to politize very thing, and it ignored economic
matter. Thus, liberalists said that it is the reasons that Soviet collapsed.

Totalitarianism:

 Characteristic of totalitarianism is planned economy and no social activity.

 Karl Marx who is the father of communism has a great project which is to criticize
bourgeois civil society. Also, he outlined the transition to socialism rather that to
communism.
 Lenin favored of building a proletarian state, and he led a successful revolution. He said
revolution can succeed when we have political and institutional foundation, but it is hard
to transform a civil society because CS consists of counterrevolution and foreign
intervention.
 During his revolution, he knew that the change of market from state-led to stateless is
easy, but it is not when he want to change the market to a planned one, so he had turned
for help from others.
 Lenin died in 1924, and mass requires for strengthening the state power and requires
government party to make social mobilization and economic development, so it led to
debates on how socialism works. Then, Stalin won by insisting that socialism could be
build by active participate from both peasant and workers.
 USSR became a heavy industry and a permanent state of emergency. Its economics is
central planning and strict political control.
 Marxist theory and Bolshevik leadership insist that communist society which did not
fully transform the CS will have a threat from counterrevolution to the government.
 Hayek:
o State needs to protect contract, but it also need to intervene in some level in
market because the market’s regulation becomes more important as society
becomes more complex.
o Communist wanted a society with “public control”, but it was not. Many goods
are still private because they serve their own interest.
o Criticism to communism: only individuals are the solid ground for freedom, so
they are the judge of their goal. Hence, CS must organize according to individual
interests in order to fulfill the circumstances.
o He said that Keynesianism is the little brother of communism
o He said free market led to economic inequality, but intervention is a threat to
liberty. To eliminate these, public decisions need to be driven by market criteria.
o He linked Aristotle’s autocracy to totalitarianism. There are two others scholars
name Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski who favored the classical theory
and modern liberalism.
o Where Hayek was attacking all planning in the West, Friedrich and Brzezinski
were crafting a specifically anticommunist position.
o Modern totalitarian: combine the power of ideology and the use of coercion.
o Totalitarianism does not respect the autonomous sphere that protects individual
autonomy and private judgment. If such important institution as families,
churches, universities and arts can have some degree of autonomy, perhaps
totalitarianism was not so total after all.
 Hannah Arendt: totalitarianism has the unstable CS and mass.
 Some CS is empty because its inhabitants are disconnected, and the characteristic of
leaders is isolate and lack of normal social relationship.
 The rise of movement that attempt to correct social and economic inequities with political
remedies makes Arendt and Hayek loss confident because political participation that is
not connected to the immediate pursuit of self-interest is a dangerous.
  Totalitarian is marked by political isolation and private loneliness, and the destruction of
civil society’s intermediate structures is what makes the phenomenon so invasive.
 While isolation concerns only the political realm of life, loneliness concerns human life
as a whole. Totalitarian government could not exist without destroying the public realm
of life and political capacities.
 Lecture on totalitarianism was introduced to Eastern Europe to rediscover CS in early
cold war, but it was failed.


The “Self-Limiting” Revolution

 By the late 1970s, CS is a sphere of autonomous, but it did not seek to challenge the state
either. Thus, the society is no longer a totalitarian state.
 Soviet Union became like other modern societies because it has some limitation on social
activities, but there are many activities allowed.
 The state was becoming less able to direct an increasingly complicated society and assert
a single hierarchy of social goals.
 Some scholars argued that there was far more for independent public activity to exist than
in the West where they encourage the independent establishment of organization.
 Industrialization, wealth, urbanization, social peace, education, and other
accomplishments brought an end to Soviet Union’s incessant mobilizations.
 People can do what they like, but not politics.
 The suggestion that CS could be theorized as a nonstate and nonmarket public sphere is
problematic and it is unclear of what it consisted of.
 The hope to reform CS coexist with single-party state and a socialist economy gradually
disappear.
 By the early 1980s, the “self-limiting revolution of civil society against the state” had
confined itself to limiting arbitrary state power and had settled into an unstable
coexistence with a weakened but hostile political apparatus.

The Limits Are Reached

 There is a silent green between state and CS with no political movements were created.
  State ensure that the depoliticize CS is properly function.
 States must be neutral to the groups to enforce judge law.
 Stalin didn’t allow the establishment of association, but later on the next president allow
for depoliticized group.
 Communist society would have to organize and prioritize its demands in such areas as
housing, health care, and education, but make sure that it is out of politics.
 State withdrew itself from CS, but it enforce arbitrary law to all group, so market rule
invades the CS which means CS has right to choose what they want to do.
 State rule=tell what to do. Market rule=choose what to do.
 The model of communism was influenced by the model of western.
 State drags countless things into politics, but not about business which means that state
has nothing to do with private matter.
 Self-organizing and self-limiting civil society separated from the state by property rights
and the rule of law would inevitably be constituted by the market.

Summary of Chapter 8 (by Thida)

Eastern European – Actual existing socialism – prioritized social welfare and left the economic
matter aside after the establishment of a “law-governed state” and the reunification of Europe.
Due to the fact that the energize people can govern over their public sphere – market. For
example, in the US in February 1998, Hilary Clinton offered the economist to defend the free
market, effective gov’, and intermediate association of CS to stand b/t them, but later on New
York’s mayor intended to make his city as a “civil society” of people => CS supposed to limit
the intrusive state, revitalize community life and so on.

During 1950s-1960s, democracy required many political structure => totalitarianism was more
credible due to the elite can lead over mass societies in condition of social reform and political
stability.

Pluralist foundation
  David Truman: emerged from WWII, study of how interest group shaped state activity
in a period of heightened demands on political system. To him, individual is less affected
to the society, but through the various of its subdivision, or groups => interest group
impact on the governmental process by their formal structure, internal politics, quality of
leadership, and sources of cohesion. He assumed that CS is widely distribute and
decentralized and institutional neutrality to provide fair hearing to everyone. Understand
politics means understand these complex situations that we cannot describe any
administrators or individuals participation in the governmental institution, but we can
understand how they identify themselves with which they affiliate and confront. He also
identified 2regulatory device to maintain political stability:
1. Madisonian structure of multiple memberships – class no longer provide a singer center,
but multiple groups as people have variety of often-competing interests.
2. Overlapping loyalties – unorganized interest – rule of game: are guarded by elites, can be
summarized as adherence to the rule of law that loser cannot impose any violence in the
society after elections and modest social egalitarianism (believe that all people are
equally important and should have equal right and opportunities in life). Thus, it can limit
the class conflict.
 Garbriel Almond and Sidney Verba: the middle of the 1960s, believe in Political
Culture that they divided it into 3main levels:
1. Parochial: low level of interest, participation, and allegiance of political activity => third
world
2. Subject: high awareness of political knowledge, but no sense or participation =>
communism
3. Participant: high in both awareness and sense of individual influence => Anglo-American
 Civic Culture: a pluralistic culture based on communication and persuasion, a culture of
consensus and diversity, a culture that permitted change but moderate it. => class conflict
disappear and one learns the rule of the game one can become a productive citizen in a
polity that gives political expression to all legitimate interests.

The Commodified Public Sphere

 Antonio Gramsci: the late 1960s, study of why European capitalism during WW
survived, while Russian Revolution failed. His main focus on Leninism towards the
circumstance of Russian CS. The Russian autocracy was vulnerable due to its relative
autonomy, and it followed the class struggle in the East – “War of Maneuver”. Plus, he
focused on theory of hegemony that the strong states and CS of western Europe created
different situations from the East as they had to pay serious attention to the culture, and
ideology that supported capitalism. Integral meaning of the state
“dictatorship+hegemony” => direct force, domination, and the coercive institution of
political society are supplemented by the ideological hegemony the bourgeoisie exercises
over national life through the schools, private associations, and other institution of its CS.
 Max Horkheimer: German philosopher – a theory of modernity - culture of industry –
culture that represented a vast array of ideological commodities to passive consumer.
1. Enlightenment: free people from the dead hand of tradition, hierarchy, and superstition.
New form of technology and novel methods of organizing production were transforming
modern civilization and powerful technique of mass market.
 Herbert Marcuse: Technological rationality has become political rationality because the
organized around the commodity form, instrumental reason, and bureaucracy, advance
industrial society convert new technology into an instrument of domination, so alternative
no longer exist.
 Hannah Arendt: consider the effect of economic life on CS. To her, modernity post the
threat to create mass society, which lead totalitarianism is better than Nazism and
Stalinism. She focused on 2distinctive attribute of “human condition” in Athen:
1. B/t private and public, household and polis that contribute to human freedom.
2. Speech and action that construct a common life.
She also illustrates the social problem that politics has become polluted by material issue
such as money and welfare. Similarly to Marx, everything was driven by economic, the
problem in mass society also because of the fault of economic structure.