The Withering Away of Civil Society
The Withering Away of Civil Society

Summary/Abstract: In this article I wish to look at the transformation and disappearance of the inherited world of civil society as well as the course which some of its values and institutions are likely to follow. In order to do so, I begin with some considerations on the history of the notion of civil society in its several versions. I then move on to a definition and description of civil society itself as it has taken shape and evolved in certain parts of the Western world during recent times. This is followed by a consideration of the trends which, stemming largely from the logic of civil society itself, have led to the incipient rise of a new social order. This social order is, to a large extent, incompatible with a civil society as traditionally understood. It increasingly hinges upon a number of either interlocking or mutually competitive and relatively autonomous organizational structures (corporations) and upon organized collective interests. For that reason, some attention will be devoted to the substitution of the inherited features of civil society by those of the new, corporate universe. The essay comes to an end with some reflections on how certain values at the heart of civil society may still survive successfully — and not as mere relics — within the moral constitution of today’s emerging corporate world.

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