The Cambridge Companion to Hegel by Frederick C. Beiser

Author:Frederick C. Beiser
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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Perhaps the greatest internal weakness in Hegel’s organizational scheme is his account of the monarch. Although the monarch’s role is constitutionally narrowly defined, it is also unstable. Hegel defended an inherited monarchy in part because no talent is needed to sign legislation, since the cabinet ministers are experts and are accountable for the entire content of the law (§§283, 284). But he also counted on the monarch’s watchful eye from above (in conjunction with scrutiny by the Estates Assembly from below) to hold the ministers responsible (§295). He can’t have it both ways.

Hegel built a number of institutional guarantees into his governmental structure by insisting on a division of mutually interdependent powers (§§272R, 286 & R, 301R, 308, 310 & R), and he listed a number of fundamental civil rights (equal rights and freedoms of person, belief, property, profession, and trade [§§35, 36, 38, 41–49, 57, 62R, 66, 206, 207, 209R, 252, 270R]). Still, he placed the courts under the administration of justice (§219). This would make it difficult to accommodate a doctrine of judicial review of legislative or executive action. Hegel emphasized coordination and the cooperative aspects of civil and political institutions (for instance, §§272, 303 & R), although he insisted that cabinet ministers are strictly responsible and accountable for their actions (§284). He did not, however, describe precisely how ministers are to be held accountable. This may be because he published only the “elements” (Grundlinien) of the philosophy of right. Hegel may have used this excuse because insisting more explicitly on such institutions might have brought him under official censure – or worse. When agents of the state press for personal or factional interests, then politics becomes contestative, as Hegel knew, and strong constitutional structures are needed – stronger than he published – to deal with misappropriations of power. 44

These sources of possible administrative recalcitrance or irresponsibility raise the political specter that concerned Weber, that independent interests generated within bureaucracies make them unresponsive to their official obligations and constituents. Hegel did not have the historical experience to share this concern, since in his day the state bureaucracy was relatively new and was in the forefront of reform. Although this problem is not unique to Hegel’s institutions, it is a genuine and pressing problem, especially in view of the crucial contribution Hegel’s government is to make to political freedom and autonomy.

The last problem I note concerns the actualization of Hegel’s rationally structured institutions. Hegel designed his political institutions as a bulwark against the fragmenting tendencies of economic self-interest and the overbearing influence of economic factors on politics, especially the influence of an active and monied entrepreneurial class. Hegel’s efforts thus bear witness to the tension between sectors of the economy and a political process aimed at universal freedom and autonomy. Historically, under pressure of economic interests and developments, few of Hegel’s institutions developed at all, much less in the specific form he described. The extent to which modern political institutions serve the functions Hegel advocated cannot be explored here, but it is unlikely to be very great, since few of them are officially assigned those functions.

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