Hegel and the Problem of Affluence

sIntroductionsIt is widely known that Hegel's lectures on the Philosophy of Right recognize poverty as one of the central structural problems of modern civil society (see Avineri 2003; Wood 1990; Hardimon 1994: 236–50). Indeed, Hegel thinks that the modern market economy has poverty as one of its necessary side-effects and, because of this, gives rise not only to individual ‘misery (Elend)’ (Hegel 1986: §1851), but also, at least among the disenfranchised, to a deep dissatisfaction with the current economic and social order—a dissatisfaction which Hegel even describes as a form of hate and resentment (Hegel 1986: §244 + Z). Given his overall endorsement of the modern market economy, Hegel therefore works hard to show—as has been frequently discussed in the literature (see, for example, Schülein 2017; Herzog 2015)—that the problem of poverty can somehow be contained or at least ameliorated from within such a market-based economic system and without conceding its central principles.sBut while commentators are certainly justified in directing attention to the problem of poverty (which Hegel seems to think is the most serious and urgent problem in modern civil society; see, for example Hegel 1986: §244Z), poverty is not the only significant problem of modern civil society. In fact, as I show in this essay, Hegel sees another significant structural problem of modern civil society at the opposite end of the economic spectrum—a problem surrounding the affluent and wealthy (that is, those who have much more than they require to satisfy their basic needs). This is most clearly expressed in Hegel's 1819/1820 lectures, when the text, in a somewhat surprising formulation, announces that ‘[b]oth of these sides, poverty and affluence, represent the scourge (Verderben) of civil society’ (Hegel 1983b: 196, my emphasis).sIndeed, if we read Hegel's lectures with only this particular...