The commercial economic basis of society pre-supposes that the accumulation of capital or wealth depends on having or being in control of one’s own property or possessions(s). This is further validated through Common laws, Statutes or Regulations (all derivatives of Civil Law) and which, in civil society, is expressed as constitutional or civil rights – guarantees under a legal constitution and system of Law..
Capitalism (as a socializing form of political dominance) requires a civility that is responsive to aggregate appeals to personal self-interests. It is dependent upon market forces comprised of self-interests that contain the means and power to dictate the terms and conditions of the marketplace. It is not, however, solely bound to the dictates of the market for orientation towards political objectives as it is for economic ones.
Opposition to a ruling or dominant class has the potential to effect changes when it is properly directed at the seat(s) of Power – especially one that appears to be fractured or divided. Its purpose should be the reshaping or transformation of the basis by which previous or existing rules, regulation and statutes were derived and came about to be dominant ones. Equality is, after all, only a guiding principle of liberally constituted and democratic states.
The application of reason as a standard by which civil laws are deemed constitutional highlights recognition by the middle-class that it is private citizens, with common or similar private interests and acting in public manner, that gives legitimacy and impetus to public discourses – social issues.
It is the introduction or airing of private interests in the public realms of society that removes any claims to purely private matters or a private sphere within civil society. It is, in fact, more of a social convention than a reality.
This is further complicated by the introduction of socialized forms of labour and commodity exchange. Commercialisation of the processes serves to co-mingle and create dependencies between the domain of the household economy and that of the State. A codependent relationship of social reproduction that is dependent on the participation of the private citizens.
The state as a political embodiment (Public) is a subset of collective (private citizens) that tacitly agrees to be governed by laws and constitutions. In the absence of a citizenry with property, goods or services or the means to engage in exchange – freely or for reciprocal value, the states become a mere fiction.
It is by means of this combining of varied self-interests (Private and intimate) with the common interests (general will) of the State that commercial enterprise was able to gain a foothold and become representative of public or general interests of the State, in relation to its citizens. And, it by the combination of such means that the political function and purpose of the state shifted away from the private to a public sphere – by virtue of the fact that the representatives of the Public either owned or managed the commercial means of production.
The private sphere still remains or refers to that intimate area within the public sphere that is concerned with the conjugal relationships between individual and private citizens. It represents an area of society that, by convention, receives special protection from undue intrusion by the state or any of its agencies.
With commercialisation, civil society (public and private spheres) underwent a transformation that rests primarily on the need for, or access to, previously ‘private’ information. News and media became inseparable twins indispensable to the defining the public or civil realms of society. The marketplace (or workplace) provides venues or become forums in which citizens interact and engage in critical social discourses about society in general or a particular senses.
Arts and Letters and the Middle Class:
The rise of the middle class was not just as a result of or consequence of capitalism or commercialisation of the means of production and other economic underpinnings. The liberalisation of democratic society brought about fundamental transformations within the civil state. One such change was the shifting of the seat of power and political authority. The emergence of the middle class is similar to the type of political power the church (the cleric class) exercised during such times as feudalism. That is, control the flow or access to source of ‘knowledge’ and you can almost single-handedly control any society.
Capitalism may have given birth to mercantilism (or vice-versa) but it was the freeing up of men of Arts and Letters (educated men) that served to free up and liberalise civil society. The envisioned and constructed the bridge between the citizens and the dominant ruling class(es) – aristocracy, that eventually reduced the clear walls of demarcation between public and private spheres.
The upper middle class was representative of a section of society that fell outside the purview of both the church and the courts. Their allegiances informed by but not fully dictated by that of the aristocracy or the clergy – spiritual leaders of the Monarchy but servants none-the-less.
A necessary condition of the upper bourgeoisie rise to political power was that, being representatives of the Crown (public) and the citizenry (private) interests meant that they had to be privy to private information in both realms – the position previously held and monoplised by the clergy.
The emergent bourgeoisie had learnt the art of social control from their master, the dominant classes of the aristocrats and the clergy of the ‘general public’s’ distaste for the affectations of the ‘elegant world of the aristocrats’. And so, in time, this became an indispensable rational to the necessity of transforming the state apparatus from a courtly-noble affair to that of a bourgeois affair – a counter-poise that developed in the towns and cities, all centers of civil society that was fully dependent on social means of production which dictated the cultural and political orientation of the modern liberal state.
As a consequence, the State (public sphere) came to represent the crucible in which the heirs of aristocratic society came into contact and interacted with the emergent middle class. Their common interests, among others, included intellectual pursuits and critical social discourses that brought to the fore issues that were of a simmering and political nature. In time, the aristocratic forms of polite society, the courts, were replaced by such forums as salons and coffee-houses.
Private
– Natural Rights, freedoms and liberties – Civil Society, the realm of commodity exchange and social labour – Conjugal or Family rights based on property ownership
Public
– Political Realm – Arts and Letters (press and social clubs) – Market of culture products – Towns
State / Public Authority
– Administrative and Executive arms of civil government – State policing – Courts, nobles or aristocratic society
It’s worth noting that in discussing the public and private spheres of civil society – in the context of democratic ideals – that the lines of demarcation are not so clear.
In the sphere of the conjugal family there exists a certain publicness within the privateness of that relationship. It manifests itself in the public nature of the family, property ownership, wealth, status and basis of sovereignty.
The transition of society from feudalistic to commercial and social means of production (labour and commodity exchange) straddles certain aspects of both the private and public spheres. In time, this amalgamation or convergence of both areas came to be seen and understood as realms of private or public interests. And so, this embedding of cross-interests collectively defines the political spheres.
Social Institutions and the Public Sphere:
The 17th century gave rise to the notion that Public refers to both court (civil institutions) and urban areas. It’s where private citizens were most likely to meet, became consumers or publicly became critics of arts and letters. All of which had previously been in the sphere of urban nobility. Urban areas assumed the functions of cultural purveyors, transforming the spheres within which the aristocracy propagated its social status of nobility. It was also where the seeds of liberalism germinated.
The ascendancy of arts and letters as means to improving one’s social status, along with the commercial interests (free exchange of goods, services or labour) transformed and realigned the existing power relations, away from the aristocrats and into the hands of the middle class.
This provided an illusion of ‘parity of the educated’ in which it was understood or agreed to that there were sufficient reasons to maintain existing political structures and institutions It is where public discussions taking place among the educated and literate commercial interests found legitimacy and support outside the courts
It was an atmosphere in which all interested parties, regardless of their considered self-interests, found a legitimate function for the state and its institutions: territorial sovereignty maintained by commercial enterprises. Individual sovereignty then converged with that of the Sovereign State.
The convergence of the upper strata of the bourgeoisie and aristocrats ensured that the prevailing social controls and functions of previous institutions were retained since they represented the landed and moneyed interests of the period.
Critical public debates of such state of affairs took place through art and literature; and as such, the airing of political or economic issues in this manner – far from being inconsequential – had far reaching social implications.
Women, for example, were often excluded from participation in such discussions – in spite of the claims of constitutional equality of citizens under the law. What, perhaps, was not lost on the general population was the growing political power of groups, organisations and associations. And so, in time, there was an emergence and growth of other public groups and associations that represented the private and commercial interests of artisans, craftsmen, shopkeepers, labourers and so forth. They were eventually seen as necessary components of the commercial interests of the state as a territorial entity.
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