The Economic and the Political: Rethinking Their Relationship

Abstract The liberal order, as first articulated by Hobbes, depends upon an unnatural disembedding of both the economy and the polity from society. The economic and the political are keep apart. While the economy is seen as a private matter, the polity is conceived as a public one. The socially relational and mediating groups are squeezed out. Yet this involves contradiction. Is property primarily a matter of primary seizure or legal underwriting? Either the economic captures the political or vice-versa. A bad corporatism follows. The only alternative is a good corporatism recognising the priority of the social, of groups and their representation.