CIVIL SOCIETY

Civil Society

Civil Society

Introduction

Civil society can loosely be understood as the aspects of life that lie outside the family, the state as a whole and markets where people mingle and join to advance in their pursuit of acquiring personal interests.  There are instances where the family and one's private life become part of civil society and this is referred to as the 'third sector'. It must be noted that this 'third sector' is separate from governments and businesses. By definition, civil society is the sum of organizations and nongovernmental bodies that make clear the specific will of individuals or group of civilians. It is also defined as a group of individuals or organizations that are specifically independent and in no way a part of the ruling government or any other political regime (Anheier and ListTaylor, 2005, pp. 33-37). The term 'civil society' is also frequently used in context with judiciary, freedom of speech, recognition of rights and other factors that constitute to a democratic state.  This paper compares and contrasts Hegel and Marx' analysis of civil society. Moreover, the paper goes on to suggest which of the two provides the better analysis.

Discussion

In a general standpoint, a civil society from an individual's perspective stands as the ground outside the means of family and private sphere. The civil society stands as a common market where associations are made based on common welfare of individuals. In addition to the basic ideology of civil society, there have been various theories presented by many theorists. The paper will discuss the introduction and the comparison of theories presented by two of the most well known theorist and their work on civil society. The comparison is done on theories presented and work presented by Hegel and Marx.

The introduction to the work of Hegel and Marx is considered ...