THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

As our desires take on this social structure, the distinction between the desires of
private persons and social interactions can no longer be construed merely in terms of the
relationship between means and ends. Social interactions do not merely serve as a means
for satisfying the ends of social desires, but rather various kinds of social interactions
actually constitute the end that we seek in our social desires. This dialectical reversal
begins to undermine the basic dichotomy that defines civil society.
6.3) The Dialectical Development of Consumption and Production
The relationship between production and consumption undergoes a similar
dialectical development. Following the basic dichotomy of civil society, we are led to
conceive the social processes of production as a means for the private gratifications that
occur in consumption. In his discussion of civil society, Hegel shows how this order of
priority reverses itself, leading to a conception of work as an essential moment for
determining the social nature of the self. Hegel sets out the basic framework for this
argument in paragraph 185, where he alludes to the master/slave dialectic from the
Phenomenology of Spirit. He says:
Particularity by itself, given free rein in every direction to satisfy its needs,
accidental caprices, and subjective desires, destroys itself and its substantive
concept in this process of gratification. At the same time, the satisfaction of need,
necessary and accidental alike, is accidental because it breeds new desires without
end, is in thoroughgoing dependence on caprice and external accident, and is held
in check by the power of universality. In these contrasts and their complexity,
civil society affords a spectacle of extravagance and want as of the physical and
ethical degeneration common to both. 329
This passage presents multiple allusions to the discussion of master and slave in the
Phenomenology, a discussion that provides an important subtext for Hegel’s treatment of
329 Philosophy of Right, paragraph 185.
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