Povertà, plebe e indignazione nella società civile hegeliana

This paper analyses the relation between poverty, rabble (Pöbel), and indignation (Empörung) in Hegel’s philosophy of right, assessing this decisive reconfiguration of the modern concept of indignatio. Unlike earlier traditions, in which indignation arose from the multitude’s reaction to sovereign abuse, Hegel locates it within the very texture of civil society, and attributes it to a structurally produced social figure: the rabble. In fact, the rabble emerges when the modern economic system fails to secure employment, material subsistence, and spiritual recognition for individuals who are nevertheless entitled to social integration as bearers of rational will. Reconstructing the role of the Polizei, the system of needs, and the division of labour, this article shows how structural unemployment and poverty are necessary outcomes of bourgeois society – and how poverty shifts into rabble via a subjective transformation, marked by loss of rights, dignity, and recognition. Indignation thus appears as an immanent critique of ethical life. Finally, the article examines Hegel’s appeal to a right of necessity, and argues that the rabble should be understood as a transitional figure, irreducible both to earlier modern conceptions, and to the later Marxian proletariat, revealing a recurrent tension within modernity itself.