Hegel and Anticapitalism: Notes on the Political Economy of Poverty

From the very beginning of his philosophical journey, Hegel demonstrated time and again his interest in the questions of political economy. In his earliest writings on religion, politics and economics, Hegel expressed his concern for a topic that was to play a vital role in his later works: the phenomenon of private property. In order to present Hegel’s notes on political economy more clearly, I have divided this paper into three sections. The first one deals with Hegel’s analysis of private property, industrialisation, and capitalism. The second addresses his attitudes toward the French Revolution, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and the problem of labour. Finally, the third section is concerned with the political economy of poverty in the context of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, and in it, I point to Hegel’s emphasis that extreme and increasing poverty and pauperisation are not accidental phenomena, but are in fact endemic to the modern commodity-producing society.