Hegel’s Implicit View on How to Solve the Problem of Poverty: The Responsible Consumer and the Return of the Ethical to Civil Society

Abstract

Against those who argue that Hegel despaired of providing a solution to the problem of poverty, I argue, on the basis of key dialectical transitions in Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie, that he held at least the following: (1) that the chronic poverty endemic to industrial capitalism can be overcome only through changes that must include a transformation in practices of consumption, (2) that this transformation must lead to more sittlich and self-conscious practices of consumption, and (3) that the institution best-suited to enable the development of these more sittlich and self-conscious practices of consumption is the Korporation.