Civil Society, NGOs and Public Sphere Combine in a Delicate Balancing Act

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The great turning point in Karl Marx's work is his discovery that class relations traverse the whole of capitalist society. After working with categories he inherited from liberalism, such as the state and civil society, he made what he called an "anatomy of civil society" and therein encountered classes and class struggle.

In the last several decades, as democratic struggle gained weight again - after being underestimated, generally speaking, by the Left - the category of civil society reappeared.

By its very nature, it is opposed to the state and displaces class relations. It is a return to classical liberalism, in parallel with the turn to liberalism on the …