ABSTRACT
The development of consumer society actually reflects and strengthens the foundation of democracy and individual freedom in the external capitalist state. Emphasis on the importance of social mobility and versatility of skill among members of the business class is also found in Marx. In the Grundrisse, Marx repeats Hegel's observations on the educational movement of capital, the creation of the social individual. According to Hegel, work and industry in civil society creates a rational and self-dependent consciousness in the individual. This consciousness is shared by both the capitalist and the worker so that the bourgeois values of law, liberty, and individual freedom are no less the worker's than the capitalist's. Hegel is keenly aware of the factors in bourgeois society which are likely to increase the rational control of the public authority over corporations. Marx's discussion of the English Factory Acts in Capital provides an example of the fundamental importance of law and legislation for the working class.
