Public or Private Sphere refers to or have multiple meanings that are concurrent to one another. In the modern senses – it is understood to mean a description of the development of historical middle-class society.
Society in which commerce and industry surround notions of the State being held accountable for the general welfare of its citizens, all seen as equals. In time, this has evolved and combined to become liberal democratic society.
All of which serve to cloud the issue of what is truly private and public in any civil society? In a sense, it amounts to who’s in control of the political agendas within civil society.
Social Structures
Seen as a legitimate, social or political entity, the State is endowed with Sovereign Authority – constitutional power that is representative, legislative and regulatory or, by extension, the executive arm of the citizenry, in general.
The purpose of the State, therefore, becomes that of governor, protector or regulator of the (collective) activities of its members (citizens) who are represented, first, as individuals then as groups or associations and any infinite number of sub-groups.
The collective, social, political, territorial entity
Individual citizens constitute and embody the civil (and so, political) governance of multiple and diverse and sovereign self-interests.
The people, consisting of private individuals, living in civil society are simultaneously the State and of the State.
In essence, the state can, perhaps, be best seen as a set of causal social relationships As dynamics that occur among individuals – each of whom is motivated by considered self-interests. These self-interests transform themselves through social interaction, association and structure – finding expression in the Will of the People or Political will. The Public.
Civil society’s requires certain necessary conditions for the collective good and proper formation before it can evolve into a just and lawful civil state – its mandate.
Liberal and democratic notions assert that all men are born or created as equals; and as such, society exists only where or when everyone has something to lose or gain – civil or not.
Out of this we are confronted by the dialectics and dichotomies of unrestrained Freedom and constitutional Equality; each of which poses separate paradoxes – none that threatens to weaken the basis of civil or political relationships, only to highlight their frailty as social constructs.
Perhaps, they simultaneously act and strengthen the process through which society manages to retain a coherency or understanding of the sovereign twins – Private and Public spheres – of civil society.
The most basic of all societal relationships – that of preservation of self, without doing undue or unnecessary harm to others evolves from a rather very basic religious or social doctrine as contained in – Do unto others as you would have done unto you.
Without this basic understanding of society’s fundamental requirement of enforced and necessary conditions of civility all social groups verge on dissolution back to a ‘state of nature’. And so, it’s in the State’s considered good and best interest (self-preservation through rational governance) to ensure that constitutional rights of all or most of its citizens is civilly protected.
The state then acts to regulate and protect the private and civil rights of all citizens. This is especially so with respect to activities which do not directly or unduly affect other citizens of equal civil and constitutional rights as enshrined or guaranteed under Law and Statutes.
The basis whereby a state legitimises itself within civil and constitutional societies resides in the legitimacy of the laws of the land that emanate from the citizens and free men.
In a legally constituted civil, democratic and liberal society – men are not free, as some assert. Rather, they are merely equals restrained and encouraged to behave in a civil manner with respect to one another – under penalty of Law.
(A step up from, perhaps, a lynch mob mentality to one where the public is called upon to render their verdict on the degree or extent to which more than just the letter of the Law should or should not apply – in particular and general instances of breaches of civil trust, obligations and expectations.)
Social associations
Human constructs – in one form or another, clearly demonstrate the need for a coherence of purpose in all relationships. These are issues that countless many have addressed over the centuries and which demonstrate that man, the social animal, is far more complex as a political animal that engages in social activity as a means to an end.
The dialectics of such relationships expresses themselves most clearly in a political sphere (state) that embraces democratic and liberal ideals as being the ends and means of a just and civil society. In a word, civil society – for it to exist – requires a giving and a taking. The formation or embodiment of the state serves to give coherence to the diversity of relationships that can or may arise within any social group or democratic association in which progress is measured in terms such as compromise or settlement.
The State, legitimate representative of private, individual interests or activities, ought to act only when doing so in the State’s (Public) best interest – legitimising laws, rules, regulation or statutes (or even common courtesy) as necessary or permissible expectations – to the extent that they do not negatively impact on all or the majority of citizens.
The public and private spheres of citizens in a liberal, democratic society then becomes the crucible within which the degree or limits of constitutional equality is tested and measured and dispensed.
Within this domain of governance or regulation, activities that do not require or demand public governance or accounting (that is, those activities that tend to minimally impact on the proper or continued functioning of the State as the legislative, regulative or executive instrument or extension of sovereign and individual citizens) become, in essence, that which requires self-governance; and, as such, is of private interests or no business of the State or the Public.
The State, as a Publicly constituted institution – consisting of sovereign and individual citizens – in and of itself, cannot legitimately wield or use coercive force; except as an instrument:
In defense of its continued political sovereignty (Territorial nature) when expressed, demanded or expected by the general and Public Will of the citizens.
Defense of its citizens, social institutions, property and wealth against all forces (external or internal, and therefore, illegitimate) that threaten the State’s right to exist as a sovereign political entity or institution founded on the sovereignty of its citizens – the Public will.
And, lastly – perhaps, most importantly, the unyielding defense and protection of all citizens (preservation of their collective sovereignty- political will) against any and all forces that threaten the free use or exercise of natural rights to which all men are born or entitled -in pursuit of such things as life, liberty, happiness, accumulation of wealth or property.
Failure to uphold these, especially the latter, threatens but does not necessarily lead to dissolution of the State’s sovereignty, power and authority. It merely become dispersed, lacks focus, coherence or purpose, in a collective sense. The individuals still all strive for self-preservation or self-interests.
The notion of a Public Sphere finds currency primarily in liberal democracies as they emerged out of a middle class ideology which posits that private persons, groups or associations all come together for some common interest(s) – self preservation – in a sphere that encompass ideals such as life, liberty and the pursuit of (unencumbered) happiness.
All which presupposes that the acquisition, accumulation or transference of property, wealth, goods or services, are natural or god-given rights to which all men are entitled. Men with possessions, prior to them first coming together, associate with one another (common interests) out of which evolve civil society.
These sovereign and inalienable rights then bind men into a cohesive whole (society). They serve as the means or measure by which sovereign individuals – in full possession of inalienable or sovereign rights, acting as individuals work together for some collective or common interest – willingly submitting themselves, possessions or services to the general welfare and protection of all within the association. A common good that, individually or collectively, posing as Natural Rights – pre-supposes that all men have or possess something in common with one another – is seen as a set of (subjective) inalienable rights endowed to all men.
This commonality of purpose is itself inalienable. That is, it is incapable of being transferred. At best, it can only be approximated or have the appearance of being transferable. And, that being the case, it follows, it cannot be taken away against one’s will. It can be restrained, regulated, curtailed or denied. None of which changes the fact that it’s a fallacy to suppose that rights (deemed or perceived as being natural or inalienable) can never be lost in the strictest sense or meaning of the word.
The nature of politics
What civil associations, groups or individuals are capable of doing, in a political sense, is constrained by the very bonds which make it a necessary condition to the progressive development or evolution of men from social to political animals with common goals, interests and expectations.
Citizens of legally constituted states, are sovereign and considered equals in all things that do not require the intervention or intercession of either the State or any of its legally appointed or designated representatives or state officials (bureaucrat and bureaucracies).
Professional politicians – distinct from the general populace, are private citizens (or their proxies) pursuing private interests in a public manner among individual with equal sovereign rights.
The role or function of the politician, therefore, is to be representative of private citizens and protector of private rights by proxy – in as much that the pursuit of such rights do not unduly infringe on the rights of others who are also similarly free to pursue their own self interests in a manner free of undue civil restraints.
The realm of the public sphere is then the administrative, legislative and executive domain of the civil or political body. Anyone not engaged in some officious capacity is a private citizen, living private lives with a sovereignty that exists outside of the State’s purview.
If citizens, individually or collectively, do not invite or require state officials to interfere or intercede on their behalf in affairs between private citizens then the sovereignty of the individual remains intact, in that sense; and to the understanding that it is beyond the legitimate reach of civil authority, the Law (in theory).
In a general sense, the demarcation between the Public and Private spheres within a liberal, democratic society is found in the fine line between being self or group represented via associations.
The bond of common self-interesst – such as self-preservation, acquisition, accumulation or transference of property, wealth or services become legalistic distinctions that infer that some common understanding or agreement exists (social contracts as necessary conditions for civil society).
And so, in matters of public or state affairs, all citizens are subject to degrees of regulations or intervention that serve as indicators of what can properly and legitimately, fall within the purview of the Public sphere.
In Private affairs the voluntary consent of the shareholders, the people, the private persons, the associations or representatives is required to be considered legitimate for intrusion or making public.
In the absence of this voluntary aspect the state becomes representative of tyranny or the abuse of power or authority over sovereign individuals. The state can only, legitimately wield its power or authority over its citizens, in the public sphere, as a public authority and only in so far as Law proscribes it. And, the legitimacy of Law derives it authority from the people, the citizens of the state.
This, then, is what becomes sheltered, regulated or protected by constitutional laws in civil, democratic societies: the common laws (natural rights) that govern the private affairs (self-interests) of sovereign (free) individual citizens within the confines of the political body. Person, property, possession, wealth are all inalienable, sovereign and non-transferable rights.
The appearance of the middle class within capitalist societies brought about a responsive form of government that was to become reflective of the legislative changes – all of which came about as a result of capitalist pressures that were imposed on previous forms of government.
Capitalism, the unfettered accumulation or transference of wealth or property removed the basis upon which social status and power was previously justified.
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