ABSTRACT
Although Hegel’s estate characterization of the class division inherent in civil society leads him astray on important social and political issues, it does not prevent him from uncovering the intrinsic inability of commodity relations to extend to every market participant the exercise of freedom in which they consist. Unlike the political economists, Hegel understands that there is no invisible hand by which the self-regulating market guarantees equal economic opportunity to all. On the contrary, he recognizes that the justice of the market economy has an endemic limit, defined by two fundamental features of commodity relations that cannot be overcome no matter how market units are owned and organized. These irrepressible problems do not, however, undermine the legitimacy of commodity relations. Instead, as Hegel shows, they call for two very different remedies, both requiring the intervention of institutions of freedom extrinsic but not antithetical to the market.
