Hegels Emigrating Rabble and Export of

Institutions of Civil Society1

Tomas Kristofory23
October 2015
Historians treated Hegels analysis of rabble in the Grundlinien der
Philosophie des Rechts (GPR) as an inherent contradiction of his theory of
civil society. They believe that unlike other categories in his system, rabble is
not sublated. Consequently, it serves some as the enter-place for Marxism into
Hegels system. However, this widely held interpretation is quite un-Hegelian.
This paper gives it a try to treat Hegels rabble in a more Hegelian way, as
having a sublation within his system. It collects Hegels dispersed quotes on
rabble and reconstructs his argument, especially from par. 243-248 of the GPR.
Our method is different from alternative readings in that we read his argument
in philosophical rather than economic way, which was typical for Marxist
readers. Rabble emerges as a consequence of the growth of population and
economy, because jobs of some the farmers or artisans are no more needed in
agriculture or industry which they however prefer. Part of them might remain
rabble in their own country. However, we then find the key argument for the
sublation of rabble in migrating to colonies in an organized way through
police. Unlike alternative interpretations, we find that Hegel didnt offer the
migration as a means to alleviate poverty, but as a means of export of
institutions, of moral structure of the civil society to the colonized country.
This is the world-historical role of commerce identified by Hegel and
unaccounted for by alternative interpretations. By analysing Hegels example
of British migration to the North America in his Lectures on the Philosophy of
History, we find Hegels mechanism for this institutional change growing from
the morals of immigrants. There is still plenty of free land to satisfy rabbles
desire to make a living through the preferred means. Both colonizing and
colonized country grow richer and ultimately, colonies will achieve
1

I thank the Faculty of Economics, University of Economics in Prague for granting me

a stay in the Hegel-Archiv in Bochum. I thank Norbert Waszek for sending me his books on
Hegel. Jan Pavlik inspired me to adopt topics in Hegels Philosophy of Right and spent a lot
of his time discussing my slowly developing ideas. Petr Specian and Josef Montag
encouraged me to publish and made valuable remarks. Usual disclaimer applies.
2

Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno.

e-mail: tomas.kristofory@gmail.com. Tel.: 00420777977042.

1

independence because of the morals emigrants carried there from their country
of origin. Here the circle of Hegels argument reaches its end and rabble is
sublated within Hegels system. Further, we find that Hegel predicted the
process to repeat, since in the civil society of USA, rabble would emerge once
again. Hegel predicted the world-historical role of the USA would perhaps be
in the future to lead the war with Latin America and colonize it. Logic of the
export of institutions through migrants repeats another time, and more nations
will acquire institutions of civil society in the end. The implication we deduce
is, that Hegels stance was that civil society and its institutions will gradually
displace competing institutional structures by the means of rabble.
Key words: Hegel, rabble, migration, colonialism, export of institutions.
JEL codes: B15, B52, F22, F54, O17.

Introduction
The importance of Hegels theory of estates for the institutional economics has already
been recognized (Boyd 2015). However, what has yet not been understood, is the precise
reason, why the estates have the role Hegel attributes to them. While it is clear that for Hegel
the estates should mitigate the rabble with the help of police, it is less clear, but still
understood by some, that the polices role is to establish institutions that would prevent the
problem from arising (Ruda 2011). Since the surveyed unit for Hegel is the nation and its
nation state, these reforms should be taken up on the level of the respective countrys
parliament. While policies always come from the nations centre, this runs against Hegels
aim of spreading the morality (Sittlichkeit) internationally, especially if rabble is the only
suspect category of the Philosophy of Right where the mechanism of the export of moral
institutions could be found. Moreover, analytical residing just at the national level runs
against the belief of Rudas predecessors in socialist internationalism.
Rudas argument runs also against the belief of much of this secondary literature in the
international socialism. For such conclusion the argument is supplied often that Hegel was
inconsistent and that we choose another institutional level than he chose. But if the evidence
is displayed that Hegel wasnt inconsistent at all and that the mechanism he suggests for the
institutional change caused by the internal factors in the outside countries, such conclusions
will be considered arbitrary and unsubstantiated, at least with respect to Hegel. The aim of
this paper is to provide such evidence. Quite unlike other market economist interpreters of
Hegel, we doesnt draw Hegels ideas on the invisible hand of the market primarily from the
189 of the Philosophy of Right, where Hegel approves of the teaching of Smith, Say and

Ricardo (Waszek 1988). It is quite clear Hegel adopted from the Scots their method of
positive feedback mechanism in his Logic albeit in a more rationalistic way (Pavlik 2004).
We find such positive feedback mechanism in 243-8 of the Philosophy of Right in
Hegels treatment of Hegel. The reason for this consists in the Hegelian intuition that we
should not just suppose unsystematic mistake in Hegel, which would break down the system
ultimately, since he aimed at being as systematic as possible. While numerous authors
maintain that Hegel was unsystematic in this aspect, all evidence they provide is the early
notion of the business cycle, which Hegel is supposed to have adopted from James Steuart
(Ruda 2011; Chamley 1963). While we admit the relevance of such argument, we are not
content with the fact that the possibility of the argument for Hegels consistence hasnt even
been considered.
The argument runs as follows: Hegel argues that civil society, when left alone, tends to
increase both wealth and number of people. Improvements in productivity make some of the
farmers superfluous. As a consequence, they cannot find employment in the traditional way
they prefer. Part of them will be integrated into industry, but some will remain rabble in their
own country. At this point our interpretation starts to differ from the traditional one. Rabble
travels to colonies in an organized way through police. There is plenty of free land to satisfy
their demand for make a living through traditional means of farming there. Both colonizing
and colonized country grow richer. Despite colonizing country initially wants to exploit
colonized country, later on colonizers realize, that they will be better off if they let them free.
The final effect for the colonizing country will be growing of its productivity and population.
Here the circle of argument reaches its end. Rabble is sublated, productivity and population is
growing. What about the colonized country? We learn Hegels opinion on the future from the
Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Geschichte. He predicts there that USA will grow by
internal western colonization. After these possibilities wash out, a non-agricultural civil
society will be established in the USA. The implication we deduce is, that Hegels stance was
that the institutions of civil society will gradually displace competing institutional structures
both in colonizing and in colonized countries. We draw these conclusions by reconstruction of
Hegels argument from more of Hegels writings.

Literature review
To make a comprehensive literature overview on Hegels rabble is the extremely
complicated task, since the enormous interest the philosophy and social sciences has had the
3

last 200 years. Although its a near impossible task for non-specialist, we still feel that there is
some gap in the literature which we consider so substantial that it encourages us to approach
to the problem and fill the gap in the literature. We will try here to identify the gap and to
delineate the way, how do we want to fill it.
The first of key differences is that unlike we, both philosophers and economists treat
Hegels explanation of rabble in economic terms. We suggest that Hegels analysis of rabble,
though relying on reading of some economics literature, is not economic in principle, but
philosophical. This needs more elaboration. Birger Priddat, who is an economist, spends a lot
of space in his wonderful book on the intriguing problem of Hegels economics explaining the
status of economics in Hegel and provides evidence that Hegel preferred the term
staatskonomie (Priddat 1990: 13-5), which is the german cameralist label of their style of
economics, which was distinct from what political economy meant in Britain. And he is quite
right at that. Hegels economic interests were built in Germany. Although we have now
evidence Hegel knew Adam Smith closely (Waszek 1985) and although he resembles
classical political economy on numerous occasions, he certainly doesnt sound like a classical
political economist. He sounds much more like a cameralist. There is no doubt on our side on
whether cameralists had enormous influence on him. However we consider the literature
particularly wrong on the reason why did Hegel rely on German cameralists rather than
immediately follow classical political economy. While the literature has it, that Hegel stood
on the standpoint of the modern economics, we argue that Hegel was a philosopher and as
such, denounced merely understanding (Verstand) character of British political economy as
opposed to reasoning (Vernunft) character that was potentially available at hand in German
cameralist tradition, but which needed his, philosophers reasoning reworking. We argue that
modern political economy served him as the material basis for such reasoned argumentation.
Lets elaborate this point.
Priddat starts from the premise that Hegel had a special field of economics: Marx's
judgment that Hegel take the view of the modern economy, i.e. on the political economy of
his time, has been preserved to the present interpretations (Priddat 1990: 9). Priddats aim
was to tackle the previous literatures view of the school of economic thought that was
Hegels source of political economy. When he then portrayed the complex argument depicting
that German cameralist sources of Hegel were understudied at that time, he was
unintentionally led by Marxs judgement to think in the first place, that Hegel had such a field
of study as a political economy. In this we disagree. He was an economizing philosopher.

Therefore, we have to understand Hegels remarks on economics in the light of his more
general philosophy.
Not being able to free himself from the notion that Hegel was partly an economist,
Priddat arrives at conflict between Hegels economics and Hegels philosophy at some
places. The most striking for us here concerns Priddats reflections on Hegels export solution
of diminishing the problem of rabble (par. 246-8 of GPR): But the export is only an
economical solution and it's not Hegel's concern to clarify its meaning and purpose. It is
introduced to show that civil society is not able to solve its economic problems sui generis as
a bourgeois society, but only by externalization. For a solution it requires a moral
reorganization, which the bourgeois society can find in its corporate self-organization (Priddat
1990: 137), which he offers later in the book. The confusing premise on Hegels economics
led Priddat here to understand Hegels argument in a more economic way that was typical for
Hegel, although he linked there rightly to Hegels philosophical argument of corporations
mitigating part of rabble. What is missed here is a key argument for us. There is another
philosophical argument of Hegels that still remains unaccounted for in the literature on
Hegels treatment of the export solution of rabble (par. 246-8 of GPR) - at least in the
literature we are aware of - and its that in the inevitable turn of the civil society to export and
colonization it reveals the world-historical role of commerce. Priddat comes close to
elaborating it in his analysis, when he says that industrialization, more precisely: capital
accumulation (which includes the pension capital) is linked to the ability to create new
markets - which in turn enables 'the acquaintance with other nations, (...) one of the most
important moments in the formation of the modern world' (Priddat 1990: 136). As far as I
remember, Priddat doesnt inquire, what is then the world-historical role of international sea
commerce and of systematic colonization. As we will see, we identify this in exporting the
moral institutions of modern civil societies abroad. And this is how the category of rabble is
immediately sublated philosophically within Hegels system. Philosophical sublation of the
category of rabble means the transition to the immediate following category. Rabble is not the
same as the poor for Hegel and analysis of rabble doesnt have as its (immediate) aim the
solution to the civil societys poor. Reading this (par. 246-8 of GPR) in economic way
precludes the understanding of Hegels aim with the category of rabble.
The immediate aim of the category of rabble we identify later is its world-historical role.
As far as we know, this is the first time world-historical role of rabble and commerce through
international sea trade is attempted while believing its inherently compatible with the rest of
Hegels system. Ruda, who wrote a substantial book directly inquiring Hegels rabble from
5

philosophical standpoint, identified 7 possible ways of mitigation of rabble: The seven

solutions are: 1. the treatment of the poor by civil society itself; 2. public begging; 3. the right
of distress; 4. colonization; 5. redistribution of labor; 6. the corporation and its ethics (of
responsible consumption); 7. the police, and in combination with it, religion (in the form of
charitable institution) (Ruda 2011: 15). Which one of these serves the auxiliary role in the
world-historical role of commerce? We are not told so.
Ruda deals with colonization just on the one half page and its said philosophically
there, that the colonization solution to rabble is a bad infinity: colonization of other
peoples, due to its internal logic, offers no more than a temporal retardation of the problem of
poverty. Hence it leads into a logic of bad infinity because it does not represent a solution to
poverty as such but rather a temporary postponement. It generates an eternal return of the
same problem in the framework of bad infinity that can be deduced from the extension of civil
society itself. It is nothing but a postponement of the same problem (Ruda 2011: 20). We
have here similar problem as above: awaiting the a good infinity, the immediate philosophical
sublation of the category of rabble, while seeking economic rather than philosophical
meaning. The immediate philosophical sublation lies in the world-historical role of emigrating
rabble, along with international sea trade. We shouldnt forget that in England, where a lot of
rabble is generated (par. 245), there remains in the end no rabble, because in order to become
part of rabble, one must claim right without right (Ruda 2011: 61) and in England, even
the poorest man believes he has his right (Hegel 1991: 266; 244). English rabble, which
Hegel studies here predominantly, is sublated by emigration to colonies, along with the
international sea trade. One further note on this. Economic way of understanding Hegel awaits
a final solution to poverty. First, rabble is not the same as poverty. Poor are always among
rabble, but not all the poor people. And not all the poor people become rabble. If by
colonization offers no more than a temporal retardation of the problem of poverty Ruda
means here the final solution to the problem of poverty within the civil society, hes
addressing the problem that wasnt Hegels interest at that place.
With the economic approach to Hegel, there is another problem with awaiting absolute
solution, absolute sublation to a negative category which is not the penultimate category of
Hegels system. However, other than penultimate category of Hegels system doesnt have the
absolute sublation (in concept, Begriff). Other categories each have either immediate
contradiction or immediate sublation. For example, Philosophy of Right distinguishes the
whole section of wrong (par. 82-104). Does wrong have to cease to exist in order for
Hegels philosophy to be inherently compatible? No, the wrong has immediate sublation,
6

therefore its inherently compatible with the rest of the system. Analogously, we claim rabble
has immediate sublation. Its also certain, that the final solution to poverty is more important
for us than for Hegel. He wasnt that presumptuous as we are sometimes.
So if we want now Hegel to say something on the ultimate solution to poverty, we
should be aware that establishing of the civil society is immediately beneficial to alleviating
poverty: if left unregulated, it leads to the growth of riches and population. Unequal
distribution of riches leaves some poor. Some people, not just poor, will become rabble, who
claim right without right, which are unlawful. They seek to be lawful in emigration, where
they settle new civil society and become lawful as happened in the USA. Here the Philosophy
of Right should be linked to Lectures on the Philosophy of History, where Hegel says some
positive things on the present developments concerning growing riches and population there
and at that they have at this time beneficial institutions, while civil society will emerge there
later according to Hegel. We will get to that in more detail later, here we would just like to
allude to Priddat, who made that key link between analysis of rabble in the Philosophy of
Right with the analysis of American developments (Priddat 1990: 136). But ultimately, it
might be objected, civil society will emerge in the USA as well, so what will happen next to
the rabble and to the poor? Well, as we show later, Hegel predicts rabble to emerge in the
USA at one point in future, and the consequence will be, that it perhaps wages war against the
South America. I deduce, that the war was to be waged in order for the establishment of
colonies. The further deduction is that after civil societies emerge there as well, new colonies
will be established elsewhere, until - in principle - the institutions of civil society are spread
all over the world. That sounds pretty Hegelian end.
Well, now finally to satisfy the reader, who is eager to read something about the
ultimate solution to the poverty, which is the question recurring often in the literature. This
has to be based on conjectures, since no textual evidence exists. Firstly, this is a future
problem, and as we will see, future didnt concern Hegel that much as History and
Philosophy. Its young-Hegelian developments that tried to extrapolate Hegels arguments
to future (Cieszkowski 1838). In order to understand Hegel, we shouldnt put that much
emphasis on future. Second, colonies wont last forever for Hegel. Hegel says (par. 248 of
GPR) that letting colonies free was more beneficial to former imperial countries than was
keeping them colonized. I deduce that the reason is the growing volume of international trade,
which helps riches to grow and mitigate some part of the problem of poverty. Third, if we
might assume that Hegel knew Ricardo (he mentioned him in par. 189 of GPR), Ricardo had a
theory of economic growth which led to the diminishing growth rates until the production and
7

consumption per capita would stagnate. If this point in time just predates the point in time
when the whole world acquires institutions of civil society, then the problem would be solved,
since there will be no more production exceeding the volume of consumption. Conflicting
suggestions for the solution of poverty came at that time from Malthus, Ricardo, Say, SaintSimon and emerging socialists, plus Malthus theory of overpopulation was too young then
and wasnt yet rejected definitely. Its almost certain that Hegel knew at least some of
mentioned authors theories. We wanted to introduce even this extremely unlikely scenario,
because we wanted to provide the present reader with the notion that even for the political
economy of Hegels time the final solution of poverty was far from clear. If they werent clear
about it, how could Hegel ? Again, for Hegel its the problem of future. For a commentary, in
an interesting book by Hegels biographer Rosenkranz, written from a perspective of almost
40 years after Hegels death, Rosenkranz says that what he understood as Hegels prediction
of future poverty wasnt materialized: The progress of time has actually transcended Hegel
in very many points, e.g. in that of the political culture of the masses; but in its chief features
the Hegelian state remains still the most rational and the expression which it attained in
Hegels presentation, the most beautiful (Rosenkranz 2009: 62).
One of the other gaps concerns missing explanation of Hegel delineating the future
development of non-germanic civilizations. Avineri approaches the problem in his classic
work from 70s and almost reaches the solution: Remarks about Russia and America,
preceding by several years Tocqueville's famous dicta, clearly indicate that while Hegel
considered history as having attained its apex as the march towards man's self-consciousness
in his own age, he was well aware that the future was still open in terms of the emergence of
new cultures" (Avineri 1974: 237), but in an attempt to delineate Hegelian way of
development of non-Germanic civilizations he shrugs that "texts themselves are obscure"
(Avineri 1974: 237). The reason why Avineri wasnt able to depict the future developments of
non-European civilizations lies once again in the fact that he doesnt recognize the immediate
sublation of the category of rabble in the world-historical role of commerce. : What is
conspicuous in Hegel's analysis [in theory of pauperization], however, is ... a basic intellectual
honesty which makes him admit time and again - completely against the grain of the
integrative and mediating nature of the whole of his social philosophy - that he has no
solution to the problems posed by civil society in its modern context. This the only time in his
system where Hegel raises a problem - and leaves it open (Avineri 1974: 154). Again, the
problem is the economic, rather than philosophical point of view. Hegel doesnt want to solve
poverty here.
8

Buck-Morss also evaluates Hegel's notions of colonialism and also comes close to
solution, but falls just short: "Commerce is borderless; its place is the sea. Strictly speaking,
the economy and the nation are incompatible (Smith saw the colonial economy as distorting
the national polity). The economy is infinitely expansive; the nation constraints and sets
bounds. Hegel ultimately resolves this opposition between the force of society and the force
of the state, which produces the Janus-faced individual as bourgeois/citoyen, by the
introduction of a political constitution as a different form of interdependency, providing an
ethical corrective to social inequalities through laws so that each aspect, civil society and the
state, enables the other through their mutual opposition" (Buck-Morss 2009: 9). She as well
falls to the mistake of understanding Hegel in economics terms here. Moreover, shes lacking
the knowledge of Hegels abolishing of Fichtes sole framework of analysis of the closed
state. Hegel analyzes the closed state (civil society), but also transcends it (see Campagnolo
2012: 42-9). Emigrating rabble serves just this role. The view of Hegels take on colonization
would drastically change as a consequence: it has a world-historical role.
Herzog shrugs at the supposed fact that "Hegel does not give a reason for why some
poor individuals would turn into 'rabble' and others not" (Herzog 2013: 108). Hegel gives one,
it's whether he or she is content with the job or the job change he is undergoing and
consequently contention (or not) with the society. This also depends on the availability of
abundant land (if one prefers agriculture) and consequently on the possibilities of migration to
such places. All of this we inquire later.
Rose affirms in commenting par. 244 that "poverty dehumanises man. It opens him up
to the will of others as their 'means merely', he becomes the vehicle of an alien will so that he
may survive and is reduced to a status no better than the slaves" (Rose 2007). But poverty is
not the same as rabble.
Mowad radicalizes impacts of colonization on colonized countrys rabble in a book
edited by Buchwalter: "nation-state cannot eradicate systematic poverty but only displace it
through war (colonization): colonies provide a captive market for domestic goods that would
otherwise be in surplus, impoverishing part of the population (because a surplus renders their
labor worthless). Thus the nation-state avoids producing a rabble within itself only by making
another country into its rabble" (Mowad 2015: 74). In similar way, in the same book
Buchwalter says Hegel "details as well how problems in the functioning of individual market
economies trigger a colonizing search for new markets that not only replicates original
pathologies but promotes worldwide conflict and bellicosity" (Buchwalter 2015: 3). So that

bellicosity and rabbling of other countries is the Hegelian world-historical role of

international sea trade and rabble?
Hegels rabble is still treated in a young-Hegelian fashion. This problem has a historical
reason and starts with Eduard Gans, Hegels successor in the Lectures on Philosophy of
Right. What is remarkable - as opposed to later interpretations - Gans believes rabble is not
necessary, there is some sublation, but not absolute: Is the rabble necessary? Must it remain?
In rabble is the need, which lies in the negative. The state will not bring the people there to
have any nasty emotions. But he must ensure that spreading the industriousness and that
whoever wants to work can find work. The rabble must be pushed away. The Saint-Simonians
wanted these proletarians rise to a moment of society. But the negative is necessary in human
society (Gans 2005: 195). Important here is the notion, that we cant wholly prevent the
rabble from emerging. If they can go away, it admits that they emigrate, but Gans is sees here
the problem of unemployment and is persuaded of the Saint-Simonian solution thereof: Is it
not the duty of the state, those yeast or crust of the society that is not found in the countryside,
but in the cities, it is a precipitation that does not supersede. But it can be reduced. The state
may establish work institutions where everyone can work. This is a gold grain of SaintSimonians, which can lead to the cure of this disease of society (Gans 2005: 195). SaintSimonian solution to rabble is analyzed in Waszek (Waszek 1987). We might add, that Hegel
is probably one of the last philosophical offshoots in the German philosophy of the 19th
century who was under positive influence of the political economy of german Smithians of
the reform era of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms. After him, growing socialist notions in
political economy, as in Saint-Simon, captivated the interest of german philosophers (compare
with Hayek 2013). Gans probably missed the link here with the sublime quotes on colonies in
North America in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which he edited for publication
after Hegels death. This Gans stance that rabble can be mitigated partially within the state
marks the beginning of misunderstanding. His stance towards rabble was even named milder
than was Hegels stance towards rabble (Hegel 1991: xxii). Gans saw the problem of rabble as
the problem of unemployment, and this marks the beginning of economic understanding of
that paragraph. Moreover, he made a quick transition from the word rabble towards the word
proletariat. He made the young-Hegelian aim, which was to use Hegels system against
himself by finding a place, where they could breach into system and overthrow it afterwards
simpler than it had to be. Such a place was found in the rabble. But it was Gans choice and
we must respect the course of history that followed. So what you can read of Hegels rabble is
not Hegel himself, but that, what Hegel became after his death (Breckman 1999). Marx
10

crowned this development in a way when he said Hegels stance is that of the modern
political economy. Nobody asked afterwards, what might be the world-historical role of
overseas trade and emigrating rabble other that socialist revolution. In order even to ask that
question, one has to attempt to get rid of a lot of socialist notions that we are accustomed to
use in connection with Hegel.
There is another source of our difference from the dominating literature. Its Hegels use
of the word Ueberfluss (Hegel 1821: 233, 234) in connection with rabble. In the English
edition of the Philosophy of Right that we like to use, it is translated once as overproduction
and once as surplus (Hegel 1991: 267-8; 245-6). We find surplus a better translation.
First, if one runs overproduction and surplus on google application ngram,
overproduction is virtually nonexistent until 1880s and even afterwards, it is constantly well
below surplus. This difference is significant. If you translate it as surplus, it enables you to
link this to the classical political economys simple notions of surplus production in their
robinsonades. Such use of the word surplus begins perhaps with John Locke, who says, that if
in a natural state in the absence of other people you start to produce, you can produce huge
surplus beyond what you need to consume, be it some berries or Lockes nuts. In such
analysis, if you find another man with surplus, you can swap it and if you are accustomed they
will accept some medium of exchange, emergence of money is explained. Such analyses
became respected especially through Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, which Hegel knew
(Waszek 1985). If Hegel meant such surplus by his Ueberflu, then there is no necessary link
to the underconsumption theories, because, as we will see, Smith wonders on one place what
would be the ultimate consequences of the civilized nations exchanging their surpluses with
colonies. We theorize it was Hegels aim to put the reason (Vernunft) to Smiths just
reasoning (Verstand) on the ultimate civilizational effects of trading surpluses. This
interpretation of the word Ueberflu enables us to find Hegels philosophical notion of the
world-historical role of overseas trade and of emigrating rabble.
On the other hand, if you translate is as overproduction, it can very easily lead your
interpretation of Hegels rabble to economic interpretation. You then wont inquire, what on
earth might be that world-historical role of overseas trade along with emigrating rabble as is
the case of famous American Hegelian, Charles Taylor: The creating of this rabble goes
along with the concentration of wealth in a few hands. This in turn sets off a crisis of
overproduction. The under-privileged can be maintained on welfare. But this contradicts the
principle of the bourgeois economy whereby men should work for their living; or they can be

11

provided with employment by the state; but this will increase the crisis of overproduction
(Taylor 1977: 436).
At the end of this by no means complete literature overview we should link to the
institutional challenge of economics in the studies of Hegel. Here the economic reasoning
might help philosophers concentrate on the right things in Hegels oeuvre to identify. Then
economists might explain seemingly illegible paragraphs of Hegel. But we must here revert
first to a philosopher, who demanded such institutional analysis of Hegel: On the cusp of this
modernity Hegel seemed to affirm what has appeared to many as the old powers that had
disappeared in the formation of the modern state the Stnde. For many he thereby turned his
political thought into an apparent anachronism. This dissertation, however, will argue that
Hegels thought remains fundamentally modern and not at all anachronistic in its affirmation
of the Stnde. On the contrary, it is only through an examination of the concept of the Stnde
in Hegels thought, that one can fully understand the essentially institutional focus of his
politics (Boyd 2015: 4). He wasnt able to provide us with such analysis because of his too
deep debt to economic interpretation of Hegel, for example Ruda with respect to rabble.
So we now finally come to Gilles Compagnolo, tho affirms, that for Hegel sounds much
like Smiths invisible hand in that institutions of civil society, they for example existed as
bodies such as chambers of commerce, etc. Autonomous trade thus followed the rules that
were being discovered by economists, even though the state could not guarantee that they
became institutionalized. At the best, here one would have needed a theory of spontaneous
building of institutions. That is implicit in Hegels awareness of the phenomenon, but limited
to hints and lacking details that belong to positive science. Philosophical speculation,
according to its natural and strictly understood role, confines itself to indicating the role of
mediations without describing all the smaller aspects. Still, 189-245 in the Elements [of the
Philosophy of Right] contain too many details to comment on them here. But it is clearly there
that one could pursue investigations (Campagnolo 2010: 52). So we finally have here the
type of economic analysis, that might help philosophy, which cannot claim expertise in
economic problems, which is clearly our case, to clarify some seemingly dark points in the
logical and historical development of the economic categories of interest for us here.
Hegel uses here economic arguments - of classical political economy rather than of
cameralists, but in a philosophical way, which puts him stylistically more towards cameralists.
He puts the reason (Vernunft) on top of Adam Smiths understanding (Verstand). He loses
some of Smiths details that would occur silly mistakes to a professional economist, where the
most striking example is that division of labour multiplies rather than diminishes the number
12

of jobs. But we can wholeheartedly forgive Hegel these mistakes in detail if the grand scheme
can help answer us some uneasy and not purely economic questions concerning institutions,
that even Smith wasnt able to put down. Such a thing was to imagine what would be the
ultimate non-monetary, institutional outcomes of the trade with colonies. Hegel did just that,
as we will see later on. The present, so called new institutional economics has a vocabulary so
clear that can analyze interactions between institutions and economics in any time period in
any civilization or nation. It shouldnt surprise us, if after adopting such an approach we will
reveal that institutions aiming at guaranteeing individual freedom emerge spontaneously
(Campagnolo 2010: 52) and that corporations may not be created by the state, but emerge
spontaneously (Campagnolo 2010: 53). With adopting such approach one might easily
depart Hegels own thinking. We surely commit this error. But the benefit we bring is better
understanding of Hegel himself and the reason why we do it our belief that Hegels protoinstitutionalist approach is more valuable than his precise formulations, since nobody will
deny today that particular Hegels opinions are just outdated. In this, we believe our approach
will be viewed as a truly Hegelian in nature.

Domestic evolutionary institutionalist aspects of rabble

What is Rabble and how does a state led by rabble look like?
First thing to do is to explain, what precisely rabble is for Hegel. The emergence of
rabble as such is the negative moment connected with the continuing development of the
category of civil society: By generalizing the relations of men by the way of their wants, and
by generalizing the manner in which the means of meeting these wants are prepared and
procured, large fortunes are amassed. On the other side, there occur repartition and limitation
of the work of the individual labourer and, consequently, dependence and distress in the
artisan class. With these drawbacks are associated callousness of feeling and inability to enjoy
the larger possibilities of freedom, especially the mental advantages of the civic community
(Hegel 2001b, 243).
While its not surprising that the way of living of the pauper class is the lowest of all
(Hegel 2001b, 244), its intriguing that it doesnt serve as Hegels objective measure of
poverty, because being part of rabble is a matter of subjective decision as well. This way of
living is adopted by themselves (Hegel 2001b, 244). The lowest way of living for Hegel is
in clear Aristotelian heritage of Hegel to live outside of the moral structure of the civil society

13

and of the state when one is readily available. So being poor and being a member of rabble
arent the same categories though often its poor who are members of rabble. There are two
necessary attributes one adopts to become a rabble and neither of these is poverty. First
attribute is the rebellion against moral structure of civil society: Poverty does not of itself
make a pauper. The pauper state implies a frame of mind, associated often with poverty,
consisting in inner rebellion against the wealthy, against society, and against constituted
authority (Hegel 2001b, 244). The second necessary attribute is unwillingness to work
Moreover, in order to descend to the class, which is at the mercy of the changes and chances
of life, men must be heedless and indifferent to work (Hegel 2001b, 244). It is important to
note that in order to be a part of the rabble, one has to be unwilling to work even if he has one
or if one job is offered to him or even if he is really well-off. Therefore, being part of the
rabble means one declares right without right (Ruda 2011: 62). It means one demands right
where no right exists in the actual and real structure of civil society.
Ruda nicely distinguishes the poor rabble and rich rabble (Ruda 2011: 61-3). Member of
the poor rabble claims to live not by his work in the overall system of wants in the nations
civil society, that is, by offering his work on the national labour market. Member of the rich
rabble claims right for him not to respect rights of others. In addition to Ruda, we claim that a
businessman evading taxes might also be a member of the rich rabble, unwilling by his
nations civil society with its structure of rights including rights of government to collect
taxes: taxes which the estates approve should not be regarded as a gift presented to the state;
on the contrary, they are approved for the benefit of those who approve them (Hegel 2001b,
301). As we will see later, Hegel analyzed the case of entrepreneurs as part of rabble. Their
reason were attempts to avoid high taxes and therefore they emigrated to where taxes were
lower.
One of the worst types of organization of state is the ochlocracy, rule by rabble, which
comes about when the poor and rich rabble unites: The rule by rabble is even worse than
democracy for Hegel: degeneration of it [democracy] is the ochlocracy or the rule of rabble,
when namely that part that has no property and has unjust sentiments, holds the legal citizens
by the force of state (Hegel 1840: 51). Hegels example of such constitution comes in
analyzing ancient Rome: We should refer to Cicero to see how all affairs of state were
decided in riotous fashion, and with arms in hand, by the wealth and power of the grandees on
the one side, and by a troop of rabble on the other (Hegel 2001a: 330). Some of ancient
Romes institutions were repeated in Italy later, too: Equal disappointment was experienced
by those Italians who hoped for deliverance at the hands of the Emperor from the ochlocracy
14

that domineered over the cities, or from the violence of the feudal nobility in the country at
large (Hegel 2001a: 405). As we will see later, Hegel characterizes rabble as a Naples
Nazzaroni on one place. So with a little bit of exaggeration, we may say that a state of rabble
looks like Italy. This is of course the type of the institutional development Hegel not just
wanted to be prevented, but also saw actually being prevented incrementally to an ever greater
extent.

Corporations role in mitigation of rabble in Hegelian evolutionary

institutionalist economics
Given the dangerous domestic potential of rabble, Hegel offers two kinds of mitigation:
domestic mitigation by corporations and and foreign mitigation by colonization. Here we
concentrate on corporations, colonization will be dealt with later on.
While in the system of needs, in the invisible hand of market an internal order of society
is automatically enforced, conscious positive feedback to the order of society is left wanting
in intermediary estate, in trade and industry. Unlike other two estates, which are the
substantial (agriculture) and the substantial (public sector), the intermediary estate of trade
and industry lacks the automatic awareness of universality, of their actual and proper place
within the overall order of society: The intermediate estate, i.e. the estate of trade and
industry, is essentially concerned with the particular, and the corporation is therefore specially
characteristic of it (Hegel 1991: 270; 250). The aim of the corporation is thus defined as
follows: the corporation has the right, under the supervision of the public authority [Macht],
to look after its own interests within its enclosed sphere, to admit members in accordance with
their objective qualification of skill and rectitude and in numbers determined by the universal
context, to protect its members against particular contingencies, and to educate others so as to
make them eligible for membership. In short, it has the right to assume the role of a second
family for its members (Hegel 1991: 270-1; 252). Institution of corporation serves their
members to get aware of their position within the extended order of civil society, for example
by acknowledging their skills and since they know something of the industry sector, they can
serve a member with the orientation in the overall order of society and with finding the proper
job fitting to him.
Furthermore, it provides help against contingencies of life and since its located closer to
the member than is the state, its more probable it can acknowledge the extent, type and
length of the help provided. If this sounds outrageous, we should rethink Hayeks famous
notion of having to live in two worlds at once, one based on familial morality, the other on
15

abstract morality: If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos
(i.e., of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider
civilisation), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would
destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate
groupings, we would crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of world at once
(Hayek 1988: 18). We dont want to crush family and other voluntary institutions based on
the principle of family, because our civilization depends on them (Horwitz 2015). Where
exactly the boundary between these two worlds lies, depends on how the particular institution
collects the knowledge from its acting members. If voluntary subsidiary associations of
workers in the same industry sector are established and if they strive for finding the moral
innovations leading to the more proper balance of our inevitable living in two worlds, its
nothing here against which a Hayekian should object to. On the contrary, it could perhaps
with the help of religions, lead to moral innovations that might keep our civilization in future.
At the same time, Hayeks approach here is in complete accord with the principles of
Hegelian evolutionary institutionalist economics.
Beyond the objective predispositions for rabble, which consists in the increasing
productivity of civil society and crowding out of some workers from their initial jobs, there
are subjective predispositions for becoming a rabble, that of discontent with ones work or
with governments taxes or with whatever is connected with not realizing of ones proper
place within the overall order of society. This second radix of rabble is to be mitigated by
corporations: When complaints are made about that luxury and love of extravagance of the
professional [gewerbetreibenden] classes which is associated with the creation of a rabble (see
244), we must not overlook, in addition to the other causes [of this phenomenon] (e.g. the
increasingly mechanical nature of work), its ethical basis as implied in what has been said
above (Hegel 1991: 271-2; 253). Its ethical basis consists in citizens internal conviction
that his or her place in the order of society is not what it should be, and that the wished role is
not approachable by means consistent with the continuing existence of this society.
Alternatively, the ethical basis of becoming a rabble is maintained in the denial of the
existence of order in society itself. Corporations are the institutions which help orientate
citizens in the order when it wants to help them achieve their wished place in a way consistent
with the continuance of the order of society.

16

English rabble and its evolutionary institutionalist aspects

Hegels analysis of the civil society and of the rabble in the paragraphs 243-8 of the
GPR there treats concerns modern age. Its important to clarify the time period in question
since Hegel observed rabble in other time periods as well. However, as we will see later at the
analysis of rabble in Greece, its different from the modern rabble because of the absence of
the entire moral structure of the civil society that emerges only at the modern ages. In the
analyzed paragraphs of the GPR Hegel mentions England twice as the country of origin of the
rabble. Apart from England and Scotland, Naples Nazzaroni (Italian for rabble) is mentioned
(Hegel 2001b, 245) along the way with French rabble in the first Philosophy of Right 1817/8
(Hegel 2012: 287). Why did he then turn just to England as the exemplary country of origin of
rabble? There are two reasons: (a) the massive emergence of rabble in England and (b) the
emergence of political economy as a modern science there. Both of these reasons can be
explained by analysis of the next quote: These phenomena may be studied in England, where
they occur on an extensive scale (Hegel 2001b, 245).
England the most economically developed nation of Hegels age. If rabble emerged with
the growing economy, its natural that it was to be studied on the example of England, rather
than Italy or France. Italian nation didnt even have its own state which could have
established the structure of civil society. As we will see later, impacts of rabble cannot be
studied in a country which doesnt have colonies, since the rabbles aim for Hegel is to export
the institutions of civil society. That was impossible in Italy, lacking both nation state and
colonies. Actually, in German Constitution of 1802, Hegel says that Italian cities were getting
smaller rather than bigger, the societys institutions were crumbling and army had to employ
unreliable foreign rabble: It entrusted its own defence to assassination, poison, and treason,
or to hordes of foreign rabble whom their paymasters always found costly and destructive,
and often formidable and dangerous; and some of whose leaders rose to the rank of princes
(Hegel 1999: 97). Princes established by the rabbling army, this was certainly destructive of
civil societys institutions in later Hegels thought that interests us here. French case is
different, rabble led by the abstract ideas of French philosophers (which were substantially
different from English mundane philosophers as we see on the example of Hegels treatment
of Locke) contributed there to the establishment of civil society through revolution, so it was
in the least a different mechanism of institutional change than the case of England. In the
1817/18 Philosophy of Right, French revolutionaries were rabble not because they demanded
the governments sessions to be public, but because they were prepared to wreak revenge
(Hegel 2012: 287) on whoever with whom they disagreed.
17

Furthermore, rabble was actually studied there rather than in other countries by the
science of political economy. For Hegel, the modern science of political economy emerges in
England as well, as we saw on the example of Britain. But it is Hegels institutional analysis
developing from both the scottish enlightenments political economy and from German
cameralist Staatswissenschaft which is present in the par. 245 of the Philosophy of Right. We
consider Hegel as a precursor of evolutionary institutionalist economics. He provides us with
such evolutionary analysis of eliminating rabble. This evolutionary institutionalist economics
would be placed among understanding (Verstand) Scottish Enlightenment with their theory
of genesis of political spontaneous orders as in Adam Ferguson (Ferguson 1980) and despite
Hegels mutual conflicts with Savigny, put along with German Historical School of Law as
the precursors of either austrian evolutionary economics of institutions or that of
ordoliberalism (Menger 1996; Hayek 2011; Kolev 2015).
While the present author is well aware of the difficulties of conflating Hegel with
evolutionary austrian and ordoliberal economics, we can link here to Walter Euckens debt to
Hegels criticism of historicism in economics (Eucken 2012: 322), to the Hegelian-like
account of the origin of private property in James Buchanan: Hegel's basic conception of
property is also similar to that developed here (Buchanan 1975: 182, see also Buchanan
1974) and for an original synthesis of Hayekian and Hegelian approaches see Pavlik (Pavlik
2004; Pavlik 2006). We cannot address here all the criticism of Hegel from the classical
liberal camp, some of which we consider well founded and some wholly unsubstantiated. We
restrict ourselves here to mentioning that Poppers mocking criticism of Hegel (Popper 1971)
was almost an intellectual fraud at times (Kaufmann 1951). I wholly accept Hayekian or a
Popperian criticism of Hegel for his synoptic illusion that a mind can see the society from
above and can know a lot of the knowledge which is nevertheless essentially dispersed
(Hayek 1973: 14). On the other hand, classical liberals criticized not a Hegel proper, but a
young-hegelian Hegel, refuted above. Classically liberal criticism of Hegel culminated in
Popper, a Jew, during WWII. Therefore, while Poppers criticism of Hegels seeming
totalitarianism is fully understandable, it cannot prevent nowadays classical liberals from
learning something from Hegels advances in the spontaneous order of politics over the
Scottish Enlightenment. If we consider Tocqueville as the precursor of Hayeks theory of
spontaneous order of politics, of which one offshoot is Hayeks suggestion for constitutional
reform, we should consequently consider Hegel as Hayeks precursor.
Going back to Hegel, his evolutionary institutionalist analysis is what Hegel reproduces
in par. 245 of the GPR, with the result that, given the discontinuance of corporation (in some
18

translations also guild corporation), in England the best means to alleviate rabble was
found in letting it to its own fate (Hegel 2001b, 245). It should be noted that for
discontinuance there was a word aufheben in the original edition (Hegel 1821: 233), which
usually means sublation, but here its better translated as discontinuance of corporations in
accord with the par. 255, where Hegel speaks that the corporations were abolished
[aufgehoben] in recent times (Hegel 1991: 273; 245).
Thus of seven possible Hegels means to mitigate rabble as identified by Ruda, (Ruda
2011: 15), the one applied actually in Britain was: letting poor on themselves and they either
adopt a citizens mentality and respect laws and are willing to adopt a job that is available to
them in England, or they emigrate and cease to be rabble in colonies. Thus the rabble is
sublated in Hegelian way with the aim of spreading the institutions of civil society abroad.
However, as we have already seen, Hegel identified an important role of corporation for
mitigating rabble. He was aware of the danger of rabble overturning the morals and
institutions of civil society. Rabble certainly wasnt supposed to govern the country. While we
already addressed corporations role in mitigating rabble, its precise role in Hegels
evolutionary institutionalist economics needs more elaboration, especially given Hegels
strange, backward sounding language on corporations, resembling outdated guilds. Particular
attention will be paid to the relation of corporations and guilds in this evolutionary
institutionalist economics.
Adam Smith wanted guilds and corporations to be decommissioned: Upon paying a
fine to the king, the charter seems generally to have been readily granted; and when any
particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation without a charter,
such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account,
but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges
(Smith 1904a). England decommissioned guilds by Combination Acts in 1799 and 1800, so
when Hegel is complaining for Englands discontinuance of corporation, he wrote about the
affairs that had happened not that long ago. Hegel criticized hypertrophied guildscorporations, because they could create rather than mitigate rabble: Europe has sent its
surplus population to America in much the same way as from the old Imperial Cities, where
trade-guilds were dominant (Hegel 2001a: 99). Even if Hegel agreed with the Smiths type
of criticism of guilds, he however emphasizes that corporation is not the same as a guild: The
corporation, of course, must come under the higher supervision of the state, for it would
otherwise become ossified and set in its ways, and decline into a miserable guild system. But
the corporation in and for itself is not an enclosed guild; it is rather a means of giving the
19

isolated trade an ethical status, and of admitting it to a circle in which it gains strength and
honour (Hegel 1991: 273; 255 GPR).
Corporations are parts of the moral structure of the civil society which help their
members acquire the moral stance towards civil society rather than attitude of the rabble. We
can see it on Hegels treatment of Holland, which was an early form of civil society. But to
enforce its existence, also the help of guilds was needed: the northern part of the Netherlands
Holland stood its ground with heroic valor against its oppressors. The trading class, the
guilds and companies of marksmen formed a militia whose heroic courage was more than a
match for the then famous Spanish infantry (Hegel 2001a: 455). We can identify in Hegels
treatment of corporations his debt to the predominantly German economists of the
Staatswissenschaft and of James Steuart (Chamley 1963; Steuart 1767, Priddat 1990: 14).
Hegel reportedly had his opinion on corporations in 1799, when he is reported by Karl
Rosenkranz to have read the book by James Steuart (quoted as Stewart) and written the paper
on it. Theres no other trace of that paper beyond that Rosenkranzs note (Rosenkranz 1844:
86). However, young Hegel had positive attitude towards guilds, as can be observed in his
1798s paper on the political philosophy of the city of Bern (Hegel, Cart 1798: 195; on his
later stance on guilds in Bern compare with Hegel 2001a: 404).
As a consequence of lacking corporations, more rabble might have emerged in England
than was needed, more people acquired rebellious attitude against civil society. Therefore,
perhaps more rabble emigrated to the colonies than would be necessary, given the state of
development of Englands civil society. Still, it has its world-historical role.
As we have seen, english civil society is not the ideal civil society as Hegel sees it,
because of its institutions lack some of the attributes of the civil society proper such as
unwritten character of its constitution (Hegel 2001b, 211) and of the solely negative
character of the division of powers (Hegel 2001b, 273). But it has some moments established
of the civil society proper: in England the ministers are rightly members of parliament
(Hegel 2001b, 300), people pay voluntarily higher taxes than in despotic countries the
people in a despotism pay light taxes, which in a constitutional state become larger through
the peoples own consciousness. In no other land are taxes so heavy as they are in England
(Hegel 2001b, 302). Moreover, in England, for example, no unpopular war can be waged
(Hegel 2001b, 329). There are aspects where England developed more closely towards civil
society and aspects where Hegel would like to see reforms.
It applies also with regard to rabble: we have both positive and negative affirmations on
rabble in England. On the one hand, its a mass phenomenon which occurs on an extensive
20

scale (Hegel 2001b, 245), perhaps more than necessary. On the other hand, in England even
the poorest man believes that he has his right, and with him this standard is different from that
which satisfies the poor in other lands (Hegel 2001b, 244). What to do out of this seeming
contradiction? Well, in the light of the main argument of this paper, it can be argued, that
although rabble emerges as a mass phenomena in England, their members either turn (a) to
poor or rich who are willingly members of civil society, acknowledging rights of others, even
if this result is arrived at by the means of distracting public begging or (b) they dont remain
remain in England no more, especially if they cannot earn their living in jobs they prefer, and
they emigrate to English colonies in a systematic way, organized by police (Polizey), which
probably means by companies like the East India Company. It is in colonies, where this group
of rabble cease to be a rabble. But we are ahead of ourselves.

Corporations in the USA and their role for Hegelian evolutionary

institutionalism
Hegels emphasis on labourers being obliged to be members of corporations is
complementary to his preference of constitutional monarchy over democracy. While not
everybody has a direct influence on politics in the constitutional monarchy, every citizen of
civil society provides his positive feedback to the institutions of civil society through
becoming a member of corporation: In our modem states, the citizens have only a limited
share in the universal business of the state; but it is necessary to provide ethical man with a
universal activity in addition to his. private end. This universal [activity], which the modern
state does not always offer him, can be found in the corporation (Hegel 1991: 273; 255).
While Hegel considered USA as not being a civil society at all, since no rabble was there
because of abundance of free land, Tocqueville, his younger contemporary, wrote what we
consider as alternative evolutionary institutionalist theory of the US constitution: its
decentralized form of government mitigated absence of Hegelian civil society and something
like Hegels morals (Sittlichkeit) emerged in the USA as a consequence: The Americans
have also established certain forms of government which are applied to their associations, but
these are invariably borrowed from the forms of the civil administration. The independence of
each individual is formally recognized; the tendency of the members of the association points,
as it does in the body of the community, towards the same end, but they are not obliged to
follow the same track. No one abjures the exercise of his reason and his free will; but every
one exerts that reason and that will for the benefit of a common undertaking (Tocqueville

21

2006). Therefore, we consider it a great misunderstanding of Hegel, if one interprets him in an

communitarian way.
We will see later on the example of export of institutions in Ancient Greece, that Hegel
didn't take the Greek civilization as the ideal, to which he looked with ressentiment. While
Charles Taylor, who might be called a communitarian Hegelian, says that it was Hegel's ideal
of Greek morality, "why he did not see these differences [corporations] as remnants of earlier
history destined to wither away" (Taylor 2015: 115), we can't accept that. Even if Taylor says
"we cannot accept Hegel's solution today" (Taylor 2015: 115), he is certainly inspired by what
was dubbed as communitarianism: "certain core arguments meant to contrast with liberalism's
devaluation of community recur in the works of the four theorists named above" (Bell 2013)
including Taylor. After all, as editors of the edition of Hegels first Philosophy of Right
emphasize, when he [Hegel] calls for 'corporations' he describes an institution that never
became actual in this manner, and that on the contrary was made impossible as labor relations
became progressively more extensive and more differentiated (Hegel 2012: 42). Rather than
being inspired by Hegel's particular, communitarian-like solution to the problems of
establishing of modern constitutions and their acceptance among citizens, we are inspired by
Hegel's method which we identify here as evolutionary institutionalist economics with
Hayekian flavor. Concerning Hegel's method, we certainly disagree with Taylor in that "a
modern Western society would be unrecognizable to a man of early-nineteenth-century
Europe" (Taylor 2015: 106). If we are right that Hegel's method of inquiry can be translated
into evolutionary institutionalist economics, then Hegel's way of inquiry can be utilized for
inquiring modern problems.
Rabble is basically emigrating from England
Interpreters of Hegel, culminating in Ruda (2011) rightly interprets the country of origin
of rabble in Hegels thought: England. However, Rudas close textual following of Hegel and
of the logic of his argument is far from complete. Hegel speaks of emigration of rabble (Hegel
2001b, 245), and if the country of the origin of rabble is England, so the Hegelian rabble
should emigrate from England. But this is not the case for Ruda. Ruda analyzes Hegels
stance towards the rabble that remains in England. While Rudas stance is interesting and
historically tenable, it remains in a framework of the nation state, typical for the German
discourse after Fichtes Der Geschlossene Handelstaat (Fichte 2015) and later established
firmly in the German historical school of economics. As for Hegel, his starting point in

22

Fichtean framework as well as his criticism of Fichtean analysis of the closed state only was
accounted by Campagnolo (Campagnolo 2012: 42-49).
For Hegel, this framework of the nation state was just the beginning of the analysis, not
the endpoint. The rabbles emigration from this nation state framework serves Hegel to
transcend the category civil society within the nation state: By means of its own dialectic the
civic community is driven beyond its own limits as a definite and self-complete society. It
must find consumers and the necessary means of life amongst other peoples. It must find
consumers and the necessary means of life amongst other peoples, who either lack the means,
of which it has a superfluity, or have less developed industries (Hegel 2001b, 246).
Unlike Chamley (1963) or Ruda (2011) we dont interpret this sentence immediately in
the light of the theories of underconsumption like those employed by James Steuart or T. R.
Malthus. We will show that such explanation is not only non-Hegelian, but also unnecessary.
At this point, we just follow Hegels immediate successions more closely and try to fit this
argument into the body of his thought. The industry realizes its unexploited potential abroad,
especially by the sea-trade: By means of the sea, the greatest medium of communication, the
desire for wealth brings distant lands into an intercourse, which leads to commercial
exchange (Hegel 2001b, 247). Then along with the traders, the means to employ the rabble
is found in establishing colonies, which will ultimately free themselves of the home country,
to the benefit of all (Hegel 2001b, 248). When civil society emerged in England, its the
logic of Hegels argument that so did the rabble. If English rabble doesnt remain in England,
it emigrates abroad. So its English emigrants that interest Hegel most, because England has
the most developed civil society, especially with respect to economy. In England arose the
important question, how poverty is to be done away with (Hegel 2001b, 244). And of
English colonies employing emigrating English rabble United States of America interests
Hegel most. In the next section we will see the exact reason for this. Here Hegels Lectures on
the Philosophy of History serve us as the complement to the arguments of the Philosophy of
Right. In Lectures, Hegel explains that in North America, the original nation having
vanished or nearly so, the effective population comes for the most part from Europe; and what
takes place in America, is but an emanation from Europe. Europe has sent its surplus
population to America (Hegel 2001a: 99).
Lets here suffice for us at this point that its the example of USA in the Lectures that
supports evidence for the assertion in the Philosophy of Right that the independence of the
colonies has turned out to be of the greatest advantage to the mother land (Hegel 2001b,
248). To this, the Lectures evidence is that England has had fifty years experience, that
23

free America is more profitable to her than it was in a state of dependence (Hegel 2001a:
104). So the conclusion of this paragraph consists in our argument that English rabble doesnt
remain in England and migrates to the USA, where it ceases to exist. England continues to
maintain even more positive relations with USA, particularly economic ones, after the latters
independence. Therefore, the rabble is not an inherent contradiction that constitutes the point
of departure of from Hegels original train of thought, as is the case for Ruda. There is a
sublation of rabble in the USA. By the logic of Hegels argument, rabble will emerge also in
the USA after the emergence of civil society there. We will see later that this seeming
complication will serve the world historical role for Hegel. But lets first clarify who
everything belongs to this rabble for Hegel, because there are some surprising groups among
them.
Pauperization of the substantial estate and its future in the USA
Hegel distinguished three estates of the civil society: substantial, reflecting and universal
(Hegel 2001b, 202), which means, agriculture, industry and public sector. The aim imputed
by Hegel for estates is serve their members to secure their morals appropriate to the
profession and compatible with the whole of civil society. Specifically, substantial estate
embodies in substantive feeling an ethical life resting directly upon trust and the family
relation (Hegel 2001b, 203). Hegel considered the substantial estate as logically and
historically primary: States are rightly said to come into existence with the introduction of
agriculture along with the introduction of marriage (Hegel 2001b, 203).
Here we concentrate on the logical aspect of the argument. In a section later on, we will
concentrate on the historical aspect thereof. In accord with the logic of Hegels argument,
agriculture will always retain much of the substantive feeling, which pervades the patriarchal
life Therefore, being a member of this estate provides a certain tranquillity of life, which
soon comes to be regarded as a natural thing to demand: man accepts what is given with a
simple mind, thanks God for it, and lives in the assurance that the goodness of God will
continue. What he gets suffices him, and he uses it because it comes again. This is the simple
disposition unaffected by the desire for wealth. It may be described as the type of the old
nobility, who consumed simply what was there (Hegel 2001b, 203). But it wont continue
like this for all of the members of the substantial estate. In our time agriculture, losing some
of its naturalness, is managed in a reflective way like a factory, and acquires the character of
the second class (Hegel 2001b, 203). So we have to analyse the development of the
substantial estate in the light of the development of the second estate.
24

The second, reflective estate, concentrates on industry. There, as exampled by pin

factory (Waszek 1985), the productivity rises remarkably as an effect of the division of
labour: This is the division of labour. By it the labour of the individual becomes more
simple, his skill in his abstract work greater, and the amount he produces larger (Hegel
2001b, 198). Another effect of the division labour is the substitution of labour by machines,
by capital: Moreover, the abstraction of production causes work to be continually more
mechanical, until it is at last possible for man to step out and let the machine take his place
(Hegel 2001b, 198). Some of thus substituted workers find their work in the new wants,
needs that constantly arise: The tendency of the social condition indefinitely to increase and
specialize wants, means, and enjoyments, and to distinguish natural from unrefined wants, has
no limits (Hegel 2001b, 195). But not all of them will find their job this way. They then
become a rabble.
By analogue, this is true also for the members of the substantial estate crowded out by
the improving technologies in agriculture. Some of them might be drawn to the secondary
estate where they will help create goods satisfying new emerging needs: As the firm-set
earth, or the soil, is the basis of family life, so the basis of industry is the sea, the natural
element which stimulates intercourse with foreign lands. By the substitution for the tenacious
grasp of the soil, and for the limited round of appetites and enjoyments embraced within the
civic life, of the fluid element of danger and destruction, the passion for gain is transformed
(Hegel 2001b, 247). But for Hegel, some part of the crowded out agriculturists will be
unwilling to swap the estates. Thus such a condition of things presents itself that a large
portion of the people can no longer satisfy its necessities in the way in which it has been
accustomed so to do (Hegel 2001: 103). It is then these former agriculturists who immigrate
as a rabble to new colonies and seek for the new soil rather than a job in industry. By
colonization, a part of its population it provides on a new soil a return to the family principle,
and also procures for itself at the same time a new incentive and field for work (Hegel
2001b, 248). Thus, former farmers make up some part of the emigrating rabble. By
spreading their morals of family and agriculture, they will help to spread unintentionally the
institutions of the original nations civil society.
Rich who belongs to the rabble migrating to the USA
The text of the Philosophy of Right makes reader imagine that just paupers make up the
rabble. Even Ruda (2011) is fighting this notion. Lets follow Hegels argument more closely.
Hegel offers couple of characteristics of rabble: Poverty does not of itself make a pauper.
25

The pauper state implies a frame of mind, associated often with poverty, consisting in inner
rebellion against the wealthy, against society, and against constituted authority. Moreover, in
order to descend to the class, which is at the mercy of the changes and chances of life, men
must be heedless and indifferent to work (Hegel 2001b, 244). So the pauper, member of
rabble, need not be poor, though often is. Rather than an objective measure of well-being,
rabble is subjective notion (1) of rebellion against society, against constituted authority, that is
in Hegels term, the morality (Sittlichkeit), (2) man is idle, unwilling to work in this society.
There are two surprising groups of people which usually do not belong to the poor, but
which still belong to the emigrating rabble: those persecuted for religion and tradesmen. As of
religious emigrants from England, Hegel has to say in his Lectures on the Philosophy of
History that they contributed substantially to establishment of the commercial republic:
Since in England Puritans, Episcopalians, and Catholics were engaged in perpetual conflict,
and now one party, now the other, had the upper hand, many emigrated to seek religious
freedom on a foreign shore. These were industrious Europeans, who betook themselves to
agriculture, tobacco and cotton planting, etc. Soon the whole attention of the inhabitants was
given to labour, and the basis of their existence as a united body lay in the necessities that
bind man to man, the desire of repose, the establishment of civil rights, security and freedom,
and a community arising from the aggregation of individuals as atomic constituents; so that
the state was merely something external for the protection of property (Hegel 2001a: 101-2).
Its quite clear from this quotation that for Hegel, religious emigrants follow the two
necessary conditions for becoming a rabble in the home country: they rebel against the
constituted authority and are unwilling to work within this society.
Concerning tradesmen, Hegel has something significant to say, too. North Americas
effective population comes for the most part from Europe; and what takes place in America,
is but an emanation from Europe. Europe has sent its surplus population to America in much
the same way as from the old Imperial Cities, where trade-guilds were dominant and trade
was stereotyped, many persons escaped to other towns which were not under such a yoke, and
where the burden of imposts was not so heavy. Thus arose, by the side of Hamburg, Altona
by Frankfort, Offenbach by Nrnburg, Frth and Carouge by Geneva. The relation
between North America and Europe is similar. Many Englishmen have settled there, where
burdens and imposts do not exist, and where the combination of European appliances and
European ingenuity has availed to realize some produce from the extensive and still virgin
soil. Indeed the emigration in question offers many advantages. The emigrants have got rid of
much that might be obstructive to their interests at home, while they take with them the
26

advantages of European independence of spirit, and acquired skill; while for those who are
willing to work vigorously, but who have not found in Europe opportunities for doing so, a
sphere of action is certainly presented in America (Hegel 2001a: 99-100). With respect to
these tradesmen, trying to avoid the over-regulated and in many respects still mercantilist
economy of England of 1820s, Hegel is even more explicit that they fall to the status of rabble
within the society of their origin: they rebel against the society and are unwilling to work
within it.
The connecting aspect of both of these groups is that in case they remained in the
country of origin, they would undermine the Morality of that society. Deteriorating the moral
framework of society is exactly the attitude Hegel opposed most vehemently.

World-historical role of emigrating rabble and trade: Export of

the institutions of civil society
In this section, we will see that international trade and the rabble emigrating particularly
through the sea have the world historical role for Hegel: to spread culture of morality
(Sittlichkeit) to other nations beyond the nations civil society. In the words of the present
economics, the historical and future achievement of rabble will be the export of formal and
informal institutions, of regulated capitalism.
As we have seen, Hegel argues, that the economy of civil society is forced to transcend
itself because its productivity is so raised that it needs to find new markets abroad (Hegel
2001b, 246). We consider it unnecessary to provide import of the theories of
underconsumption into the meaning of this sentence. Rather, in what follows we resort to
couple of probable sources of Hegels model. We find his predecessors in John Lockes
model of the emergence of the market and in Adam Smiths thoughts about the long run
impacts of the establishment and demise of the colonies. Then we place Hegels argument
into the long line of authors predicting that growing economy will have positive impact on the
political order as reconstructed by Hirschman (1997).
John Locke is for Hegel at the origin of the philosophy which gave rise to the modern
science of political economy: The philosophy of Locke is certainly very comprehensible, but
for that very reason it is likewise a popular philosophy to which the whole of the English
philosophy as it exists at this day is allied ... It is in this way that rational politics took their
rise in England, because the institutions and government peculiar to the English led them

27

specially and in the first place to reflection upon their inward political and economic
relationships (Hegel 1892). Locke says that at the initial stage of development of mankind,
individuals could reap more
than the can possibly eat individually a man might gather a hundred bushels of edible
nuts or apples (Locke 2013: 129, par. 46). They didnt keep this surplus production
themselves, but obtained commodity money: People might (say) swap surplus perishable
foodstuffs for pieces of metal whose colour pleased them (Locke 2013: 130, par. 46). And
with this commodity money, they could purchase whatever goods or services they needed
rather than simply hoarding them, it would often be better for them to exchange these items
for other goods and services and to continue buying, selling, and investing in an ever
widening circle of economic activity and growth (Locke 2013: 130, par. 46). Whats
significant for us here is that theres no need in Locke to resort to the theories of
underconsumption. Its just the theory of growth starting with the analysis of behaviour of the
individual, but is soon led by the logic of the argument to transcend the category of individual
and interpersonal economy is established as a result.
We have analogous theory in Hegels case. The category of the nations civil society
increases its production rapidly through the effect of the division of labour (Waszek 1988). It
has to place its surpluses abroad. But its not an economic theory of international trade that
interests Hegel here. Hegel is not analysing the effects of any abstract international trade as
would David Ricardo do in his theory of comparative advantage. Neither is Hegel saying that
the effects of trade vary with the stages of development as German Historical School did later.
Rather, Hegel is interested by a certain type of international trade, which he considers has the
potential of spreading the Morality of the civil society, of its formal and informal institutions,
of commerce with colonies. So its a theory of the emergence of institutions of the kind of
great members of the Scottish enlightenment and of Hayek, though its much more
rationalistic in its presentation than latter ones.
While Hegels idea of trading surpluses having as unintended consequence the
emergence of institutions have an antecedent in Locke, Hegels idea of applying this
argument on surveying the emergent effects of colonies can be traced to Adam Smith. Smiths
debt to Locke with respect to our subject of interest consists in that Smith speaks of surpluses
in the international trade with colonies, which is carried on by the sea trade, to which Smith
placed special importance. Surpluses produced in America increase the wealth of European
countries trading with it: The surplus produce of America, imported into Europe, furnishes
the inhabitants of this great continent with a variety of commodities which they could not
28

otherwise have possessed (Smith 1904b). On the other hand, America provides new market
for European countries trading with the USA: All such countries have evidently gained a
more extensive market for their surplus produce, and must consequently have been
encouraged to increase its quantity (Smith 1904b). These surpluses are therefore mutual and
augment the production both in colonies and countries, with which they trade. These are
therefore not the surpluses of the type of aggregate supply as in theories of underconsumption.
However, Smith goes further. He tries to make the philosophical argument on the
emergent outcome of the establishing and demise of colonies, with which he modestly comes
back to his old ambition, which was not to be satisfied in the end, to write the book on the
succession of various revolutions and in emergence of the body political as a by-product of
this development (compare with Smiths Introduction to the last edition of the Theory of
Moral Sentiments, Smith 2002): The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East
Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in
the history of mankind. Their consequences have already been very great: but, in the short
period of between two and three centuries which has elapsed since these discoveries were
made, it is impossible that the whole extent of their consequences can have been seen (Smith
1904; compare Montesquieus take on the impact of colonies on the world in Montesquieu
2001: 392-9).
Although Smith provides a caveat of why not to conduct such research, he didnt resist
the temptation and conjured a little more, formulating firstly the beneficial outcome: What
benefits, or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no
human wisdom can foresee. By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world,
by enabling them to relieve one anothers wants, to increase one anothers enjoyments, and to
encourage one anothers industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial (Smith
1904b). Secondly, the negative consequences might be derived: To the natives, however,
both of the East and West Indies, all the commercial benefits which can have resulted from
those events have been sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned
(Smith 1904b). However, he didnt just resort to such reluctant dead end of the argument. He
hypothesized on what role might be played by the international trade in overcoming the
negative effects: Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or
those of Europe may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the
world may arrive at that equality of courage and force which, by inspiring mutual fear, can
alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the rights of
one another. But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality of force than that mutual
29

communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements which an extensive commerce

from all countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it (Smith
1904b).
I would like the careful reader to note that the force and courage of foreign armies might
inspire respect for the rights of one another resemble distantly the master-slave dialectics in
Hegels Phenomenology. For Hegel, who reportedly read Wealth of Nations and especially
liked the effect of division of labour on the example of pin industry (Waszek 1985), it must
have occurred remarkable just the fact that Smith considered it impossible for human wisdom
can synthesize such diverse outcomes of colonies as those of British and Spanish colonies of
Smiths time. Hegel lived later, more of the Spanish colonies have acquired independence
since Smiths death, and Hegels rationalist Kantian education encouraged him to synthesize
the ultimate historic outcomes of the colonies, which we will analyse later. We will see little
later also more direct parallel with Hegels arguments. Here its important to note that Smiths
argument clearly belongs to the long and respectable line of thought which prefers the clash of
opposite passions rather than to make up the society from reason. The still actual review of
this literature is Hirschmans The Passions and The Interests (1997).
Authors who put passions and interests above the reason, were opposing the rationalistic
16th century of Descartes and Hobbes, who hoped the reason would help us make up the
orderly human society. Authors stressing passions included Locke, Montesquieu, Smith and,
which is significant for us here, Hegel as well: Hegel's famous concept of the Cunning of
Reason expresses the idea that men, following their passions, actually serve some higher
world-historical purpose of which they are totally unaware (Hirschman 1997: 19). Authors
preferring passions were persuaded mainly that calm passions as self-interest realized on the
market frees human anxiety and directs it to the beneficial outcomes for the whole society.
This is opposed to the reason and to violent passions like power or sex, which can in their
realization lead more directly to human disorder. As a further evidence of Hegel being the
member of this group of authors it might be noted, that for Hegel, sea and rivers unite nations
by trade rather than divide them: rivers and seas are not to be regarded as disjoining, but as
uniting. England and Brittany, Norway and Denmark, Sweden and Livonia, have been united
(Hegel 2001a: 105) and in the Philosophy of Right we find the similar quotation with the
same meaning: Rivers are not natural boundaries, though people have in modern times tried
to make them so. Rather do they, and more especially the sea, bind men together. This is
proved even more conspicuously by the relations of ancient Greece with Ionia and Magna

30

Graecia, of Brittany with Britain, of Denmark with Norway, of Sweden with Finland and
Lapland (Hegel 2001b, 247).
While we agree with Hirschman that Hegel belongs to the authors preferring passions at
least partly, we oppose his contention that So blanket an endorsement of the passions as is
implicit in the Cunning of Reason obviously had no place in any work that took a critical view
of contemporary social and political development (Hirschman 1997: 19) in Hegels
Philosophy of Right. The above presentation of Locke and Smith as possible Hegels
precursors persuades us that the concept of unintentional production of institutions via
passions was actually present in the Philosophy of Right. We must yet to reconstruct how
ideas of Locke and Smith might have been adopted in Hegels thought.
Our reconstruction goes on as follows: at the initial stage of human development,
independent producers produced surpluses, which didnt ruin them or their neighbours, but
caused unintentionally to produce institution of money, trade and its amassing. When nations
are established and when they arrive at establishing the civil society, they produce surpluses,
too. They need to turn abroad to place their surpluses (Hegel 2001b, 246). Then they use the
opportunity of the connectedness of the world by seas and in quite Smithian fashion he
describes the passion of commerce carried on the sea (Hegel 2001b, 247). Hegel then carries
on Smiths unfinished project of synthesizing the ultimate effects of the various revolutions
on mankind: By means of the sea, the greatest medium of communication, the desire for
wealth brings distant lands into an intercourse, which leads to commercial exchange. In this
intercourse is found one of the chief means of culture, and in it, too, trade receives worldhistorical significance (Hegel 2001b, 247). Trade receives its world-historical role.
Establishment of the systematic rather than sporadic colonization carries on this role by those
who would be rabble if they remained in the home country (Hegel 2001b, 248). Like in
Smith, colonies will gain their force and courage and will face colonizers in revolutions. Up
until now we just found the previous reconstruction of Locke and Smith in Hegel.
What follows is a summary of next sections, which is however the logical continuation
of the argument. Thus, the emigrating rabble and commerce will attempt at establishing
institutions favouring the trade and resembling those of the home country. Colonies will
ultimately revolt successfully and will thus acquire freedom, which then turns out to be
beneficial for both former colonies and for former colonizers. Furthermore, former colonies
will in the end develop civil society and its moral institutions like police and corporations. As
the ultimate outcome we then have in the Hegels world two free countries with mature
institutions of civil society and its Morality. Hegel then predicted continuation of this
31

development in future on example of the analysis of the world-historical role of the USA. All
of this we will analyse just shortly. Here we just conclude by implication that what Hegel
provides is the theory of the evolution of institutions of civil society, as he understood it. This
evolution is emergent, actors causing it basically arent aware of contributing to this. Hegel
provided examples from the various stages of human evolution to illustrate the process of this
theory. Its no history proper; rather its a theory. Its a rational reconstruction, the term
German authors used for the conjectural history method of the Scottish enlightenment, albeit
more rationalistically than the Scots did (Pavlik 2004). But as we can see on Hegels example
here, he followed the argument of this evolution to the more remote consequences in the
human phenomena than the Scots dared. Therefore, those who strive for evolutionary
explanations of institutions, usually from officially quite un-Hegelian standpoints, should
examine Hegel more closely since more possible findings of this kind are possible.
We now close this section by facing our argument against the alternative theories that
emphasize that the nature of Hegels surpluses consists in overproduction (Chamley 1963,
Ruda 2011). Chamley and Ruda interpreted Hegels argument for the civil societys inherent
need to find foreign markets in the light of the contemporary theories of underconsumption.
While Hegel certainly knew theorists of underconsumption of his age, this is rather
economistic reading of Hegel. This is surprising on the one hand, because these economistic
interpreters of Hegel are philosophers themselves. On the other hand, their argument is
understandable given their predominantly Marxist background. Marx system of thought is
the most economistic determinism ever known (Sciabarra 1995: 32). Hegel certainly wasnt
that economistic. Rather, his reasons were certainly more philosophical ones, even
moralizing, as we have already seen. Our interpretation fits more neatly with the Hegels
system than alternative ones and one doesnt have to resort immediately to conclusion that
Hegels theory was inconsistent at this point of rabble. We come next to the emigrating rabble
in the classical Greece, where we will see Hegels predominantly philosophical and moral
meaning of what we name in todays language the evolutionary development of institutions.

Migrating Poor and export of institutions of the Ancient Greece

We know that Hegel considered the substantial estate as logically and historically
primary and in the section above we analysed rather the logical aspect of the argument. We
treated the logic of Hegels analysis of pauperization of the substantial estate in the section
devoted particularly to this problem. Here we concentrate more on the historical aspect of the
pauperization of the citizens no longer capable of making their living in agriculture. In
32

historical aspect, its not surprising that Ancient Greece, the first civilization that Hegel
honoured by calling it Moral society, indeed considered as in many respects the exemplary
civilization, was the first that introduced both marriage and agriculture. In Greek mythology
we have a definite record of the introduction of agriculture by Triptolemus, who was
instructed by Ceres, and of the institution of marriage (Hegel 2001: 245).
The rise of agriculture enabled the population to multiply. But population growth also
arrived at a point, where it puts a pressure on a number of people who can earn their living in
agriculture, especially if the country, here the city state, runs out of soil. This was the case of
the Ancient Greece. Greece was forced by this external pressure to organize systematic
colonization. Of this kind of colonization many forms occurred amongst the ancients,
especially the Greeks. In Greece the citizens did not engage in severe toil, but directed their
energies to public affairs. When the population grew to such an extent that it was difficult to
provide for them, the youth were sent into a new neighbourhood, which, was sometimes
chosen for them, sometimes left to the accident of discovery (Hegel 2001b, 247). Economic
toil was provided by slaves for the greek city-states. So the Morality of the Greek civilization
is limited in Hegels view, since the absence of the Moral order of the reflecting, intermediary
estate, the industry. In Ancient Greece, economic particularity, which is found in wants, is
not yet taken up into freedom, but segregated in a class of slaves (Hegel 2001b, 356).
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel gives much fuller account of the
Greek colonization and its role in civilizing of the neighbouring countries, which was,
however, limited when compared the effects of modern colonization. We will follow its logic
incrementally: The flourishing state of the Greek towns at that time is proved, according to
Thucydides, also by the colonies sent out in every direction. Thus, Athens colonized Ionia and
several islands; and colonies from the Peloponnesus settled in Italy and Sicily. Colonies, on
the other hand, became relatively mother states; e.g., Miletus, which founded many cities on
the Propontis and the Black Sea (Hegel 2001a: 250-1). Civilizations ability to colonize was
the indicator of its success. Here Greek civilization succeeded in establishing colonies, which
in turn continued to establish further colonies.
The success is evidenced by the growth of population and riches, which comes close to
the section 243 of the GPR, where civil society amasses population and riches if left alone:
This sending out of colonies especially during the period between the Trojan war and
Cyrus presents us with a remarkable phenomenon. It can be thus explained. In the several
towns the people had the governmental power in their hands, since they gave the final
decision in political affairs. In consequence of the long repose enjoyed by them, the
33

population and the development of the community advanced rapidly; and the immediate result
was the amassing of great riches, contemporaneously with which fact great want and poverty
make their appearance (Hegel 2001a: 251). But its certainly not the same, as modern civil
society, since industry, in our sense, did not exist; and the lands were soon occupied (Hegel
2001a: 251). The second estate of the civil society didnt exist. As a consequence, no civil
society existed in ancient Greece. But analogous problems were faced as with modern civil
societies.
While rabble didnt exist in modern sense, some poor people cease to feel members of
the moral community of the city-state. They emigrated: a part of the poorer classes would
not submit to the degradations of poverty, for everyone felt himself a free citizen. The only
expedient, therefore, that remained, was colonization. In another country, those who suffered
distress in their own, might seek a free soil, and gain a living as free citizens by its cultivation.
Colonization thus became a means of maintaining some degree of equality among the
citizens (Hegel 2001a: 251). The meaning of this process for our paper is that colonization
by subjectively deprived citizens served here as a means of export of institutions. However,
the spreading of Ancient Greeces institutions was checked by the path-dependent limits of its
institutions: Colonization, as a means is only a palliative, and the original inequality,
founded on the difference of property, immediately reappears. The old passions were
rekindled with fresh violence, and riches were soon made use of for securing power: thus
Tyrants gained ascendancy in the cities of Greece (Hegel 2001a: 251). Presence of tyrants
and absence of the respect for the subject was then the basis for the decay of the Ancient
Greece: subjective particularity is an essential element of communal life, and, when it is not
taken up into the organization of the whole and reconciled in the whole, it must prove a
hostile force and pave the way for the ruin of the social order (Hegel 2001b, 206). It was
then the deeply rooted institutions of the city state that created path-dependence which held
back the further development of the free civilization there and ultimately led to its fall.
Therefore, while we have here analogous phenomenon to one in the modern civil
society, it took falls and rises of couple of civilizations until we arrived at a kind of
civilization, which institutions could be then spread by colonization by the rabble, potentially
to the furthest parts of the world. The first of the nations forming the modern, Germanic
civilization (Hegel 2001b, 354), which succeeded in spreading its institutions by the rabbles
colonization, was England.

34

World-historical role of the English rabble and commerce

How and by which nation is this aim attained first in the history of the modern world?
Its from England: The material existence of England is based on commerce and industry,
and the English have undertaken the weighty responsibility of being the missionaries of
civilization to the world; for their commercial spirit urges them to traverse every sea and land,
to form connections with barbarous peoples, to create wants and stimulate industry, and first
and foremost to establish among them the conditions necessary to commerce, viz. the
relinquishment of a life of lawless violence, respect for property, and civility to strangers
(Hegel 2001: 475-6). So the first step is to establish the very institutions of civil society, i.e.
market institutions.
Emigrating rabble through the sea has its historical role along international trade: The
wider connection due to the sea becomes a means for colonization, to which, be it sporadic or
systematic, the full-grown civic community finds itself impelled (Hegel 2001b, 248).
Colonists were initially not dealt with in the same manner as the home country citizens, but
this was to be changed in the end: In modern times colonists have not been granted the rights
possessed by the inhabitants of the parent country. The result has been war and ultimate
independence, as may be read in the history of the English and Spanish colonies. The
independence of the colonies has turned out to be of the greatest advantage to the mother land,
just as the liberation of the slaves was of the greatest advantage to the masters (Hegel 2001b,
248). But this Resultat was not achieved instantly. Former English rabbles striving for
religious tolerance and for commercial freedom on the untrammelled market in the USA serve
as the material, microeconomic background for this striving of colonized countries for
independence. Most of all, it was realized in the USA of Hegels time.

Philosophy of future rather than history: USA and export of institutions of

the civil society
From the point of view of emerging civilizations, North America was interesting for
Hegel for at least three reasons: (1) they (colonizers) come from Europe, (2) they displaced
civilization with inferior institutions on its land and (3) it will spread institutions of civil
society abroad, perhaps in Latin America.
As to the first, Americans come from Europe: The fact that England is separate from
the Continent, and able to exert influence so widely through its mastery of the seas, makes for
a distinctive spirit and a distinctive external constitution. It is the same with North America,
where the excess population of other states has settled and agriculture, which is elsewhere the
35

basis, is only now expanding. The remoteness from Europe makes a wholly distinctive
constitution essential (Hegel 2012: 248). We have seen on another occasion from which
rabbling groups of people did American ex-European population come from. To repeat, they
comprised (1) from such farmers or artisans who were both made redundant by the growing
productivity in agriculture and were unwilling to find job outside agriculture or

their

industry; (2) from entrepreneurs who were unwilling to pay high taxes in homeland countries
and were willing to avoid restrictions put on their action by the law in their European home
countries. Both of these groups might have been poor or rich.
Without Europeans, there would be no North America. America is a highly interesting
continent, but only by virtue of the fact that Europeans have settled there (Hegel 2007: 90).
There would be no significant development of institutions in North America without
migrating Europeans. There was some institutional development, but really just a little. The
authentic American race has manifested itself as a mature, but also weak, culture of its type
(Hegel 2007: 90).
And that is the second aspect: they displaced the original civilizations of native
Americans: The superior culture of the Europeans crushed those who were incapable of
adjusting to it; when the native Americans came into contact with the European atmosphere,
they were crushed by it, even where they were treated leniently (Hegel 2007: 90).
Superiority of Europeans above native Americans on American soil was caused by different
ways of living. As we already know, USA was still not a civil society in Hegels time,
because it still had free land and its economy was based on expanding agriculture However,
the agricultural way of life did not exist for the native Americans, nor did property ownership
and law, because these are connected with the agriculture (Hegel 2007: 90). Therefore, the
Europeans were superior, because they could utilize resources much more effectively thanks
to differences in institutions.
While aspects of the first two points were clarified clearly, the third aspect, which is the
main point of this chapter, will be addressed by the close analysis of the paragraph in the
Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which is key to Hegels understanding of the progress
of institutions beyond the USA. As to the political condition of North America, the general
object of the existence of this State is not yet fixed and determined, and the necessity for a
firm combination does not yet exist; for a real State and a real Government arise only after a
distinction of estates has arisen, when wealth and poverty become extreme, and when such a
condition of things presents itself that a large portion of the people can no longer satisfy its
necessities in the way in which it has been accustomed so to do. But America is hitherto
36

exempt from this pressure, for it has the outlet of colonization constantly and widely open,
and multitudes are continually streaming into the plains of the Mississippi. By this means the
chief source of discontent is removed, and the continuation of the existing civil condition is
guaranteed (Hegel 2001a: 103). This is significant. The paragraph says that people are
accustomed to earn a living in agriculture and that the USA they have free opportunities to do
so without the need to shift either to formal estate in industry or to the universal estate. It can
dispose of its rabble by internal colonization to the states in the Mississippi valley purchased
in the 1803 Louisiana purchase. With this internal civilization, which was later to spread to
the Pacific, morals and institutions of civil society enforces their existence on ever more area.
The first of this implications starts to reveal themselves on the comparative institutional
developments in the USA and Europe: a comparison of the United States of North America
with European lands is therefore impossible; for in Europe, such a natural outlet for
population, notwithstanding all the emigrations that take place, does not exist. Had the woods
of Germany been in existence, the French Revolution would not have occurred (Hegel
2001b: 103). This is not the same as saying that the French Revolution shouldnt have
happened. Its right through French Revolution that substantial freedoms began to be
enforced. Its just saying that the USA have other possibilities of development of institutional
environment. And its also identifying criteria of appropriate comparison between
civilizations splitted (or connected) through the ocean. North America will be comparable
with Europe only after the immeasurable space which that country presents to its inhabitants
shall have been occupied, and the members of the political body shall have begun to be
pressed back on each other. North America is still in the condition of having land to begin to
cultivate. Only when, as in Europe, the direct increase of agriculturists is checked, will the
inhabitants, instead of pressing outwards to occupy the fields, press inwards upon each other
pursuing town occupations, and trading with their fellow citizens; and so form a compact
system of civil society, and require an organized state (Hegel 2001a: 103). So the
establishment of the civil society is conditioned by the emergence of rabble, sourcing from the
inability of citizens to earn a living the way they like, for example in agriculture.
Once civil society and rabble are developed, the will need to find colonies to emigrate:
The North American Federation have no neighboring State (towards which they occupy a
relation similar to that of European States to each other), one which they regard with mistrust,
and against which they must keep up a standing army. Canada and Mexico are not objects of
fear, and England has had fifty years experience, that free America is more profitable to her
than it was in a state of dependence. The militia of the North American Republic proved
37

themselves quite as brave in the War of Independence as the Dutch under Philip II; but
generally, where Independence is not at stake, less power is displayed, and in the year 1814
the militia held out but indifferently against the English. America is therefore the land of the
future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the Worlds History shall reveal
itself perhaps in a contest between North and South America. It is a land of desire for all
those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of old Europe. Napoleon is reported to
have said: Cette vieille Europe mennuie. It is for America to abandon the ground on which
hitherto the History of the World has developed itself. What has taken place in the New
World up to the present time is only an echo of the Old World the expression of a foreign
Life; and as a Land of the Future, it has no interest for us here, for, as regards History, our
concern must be with that which has been and that which is (Hegel 2001a: 103-4). Couple of
interesting aspects arise from this quote.
Both North and South America were initially European colonies, that acquired
independence in the end. Some of Latin American states acquired it just couple of years
before 1821, which is the date of publication of Hegels Philosophy of Right (Hegel 1991:
454). Why then Hegel wishes these young nations a war against North America, which is to
show its world-historical role? While with the exception of Brazil, republics have come to
occupy South as well as North America (Hegel 2001a: 101), at the same time in comparing
South America (reckoning Mexico as part of it) with North America, we observe an
astonishing contrast (Hegel 2001a: 101). Where does this contrast consist in? In North
America we witness a prosperous state of things; an increase of industry and population civil
order and firm freedom; the whole federation constitutes but a single state, and has its
political centres. In South America, on the contrary, the republics depend only on military
force; their whole history is a continued revolution; federated states become disunited; others
previously separated become united; and all these changes originate in military revolutions.
The more special differences between the two parts of America show us two opposite
directions, the one in political respects, the other in regard to religion (Hegel 2001a: 101).
Hegel considered religious differences and political differences as partial causes of the
institutional differences. Theory of religious impact on institutions is fascinating. Just recall
Hayeks hypothesis on group selection of civilizations given the adaptability of morals their
religions sanction (compare Hayek 1988: 135-140). But our attention here must be paid more
to the political causes of different developments: A wider distinction is presented in the fact,
that South America was conquered, but North America colonized. The Spaniards took
possession of South America to govern it, and to become rich through occupying political
38

offices, and by exactions. Depending on a very distant mother country, their desires found a
larger scope, and by force, address and confidence they gained a great predominance over the
Indians. The North American States were, on the other hand, entirely colonised, by
Europeans, Since in England Puritans, Episcopalians, and Catholics were engaged in
perpetual conflict, and now one party, now the other, had the upper hand, many emigrated to
seek religious freedom on a foreign shore. These were industrious Europeans, who betook
themselves to agriculture, tobacco and cotton planting, etc. Soon the whole attention of the
inhabitants was given to labor, and the basis of their existence as a united body lay in the
necessities that bind man to man, the desire of repose, the establishment of civil rights,
security and freedom, and a community arising from the aggregation of individuals as atomic
constituents; so that the state was merely something external for the protection of property
(Hegel 2001a: 101-2). These political reasons, together with religious, lead to creation of the
forms which are called Constitutions are in this case only a resort of necessity, and are no
protection against mistrust (Hegel 2001a: 102). So we have here Hegelian theory of
institutional differences as caused here by differences in politics and religion. We saw already
from Hegels comparison of the North American and european constitutions, that economic
factors also determine institutions. In this case it was the difference in presence of the
abundant free land in the USA unlike in Europe.
So to the political differences: North America was colonized, while South was
conquered. Its difference between conquering a country and colonizing it. Conquerors want
to extract property for themselves and dont care about the rise of the wealth of nation.
Colonizers depend in their wealth on their own endeavours. It should be clear by now that
Hegels institutional analysis comes close to the type of analysis as represented by Acemoglu
and Robinson (Acemoglu, Robinson 2012). What is more, colonizers import with themselves
morals of their home countries. They demand constitutional burdens on parliament, at least in
securing their lives, private property and basic freedoms from. On the other hand,
conquerors arent that numerous in the country of aborigines who wont acquire morals of
conquerors countries of origin, especially if, as is probable, conquerors extract the wealth
from the conquered country. This is the reason why its no coincidence that the means for
exporting institutions of civil society is attributed just to colonizing foreign countries, not to
conquering (compare par. 248 of the GPR). What Hegel imagined would be the result of the
possible war of the USA against South America, is not known. Establishing US colonies in
South America would not the only thinkable possibility. The seeming contrast of this
conclusion with Hegels logic of acquiring independence as the ultimate logical end of the
39

development of colonies does not at all exist. South America had acquired independence then,
but didnt have civil societies to maintain the free states, which is the actual ultimate logical
end of Hegels Philosophy of Spirit. Absence of institutions of civil society within free state
can have severe consequences for the state, with stagnation being the least severe one. Free
states with developed civil societies will have have to place the excess population and
surplus production to stagnating countries. Wars might break out and systematic
colonization might occur. Afterwards, institutions of stagnating countries will be either
developed to become civil societies or will be replaced as a whole. We cant say what Hegels
take was on these problems, because we lack textual evidence.
We lack the evidence also because future and predictions of its course werent that
interesting for Hegel, who was predominantly a philosopher and a historian: What has taken
place in the New World up to the present time is only an echo of the Old World the
expression of a foreign Life; and as a Land of the Future, it has no interest for us here, for, as
regards History, our concern must be with that which has been and that which is. In regard to
Philosophy, on the other hand, we have to do with that which (strictly speaking) is neither
past nor future, but with that which is, which has an eternal existence with Reason; and this
is quite sufficient to occupy us (Hegel 2001a: 104). He saw no role for inquiring future. He
saw it neither in philosophy nor in history. The method of inquiry Hegel used here has been
described as rational reconstruction of institutions upon which mankind stumbled upon
(Baur 2015: 77), but it cant interest us here. Therefore, Hegel was, quite unlike his youngHegelian followers like August von Cieszkowski (Cieszkowski 1838), not occupied with
extrapolating historical and present developments towards future. Hegels abstract predictions
on future course of developments in Americas we could reconstruct from one of the few
number of such predictions in his oeuvre.

Systematic and sporadic rabbles emigration: Does Germany need

colonies?
Even if we are unaware of existence of any further Hegels textual evidence on
suggested solution to the predicted institutional future in South America, striving for solution
of analogous problem might be looked for in Hegels predictions of Germanys colonial
future. Since in Hegels view, he considered his time to be the Germanic realm (Hegel
1991: 379; 358), and since all great and enterprising nations push their way to the sea
(Hegel 1991: 269; 247), we should expect Hegel predicting German export of institutions of
civil society which will be more rational (Vernunft) than that of the just understanding
40

(Verstand) Britons, who were in Hegels eyes even so silly that they discontinued
corporations. He was persuaded that the German Nation was characterized by the sense of
Natural Totality an idiosyncrasy which we may call Heart [Gemth] (Hegel 2001a: 367),
and as a consequence, we can perhaps expect him having some private opinion on future
developments of Germany acquiring colonies and behaving differently towards them.
However, of these we have no evidence because Hegel didnt write it down, since he didnt
want to speculate. The only aspect that we find in Hegels thought to be told on Germany and
colonies is that unlike England, its migration was sporadic rather than systematic, which
leads, as we will see just shortly, to different consequences.
Hegel distinguished two types of colonization: systematic and sporadic: Sea supplies
the means necessary for colonization - whether sporadic or systematic - to which the fully
developed civil society is driven (Hegel 1991: 269; 248). One has the world-historical role
and the other doesnt: Sporadic colonization is found particularly in Germany. The colonists
move to America or Russia and retain no links with their home country, to which they are
consequently of no service. The second variety of colonization, quite different from the first,
is systematic. It is initiated by the state, which is aware of the proper way of carrying it out
and regulates it accordingly (Hegel 1991: 269; 248). When sporadic colonists dont have
any connection with the home country, they - according to Hegel - cannot serve as a means
for exporting institutions of homelands civil society. There is no economic difference on the
motherland between sporadic and systematic colonization and trade, especially, as Hegel
admits, its beneficial for the homeland to let the former colonies free. Therefore we cant
speak here of supposed benefits of monopolies in international trade such as mercantilist. The
only thing that is different here is that in systematic colonization also motherland states
institutions are at first externally imparted overseas by the state and then exported internally
with the morals and preferences of emigrating rabble that would be otherwise discontent at
the country of origin.
As we have seen, Hegel has been interpreted as admitting that imperial country might
use colonies to rabble the other countries rather than mine (Buchwalter 2015). If this was so,
how come that there was no ochlocracy in the USA in Hegels observations and predictions?
Since ochlocracy is the rule by rabble. If they were right with respect to Hegel, we should
observe in his oeuvre the continuous depletion of our institutions to ochlocracy. Rather, signs
of ochlocracy occurs at the periphery, in Italy. In England, instead, even poor know their
right, and although rabble is generated there, no rabble remains there in the end.

41

So did Hegels system inherently demand systematic colonization for Germans? Apart
from Hegels personal preferences, which probably preferred such eventuality, we must say in
the light of what was said until now, that there is no inherent inevitability in Hegels system
that would lead Germany to systematic colonization. If Hegels aim of the colonization is to
export the institutions of civil society, then it suffices that other countries provide this export
of institutions. For the nature of the argument it doesnt matter, what is the country of origin
of colonization. Nature of the argument requires only the fact that there exists at least one
country with systematic colonization, no matter what country it is. This is a further argument
against interpreting Hegel as a violent advocate of the expansive Prussian state.
And finally, apart from migration through sea to other continents with the aim of
establishing colonies and with the by-product of exporting institutions of civil society, Hegel
inquired an intra-continental export of institutions as well. Within the Germanic realm,
Napoleon was the great exporter of institutions of civil society, whom Hegel admired greatly,
which we wont analyze here. We will direct our interest here towards Hegels take on the
problem that interests us greatly right now: to Hegels take on migration from non-European
poorer civilizations to richer civilizations, and for which he was also mocked. Thus Hegel
acquires - surely highly explosive soil for a nowadays man, but not that much for him - of
comparing Indigenous people of America and African Americans on their permissibility
towards accepting European, or rather American morals: The weakness of the American
physique was a chief reason for bringing the negroes to America, to employ their labor in the
work that had to be done in the New World; for the negroes are far more susceptible of
European culture than the Indians, and an English traveller has adduced instances of negroes
having become competent clergymen, medical men, etc. (a negro first discovered the use of
the Peruvian bark), while only a single native was known to him whose intellect was
sufficiently developed to enable him to study, but who had died soon after beginning, through
excessive brandy-drinking (Hegel 2001a: 99). We saw above in our analysis of the
developments in the USA, that Indigenous people were basically displaced when they came to
compete with superior European institutions - superior in the meaning of Hayekian group
selection of civilizations. Hayek also inquired the displacement of Indigenous civilizations:
the American historian James Sullivan remarked, as early as 1795, how the native Americans
had been displaced by European colonists, and that now five hundred thinking beings could
prosper in the same area where previously only a single savage could `drag out a hungry
existence' as a hunter (Hayek 1988: 120-1).

42

So Africans and Asians, unlike Indigenous people, have some chance to enforce and
maintain their civilizations and institutions. Hegel finds one such historical - and
contemporary - example in the empire of Persia, on which he has some nice things to say. He
even compares it to Germany and that is a real honour from Hegel: The Persian Empire is an
Empire in the modern sense like that which existed in Germany, and the great imperial
realm under the sway of Napoleon; for we find it consisting of a number of states, which are
indeed dependent, but which have retained their own individuality, their manners, and laws.
The general enactments, binding upon all, did not infringe upon their political and social
idiosyncrasies, but even protected and maintained them; so that each of the nations that
constitute the whole, had its own form of Constitution. As Light illuminates everything
imparting to each object a peculiar vitality so the Persian Empire extends over a multitude
of nations, and leaves to each one its particular character. Some have even kings of their own;
each one its distinct language, arms, way of life, and customs. All this diversity coexists
harmoniously under the impartial dominion of Light. The Persian Empire comprehends all the
three geographical elements, which we classified as distinct. First, the Uplands of Persia and
Media; next, the Valley-plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, whose inhabitants are found united
in a developed form of civilization, with Egypt the Valley-plain of the Nile where
agriculture, industrial arts and sciences flourished; and lastly a third element, viz. the nations
who encounter the perils of the sea the Syrians, the Phoenicians, the inhabitants of the
Greek colonies and Greek Maritime States in Asia Minor. Persia thus united in itself the three
natural principles, while China and India remained foreign to the sea. We find here neither
that consolidated totality which China presents, nor that Hindoo life, in which an anarchy of
caprice is prevalent everywhere (Hegel 2001a: 206). So Hegel would suppose Middle
Eastern countries to establish something like a federative empire and surely to continue to
trade via the sea and exchange people, wares, thought on state, religion and philosophy with
the Occident. However, in the light of the recent Nobel prize winning economist Angus
Deaton, we should be warned against our intervention in developing countries (Deaton 2015).
Os Persian countries, Syria plays the special role for Hegel. It is acquainted to the sea
and as such is more prone to trade, migration and exchange of ideas, religion and institutions.
List of their achievements and institutions established is impressive in Hegels view: One
element the coast territory which also belonged to the Persian Empire, is especially
represented by Syria. It was peculiarly important to the Persian Empire; for when Continental
Persia set out on one of its great expeditions, it was accompanied by Phoenician as well as by
Greek navies. The Phoenician coast is but a very narrow border often only two leagues
43

broad which has the high mountains of Lebanon on the East. On the seacoast lay a series of
noble and rich cities, as Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Berytus, carrying on great trade and commerce;
which last, however, was too isolated and confined to that particular country, to allow it to
affect the whole Persian state. Their commerce lay chiefly in the direction of the
Mediterranean sea, and it reached thence far into the West. Through its intercourse with so
many nations, Syria soon attained a high degree of culture. There the most beautiful
fabrications in metals and precious stones were prepared, and there the most important
discoveries, e.g., of Glass and of Purple, were made. Written language there received its first
development, for in their intercourse with various nations the need of it was soon felt. (So, to
quote another example, Lord Macartney observes that in Canton itself, the Chinese had felt
and expressed the need of a more pliable written language.) The Phoenicians discovered and
first navigated the Atlantic Ocean. They had settlements in Cyprus and Crete. In the remote
island of Thasos, they worked gold mines. In the south and southwest of Spain they opened
silver mines. In Africa they founded the colonies of Utica and Carthage. From Gades they
sailed far down the African coast, and according to some, even circumnavigated Africa. From
Britain they brought tin, and from the Baltic, Prussian amber. This opens to us an entirely new
principle. Inactivity ceases, as also mere rude valor; in their place appears the activity of
Industry, and that considerate courage which, while it dares the perils of the deep, rationally
bethinks itself of the means of safety. Here everything depends on Mans activity, his
courage, his intelligence; while the objects aimed at are also pursued in the interest of Man.
Human will and activity here occupy the foreground, not Nature and its bounty. Babylonia
had its determinate share of territory, and human subsistence was there dependent on the
course of the sun and the process of Nature generally. But the sailor relies upon himself amid
the fluctuations of the waves, and eye and heart must be always open. In like manner the
principle of Industry involves the very opposite of what is received from Nature; for natural
objects are worked up for use and ornament. In Industry Man is an object to himself, and
treats Nature as something subject to him, on which he impresses the seal of his activity.
Intelligence is the valor needed here, and ingenuity is better than mere natural courage. At this
point we see the nations freed from the fear of Nature and its slavish bondage (Hegel 2001a:
209-11). Nowadays all these achievements seem to be under destruction from above, but
thats perhaps not true of their inhabitants.
If something of this commercial morality remains in Syrian population, we could have
quite happy future. Without claiming that this is really applicable in our case, we note that
Hegel knew also of different kind of migration from less known ancient civilization to
44

Ancient Greece, where they blended with the original population and helped establish some of
the very important institutions: We thus observe a colonization by civilized peoples, who
were in advance of the Greeks in point of culture: though we cannot compare this colonization
with that of the English in North America, for the latter have not been blended with the
aborigines, but have dispossessed them; whereas in the case of the settlers in Greece the
adventitious and autochthonic elements were mixed together. The date assigned to the arrival
of these colonists is very remote the fourteenth and fifteenth century before Christ.
Cadmus is said to have founded Thebes about 1490 B.C. a date with which the Exodus of
Moses from Egypt (1500 B.C.) nearly coincides. Amphictyon is also mentioned among the
Founders of Greek institutions; he is said to have established at Thermopylae a union between
many small tribes of Hellas proper and Thessaly a combination with which the great
Amphictyonic league is said to have originated. These foreigners, then, are reputed to have
established fixed centres in Greece by the erection of fortresses (Hegel 2001a: 246). We
close this paper with this depicting of Hegels analysis of alternative flows of migration and
trade, because he certainly observed that migration and trade and creation of institutions are
not always one-directional vector. Often there are other types of institutional interactions.
What is certainly different from 19th century, and even more different from Hegels
negative view of population, European civilization and not just it faces now a natural
population decline. So we shouldnt be surprised if migration flows are reversed when
compared to what Hegel analyzed predominantly.

Conclusion
This papers aim was to reconstruct Hegels analysis of rabble in the light of new
institutional economics. We believe it offers a better framework than those alternative ones
for the understanding of the internal consistency of the supposed only inherent contradiction
in Hegels oeuvre, of his rabble. In the literature review, we identified difficulties interpreters
have had with this understanding. First, despite most of them are philosophers, they
understood Hegel economically after the example of Marx. Rather, we propose to inquire
Hegels rabble philosophically, although the subject matter is of course economic. We argue
that Hegel provided a reason (Vernunft) for mere understanding (Verstand) of the classical
political economy. We provide evidence that alternative approaches economism precludes
them from Hegelian explanation the philosophical aspect of the overseas trade connected with
systematic migration: the world-historical role of trade. We found further mistake in
45

translating of Hegels berflu as overproduction, which is however rather the term

belonging to our time than to his. Instead, we suggest to translate it as surplus, a term which
was at that time traditionally used in the classical political economy. It was used there to
analyze the emergence of trade and mutual exchange of surpluses. We interpret Hegels
rabble in this context. We then examine our earned framework on the examined problem of
the institutional impacts of the trading with colonies.
Before it we analyze the internal institutional development within civil societies, and we
base our analysis on Hegels Philosophy of Right and his complementary texts. We find on a
variety of topics that logical development of categories leading to state in the Philosophy of
Right will be seen in less dogmatic and more evolutionary institutionalist fashion when seen
in their historical developments, especially as depicted in his Lectures on the Philosophy of
History. For example we find that corporations may arise spontaneously, although they are
aimed at the end of maintaining the state in its whole institutional structure.
Furthermore, in examining Hegels analyses of English developments of rabble we find
that unlike in other nations, no rabble remains in the country despite the fact that the civil
society is most developed there. We find the immediate sublation of the category of rabble in
emigration abroad via the systematic colonization. In English case that means predominantly
migration to the USA. But its not just USA. English undertook the world-historical role
through their trade and colonies. We identify groups of people prone to become a rabble in
their home country and examine their reasons to emigrate. We then turn to USA and analyse
the effects of the overseas trade and migration on its institutions. Civil society didnt yet exist
in the USA in Hegels view and it wouldnt until there is still abundant land in the American
Midwest and West. Until then, former rabble finds their morals potentially leading to the civil
society in the USA. Afterwards we deduce what was Hegels ideas on the world-historical
role that USA will play in future according to him.
In the last section we we inquire on Hegels sporadic mentions of alternative directions
of migration flows than from imperial countries towards colonies. We identify Hegels
distinctions in permissibility to Occidental institutions between Indigenous people and
African Americans. The latter had much more potential for future develpments in Hegels
view. We identify the intra-continental export of institutions of the Napoleons type as well.
This type of intra-continental export of institutions happened in Persian empire as well,
according to Hegel. We find that Hegel identified the highest potential for future
developments of institutions in Syria.

46

We of course admit we have here another type of problems than what Hegel tackled and
we of course admit that Hegels explanations of what was going on in proto-institutional
economics of his time wasnt exactly accurate. However, the aim of this paper wasnt to
criticize Hegel, but to reconstruct his argument and to extract from him the possible maximum
for the evolutionary institutionalist view - and we find there that he made advances in this
field over Adam Smith and that his approach - although couched in obscure terminology basically belongs in the evolutionary institutionalist camp. Its this type of approach which
might best help when inquiring interactions of members of different civilizations on
institutions and feedbacks to citizens morals or when implementing policies involving
members of different civilizations in the same country.
We close this conclusion by some suggestions for future research. Since our approach in
this paper is hugely indebted to Hayek, it should be inquired in the light of this paper, what
parts of his critique of Hegel is valid and which not. Hayek was honest and strictly positive
scientist when he said he didnt understand Hegel. There is the evidence in Hayek-Library in
Salzburg that he really tried to understand Hegel, because he owned the whole Works of
Hegel, some of which are carefully filled with notes on page margins. We assume he was
confused by Hegels obscure idealist glossary. Unlike Hayeks famous dictum that I do not
pretend to understand Hegel (Hayek 2013: 290) we think we understood Hegel. But Hayeks
criticism was a serious one and it needs reevaluation.
If we are right in our conclusions, it should have much more important impacts on
studies in Hegels political philosophy. Since predominant part of interpretations on Hegel are
young-Hegelian or post-young-Hegelian ones, they would need to reevaluate their
conclusions in the light of our approach.
If this institutional approach to Hegels political philosophy is quite right, there are
much more institutions to be explained than just the export of institutions of civil society. We
mentioned on couple of occasions that beyond economic and geographical causes of the
differences in institutions exported there are also religions. Here we can ask: to what extent is
Hegel the precursor of Max Weber with his Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism? Then
there is here Hegels method of rational reconstruction that should be reinterpreted in the
more evolutionary institutionalist way. Or, better said, reinterpret it so as to be able to explain
the evolution of institutions. Furthermore, these explorations in Hegels take on other
institutions need to reevaluate Hegels conclusions in the light of newer scholarship.
Moreover, special and alternative developments in the non-European countries will have to be

47

incorporated in such scholarship, for example developments in India, because previously it

caused just a lot of outrage (see Hegel 1995, edited by Herring).
Our argument relies partly on distinguishing between Hegels philosophical economy
(Vernunft) and classical political economys character of mere understanding (Verstand).
Thereafter we deduced that Hegel made proto-institutionalist advancements above Adam
Smith political economy. Along the way we criticized predominantly economistic approach
of Marxian Hegelians. But then we offered from todays standpoint, the solution of modern
evolutionary institutional economics. We consider it not an inherent contradiction. On the
contrary, losing its track, substantial part of the non-institutionalist political philosophy of
today might have lost the track. Further challenge might be posed here for the interpretations
of Hegel in cameralist tradition. What cameralist arguments are sublated in Hegels
philosophical proto-institutional political economy?
In the end, we are aware of the fact that the present paper needs a lot more polishing. It
needs to evaluate more titles of relevant literature. It needs to be systematized and quotes need
to be shortened, as well as the whole paper should be shortened. We welcome any comments
or suggestions which might lead to such polishing of this or future papers of ours.

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