The standards of constitutional economics

The standards of constitutional economics when used during annual budget planning, as well as the latter'stransparency to the civil society, are of the primary guiding importance to the implementation of the rule of law. Also, the availability of an effective court system, to be used by the civil society in situations of unfair government spending and executive impoundment of any previously authorized appropriations, HP Pavilion dv6-3001so Laptop Keyboard

becomes a key element for the success of any influential civil society.

Critics and activists currently often apply the term civil society to the domain of social life which needs to be protected against globalization, and to the sources of resistance thereto, because it is seen as acting beyond boundaries and across different territories.^[19] HP HDX18-1100 CTO Laptop Keyboard

However, as civil society can, under many definitions, include and be funded and directed by those businesses and institutions (especially donors linked to European and Northern states) who supportglobalization, this is a contested use.^[20] Rapid development of civil society on the global scale after the fall of the communist system was a part of neo-liberal strategies linked to the Washington Consensus.^[10]  TOSHIBA Satellite C655-S9521D Laptop Keyboard

Some studies have also been published, which deal with unresolved issues regarding the use of the term in connection with the impact and conceptual power of the international aid system (see for example Tvedt 1998). On the other hand, others see globalization as a social phenomenon expanding the sphere of classical liberal values, which inevitably led to a larger role for civil society at the expense of politically derived state institutions. HP G42-380LA Laptop Keyboard

The concept of civil society in its pre-modern classical republican understanding is usually connected to the early-modern thought of Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. However, it has much older history in the realm of political thought. Generally, civil society has been referred to as a political association governing social conflict through the imposition of rules that restrain citizens from harming one another.^[21] GATEWAY NV-53 Laptop Keyboard

In the classical period, the concept was used as a synonym for the good society, and seen as indistinguishable from the state. For instance, Socrates taught that conflicts within society should be resolved through public argument using ‘dialectic’, a form of rational dialogue to uncover truth.  HP 646568-001 Laptop Keyboard

According to Socrates, public argument through ‘dialectic’ was imperative to ensure ‘civility’ in the polis and ‘good life’ of the people.^[22] For Plato, the ideal state was a just society in which people dedicate themselves to the common good, practice civic virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation and justice,  ACER Aspire One D150-1920 Laptop Keyboard

and perform the occupational role to which they were best suited. It was the duty of the ‘Philosopher king’ to look after people in civility. Aristotle thought the polis was an ‘association of associations’ that enables citizens to share in the virtuous task of ruling and being ruled.^[21] His koinonia politike as political community. HP AEUT5U00010 Laptop Keyboard

The concept of societas civilis is Roman and was introduced by Cicero. The political discourse in the classical period, places importance on the idea of a ‘good society’ in ensuring peace and order among the people. The philosophers in the classical period did not make any distinction between the state and society. ACER Aspire One D150-1920 Laptop Keyboard

Rather they held that the state represented the civil form of society and ‘civility’ represented the requirement of good citizenship.^[21] Moreover, they held that human beings are inherently rational so that they can collectively shape the nature of the society they belong to. In addition, human beings have the capacity to voluntarily gather for the common cause and maintain peace in society.  HP AEUT5U00010 Laptop Keyboard

By holding this view, we can say that classical political thinkers endorsed the genesis of civil society in its original sense.

The Middle Ages saw major changes in the topics discussed by political philosophers. Due to the unique political arrangements of feudalism, the concept of classical civil society practically disappeared from mainstream discussion. APPLE A1278 Laptop Keyboard

Instead conversation was dominated by problems of just war, a preoccupation that would last until the end of Renaissance.

The Thirty Years' War and the subsequent Treaty of Westphalia heralded the birth of the sovereign states system. ACER 9J.N0F82.A1D Laptop Keyboard

The Treaty endorsed states as territorially-based political units having sovereignty. As a result, the monarchs were able to exert domestic control by emasculating the feudal lords and to stop relying on the latter for armed troops.^[23] Henceforth, monarchs could form national armies and deploy a professional bureaucracy and fiscal departments, HP G72-b66US Laptop Keyboard

which enabled them to maintain direct control and supreme authority over their subjects. In order to meet administrative expenditures, monarchs controlled the economy. This gave birth to absolutism.^[24] Until the mid-eighteenth century, absolutism was the hallmark of Europe.^[24] ACER 9J.N0F82.A1D Laptop Keyboard

The absolutist concept of the state was disputed in the Enlightenment period.^[25] As a natural consequence of Renaissance, Humanism, and the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment thinkers raised fundamental questions such as “What legitimacy does heredity confer?”, “Why are governments instituted?”,  HP G72-b66US Laptop Keyboard

“Why should some human beings have more basic rights than others?”, and so on. These questions led them to make certain assumptions about the nature of the human mind, the sources of political and moral authority, the reasons behind absolutism, and how to move beyond absolutism. The Enlightenment thinkers believed in the inherent goodness of the human mind. HP Mini 110-3180sv Laptop Keyboard

They opposed the alliance between the state and the Church as the enemy of human progress and well-being because the coercive apparatus of the state curbed individual liberty and the Church legitimated monarchs by positing the theory of divine origin. Therefore, both were deemed to be against the will of the people. Lenovo 3000 N200 Laptop Keyboard

Strongly influenced by the atrocities of Thirty Years' War, the political philosophers of the time held that social relations should be ordered in a different way from natural law conditions. Some of their attempts led to the emergence of social contract theory that contested social relations existing in accordance with human nature. DELL Vostro 3450 Laptop Keyboard

They held that human nature can be understood by analyzing objective realities and natural law conditions. Thus they endorsed that the nature of human beings should be encompassed by the contours of state and established positive laws. Thomas Hobbes underlined the need of a powerful state to maintain civility in society.  DELL Vostro 3550 Laptop Keyboard

For Hobbes, human beings are motivated by self-interests (Graham 1997:23). Moreover, these self-interests are often contradictory in nature. Therefore, in state of nature, there was a condition of a war of all against all. In such a situation, life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Ibid: 25). HP Pavilion dv6-2125ef laptop keyboard

Upon realizing the danger of anarchy, human beings became aware of the need of a mechanism to protect them. As far as Hobbes was concerned, rationality and self-interests persuaded human beings to combine in agreement, to surrender sovereignty to a common power (Kaviraj 2001:289). Hobbes called this common power, state, Leviathan. HP Pavilion dv6-2110ev laptop keyboard

John Locke had a similar concept to Hobbes about the political condition in England. It was the period of the Glorious Revolution, marked by the struggle between the divine right of the Crown and the political rights of Parliament. This influenced Locke to forge a social contract theory of a limited state and a powerful society. SONY VAIO VGN-N31Z/W laptop keyboard

In Locke’s view, human beings led also an unpeaceful life in the state of nature. However, it could be maintained at the sub-optimal level in the absence of a sufficient system (Brown 2001:73). From that major concern, people gathered together to sign a contract and constituted a common public authority. Nevertheless, ACER TravelMate 6252 laptop keyboard

Locke held that the consolidation of political power can be turned into autocracy, if it is not brought under reliable restrictions (Kaviraj 2001:291). Therefore, Locke set forth two treaties on government with reciprocal obligations. In the first treaty, people submit themselves to the common public authority. SONY VGN-FE11M laptop keyboard

This authority has the power to enact and maintain laws. The second treaty contains the limitations of authority, i. e., the state has no power to threaten the basic rights of human beings. As far as Locke was concerned, the basic rights of human beings are the preservation of life, liberty and property. Moreover, he held that the state must operate within the bounds of civil and natural laws. TOSHIBA Satellite L750-ST4NX1 laptop keyboard

Both Hobbes and Locke had set forth a system, in which peaceful coexistence among human beings could be ensured through social pacts or contracts. They considered civil society as a community that maintained civil life, the realm where civic virtues and rights were derived from natural laws. However, they did not hold that civil society was a separate realm from the state. ASUS X53S laptop keyboard

Rather, they underlined the co-existence of the state and civil society. The systematic approaches of Hobbes and Locke (in their analysis of social relations) were largely influenced by the experiences in their period. Their attempts to explain human nature, natural laws, the social contract and the formation of government had challenged the divine right theory. Acer eMachines E640 laptop keyboard

In contrast to divine right, Hobbes and Locke claimed that humans can design their political order. This idea had a great impact on the thinkers in the Enlightenment period.

The Enlightenment thinkers argued that human beings are rational and can shape their destiny. Hence, no need of an absolute authority to control them. TOSHIBA Satellite L655-S5107 laptop keyboard

BothJean-Jacques Rousseau, a critic of civil society, and Immanuel Kant argued that people are peace lovers and that wars are the creation of absolute regimes (Burchill 2001:33). As far as Kant was concerned, this system was effective to guard against the domination of a single interest and check the tyranny of the majority (Alagappa 2004:30). HP Pavilion DV6z artist edition 2 laptop keyboard

G.W.F. Hegel completely changed the meaning of civil society, giving rise to a modern liberal understanding of it as a form of market society as opposed to institutions of modern nation state.^[5] Unlike his predecessors, the leading thinker of the Romanticism movement considered civil society as a separate realm, SONY VAIO VGN-N250E/B laptop keyboard

a "system of needs", that is the, “[stage of] difference which intervenes between the family and the state.” ^[26] Civil society is the realm of economic relationships as they exist in the modern industrial capitalist society,^[27] for it had emerged at the particular period of capitalism and served its interests: individual rights and private property.^[28] HP Pavilion DV7-3067nr laptop keyboard

Hence, he used the German term "bürgerliche Gesellschaft" to denote civil society as "civilian society" – a sphere regulated by the civil code. This new way of thinking about civil society was followed by Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx as well.^[5] For Hegel, civil society manifested contradictory forces. SONY VGN-FE48E laptop keyboard

Being the realm of capitalist interests, there is a possibility of conflicts and inequalities within it (ex: mental and physical aptitude, talents and financial circumstances). He argued that these inequalities influence the choices that members are able to make in relation to the type of work they will do. The diverse positions in Civil Society fall into three estates:  Lenovo Thinkpad T520 laptop keyboard

the substantial estate (agriculture), the formal estate (trade and industry), and the universal estate (civil society).^[29] A man is able to choose his estate, though his choice is limited by the aforementioned inequalities. However, Hegel argues that these inequalities enable all estates in Civil Society to be filled, which leads to a more efficient system on the whole. Compaq Presario CQ71-403SA laptop keyboard

Karl Marx followed Hegelian way of using concept of civil society. For Marx, civil society was the ‘base’ where productive forces and social relations were taking place, whereas political society was the 'superstructure'.^[5] Agreeing with the link between capitalism and civil society, Marx held that the latter represents the interests of the bourgeoisie.^[30] HP Pavilion dv6-2150us laptop keyboard

Therefore, the state as superstructure also represents the interests of the dominant class; under capitalism, it maintains the domination of the bourgeoisie. Hence, Marx rejected the positive role of state put forth by Hegel. Marx argued that the state cannot be a neutral problem solver. Rather, he depicted the state as the defender of the interests of the bourgeoisie. HP Pavilion dv6-2030ev laptop keyboard

He considered the state to be the executive arm of the bourgeoisie, which would wither away once the working class took democratic control of society.^[31]

The above view about civil society was criticized by Antonio Gramsci (Edwards 2004:10). Departing somehow from Marx, TOSHIBA Satellite L655-S5083 laptop keyboard

Gramsci did not consider civil society as coterminous with the socio-economic base of the state. Rather, Gramsci located civil society in the political superstructure. He viewed civil society as the vehicle for bourgeois hegemony, when it just represents a particular class. TOSHIBA Satellite L655-S5160 laptop keyboard

He underlined the crucial role of civil society as the contributor of the cultural and ideological capital required for the survival of the hegemony of capitalism.^[32] Rather than posing it as a problem, as in earlier Marxist conceptions, Gramsci viewed civil society as the site for problem-solving. Misunderstanding Gramsci, Packard Bell Easynote TK85 laptop keyboard

the New Left assigned civil society a key role in defending people against the state and the market and in asserting the democratic will to influence the state.^[33] At the same time, Neo-liberal thinkers consider civil society as a site for struggle to subvert Communist and authoritarian regimes.^[34] Thus, the term civil society occupies an important place in the political discourses of the New Left and Neo-liberals. Lenovo 3000 G430 4152 laptop keyboard

Jürgen Habermas said that the public sphere encourages rational will-formation; it is a sphere of rational and democratic social interaction.^[36] Habermas argues that even though society was representative of capitalist society, there are some institutions that were part of political society. Transformations in economy brought transformations to the public sphere. Acer eMachines E640 laptop keyboard

Though these transformations happen, a civil society develops when it emerges as non-economic and has a populous aspect, and when the state is not represented by just one political party. There needs to be a locus of authority, and this is where society can begin to challenge authority. HP Mini 110-3504tu laptop keyboard

Jillian Schwedler points out that civil society emerges with the resurrection of the public sphere when individuals and groups begin to challenge boundaries of permissible behaviour — for example, by speaking out against the regime or demanding a government response to social needs — civil society begins to take shape. Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Laptop Keyboard

According to Hegel, "Heraclitus is the one who first declared the nature of the infinite and first grasped nature as in itself infinite, that is, its essence as process. The origin of philosophy is to be dated from Heraclitus. His is the persistent Idea that is the same in all philosophers up to the present day, as it was the Idea of Plato and Aristotle."^[29] SONY VGN-FE11H Laptop Keyboard

For Hegel, Heraclitus's great achievements were to have understood the nature of the infinite, which for Hegel includes understanding the inherent contradictoriness and negativity of reality, and to have grasped that reality is becoming or process, and that "being" and "nothingness" are mere empty abstractions. COMPAQ Presario C700 Laptop Keyboard

According to Hegel, Heraclitus's "obscurity" comes from his being a true (in Hegel's terms "speculative") philosopher who grasped the ultimate philosophical truth and therefore expressed himself in a way that goes beyond the abstract and limited nature of common sense and is difficult to grasp by those who operate within common sense. Lenovo 45N2240 Laptop Keyboard

Hegel asserted that in Heraclitus he had an antecedent for his logic: "... there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my logic."^[30]

Hegel cites a number of fragments of Heraclitus in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy.^[31] One to which he attributes great significance is the fragment he translates as "Being is not more than Non-being", SONY VGN-FE550G Laptop Keyboard

which he interprets to mean Sein und Nichts sei dasselbe Being and non-being are the same.

Heraclitus does not form any abstract nouns from his ordinary use of "to be" and "to become" and in that fragment seems to be opposing any identity A to any other identity B, C, etc., which is not-A. Hegel, Lenovo IdeaPad Y710 Laptop Keyboard

however, interprets not-A as not existing at all, not nothing at all, which cannot be conceived, but indeterminate or "pure" being without particularity or specificity.^[32] Pure being and pure non-being or nothingness are for Hegel pure abstractions from the reality of becoming, and this is also how he interprets Heraclitus. DELL Latitude D830 Laptop Keyboard

This interpretation of Heraclitus cannot be ruled out, but even if present is not the main gist of his thought.

For Hegel, the inner movement of reality is the process of God thinking, as manifested in the evolution of the universe of nature and thought; that is, Hegel argued that, when fully and properly understood, TOSHIBA Satellite U305-S2812 Laptop Keyboard

reality is being thought by God as manifested in a person's comprehension of this process in and through philosophy. Since human thought is the image and fulfillment of God's thought, God is not ineffable (so incomprehensible as to be unutterable) but can be understood by an analysis of thought and reality. GATEWAY M-6319 Laptop Keyboard

Just as humans continually correct their concepts of reality through a dialectical process, so God himself becomes more fully manifested through the dialectical process of becoming.

For his god Hegel does not take the logos of Heraclitus but refers rather to the nous of Anaxagoras, although he may well have regarded them the same, as he continues to refer to god's plan, HP 634139-001 Laptop Keyboard

which is identical to God. Whatever the nous thinks at any time is actual substance and is identical to limited being, but more remains to be thought in the substrate of non-being, which is identical to pure or unlimited thought.

The universe as becoming is therefore a combination of being and non-being. TOSHIBA Satellite L655-S5083 Laptop Keyboard

The particular is never complete in itself but to find completion is continually transformed into more comprehensive, complex, self-relating particulars. The essential nature of being-for-itself is that it is free "in itself"; that is, it does not depend on anything else, such as matter, for its being. The limitations represent fetters, which it must constantly be casting off as it becomes freer and more self-determining.^[33]  ACER Aspire 5742 Laptop Keyboard

Although Hegel began his philosophizing with commentary on the Christian religion and often expresses the view that he is a Christian, his ideas of God are not acceptable to some Christians, although he has had a major influence on 19th- and 20th-century theology. At the same time, an atheistic version of his thought was adopted instead by some Marxists, HP pavilion DV7-1000 Laptop Keyboard

who, stripping away the concepts of divinity, styled what was left dialectical materialism, which some saw as originating in Heraclitus.

As a graduate of a Protestant seminary, Hegel’s theological concerns were reflected in many of his writings and lectures.^[34] TOSHIBA Satellite A300 Laptop Keyboard

Hegel's thoughts on the person of Jesus Christ stood out from the theologies of the Enlightenment. In his posthumous book, The Christian Religion: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Part 3, he espouses that, "God is not an abstraction but a concrete God...God, considered in terms of his eternal Idea, has to generate the Son, has to distinguish himself from himself; TOSHIBA Satellite A110 Series Laptop Keyboard

he is the process of differentiating, namely, love and Spirit". This means that Jesus as the Son of God is posited by God over against himself as other. Hegel sees both a relational unity and a metaphysical unity between Jesus and God the Father. To Hegel, Jesus is both divine and Human. Hegel further attests that God (as Jesus) not only died, SONY VGN-FE670G Laptop Keyboard

but "...rather, a reversal takes place: God, that is to say, maintains himself in the process, and the latter is only the death of death. God rises again to life, and thus things are reversed."

Hegel published four books during his lifetime: the Phenomenology of Spirit (or Phenomenology of Mind), HP COMPAQ NX6310 Laptop Keyboard

his account of the evolution of consciousness from sense-perception to absolute knowledge, published in 1807; the Science of Logic, the logical and metaphysical core of his philosophy, in three volumes, published in 1811, 1812, and 1816 (revised 1831); Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences,  DELL INSPIRON 1464 Laptop Keyboard

a summary of his entire philosophical system, which was originally published in 1816 and revised in 1827 and 1830; and the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, his political philosophy, published in 1820. In the latter, he criticized von Haller's reactionary work, which claimed that laws were not necessary. SONY Vaio PCG-K315S laptop keyboard

He also published some articles early in his career and during his Berlin period. A number of other works on the philosophy of history, religion, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy were compiled from the lecture notes of his students and published posthumously. Hegel's thought is not just a philosophical system, TOSHIBA Satellite C655-S5141 laptop keyboard

but a system which knows about its own relationship to the rest of experience which is not philosophy, and knows above all that its own knowing cannot exhaust this relationship.

The French Revolution for Hegel constitutes the introduction of real individual political freedom into European societies for the first time in recorded history. HP Pavilion dv6-2160ep laptop keyboard

But precisely because of its absolute novelty, it is also unlimited with regard to everything that preceded it: on the one hand the upsurge of violence required to carry out the revolution cannot cease to be itself, while on the other, it has already consumed its opponent. The revolution therefore has nowhere to turn but onto its own result: the hard-won freedom is consumed by a brutal Reign of Terror. Packard Bell PEW91 laptop keyboard

History, however, progresses by learning from its mistakes: only after and precisely because of this experience can one posit the existence of a constitutional state of free citizens, embodying both the benevolent organizing power of rational government and the revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality. HP Pavilion dv6-2159tx laptop keyboard

Hegel's remarks on the French revolution led German poet Heinrich Heine to label him "The Orléans of German Philosophy".

There are views of Hegel's thought as a representation of the summit of early 19th-century Germany's movement of philosophical idealism. DELL 0M711P laptop keyboard

It would come to have a profound impact on many future philosophical schools, including schools that opposed Hegel's specific dialectical idealism, such as Existentialism, the historical materialism of Karl Marx, historism, and British Idealism.

Hegel's influence was immense both within philosophy and in the other sciences. SONY VAIO VGN-CR13/B laptop keyboard

Throughout the 19th century many chairs of philosophy around Europe were held by Hegelians, and Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels—among many others—were all deeply influenced by, but also strongly opposed to, many of the central themes of Hegel's philosophy. After less than a generation, SONY 148701322 laptop keyboard

Hegel's philosophy was suppressed and even banned by the Prussian right-wing, and was firmly rejected by theleft-wing in multiple official writings.

After the period of Bruno Bauer, Hegel's influence did not make itself felt again until the philosophy of British Idealism and the 20th century Hegelian Western Marxism that began with Georg Lukács. Packard Bell Easynote TK85 laptop keyboard