ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a different account of Hegelian property theory. It argues that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s concept includes a profound critique of bourgeois private property, a critique that underpins his position on poverty. The treatment of poverty in Hegel’s Berlin lectures, and a similar approach in the Philosophy of Right, appear to be grounded in a radical critique of civil society. Deep significance is attached to Hegel’s use of a single term to include both workers and capitalists. The business class is the centrepiece in Hegel’s analysis of the moment of use. Hegel’s business class must be one of the most intriguing concepts in the history of thought. Yet commentators have discovered in Hegel only a conservative understanding of the basis of civil society—private property. The moment of use reveals the split in bourgeois consciousness brought about by the concept of private property. The chief characteristics of the reflective consciousness are self-reliance, and a powerful desire for individual freedom.
