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There is an ambiguity in the idea of "civil society" as the arena of private economic and social relations, rather than of government. First, there is the idea that these relations are freely chosen. Civil society, as Michael Walzer puts it, is "the space of uncoerced human association." But second, there is the idea that these relations depend upon shared values. Civil society is therefore also "the set of relational networks--formed for the sake of family, faith, interest, and ideology--that fill this space." ...The idea of civil society, then, can receive both liberal and communitarian interpretation, depending on whether one emphasizes individual liberty or associational solidarity.
How are these two interpretations of civil society related? Walzer suggests that in a liberal polity, when ties of family, religion, and nationality dissolve, there is really not much left beyond the marketplace, with its conception of the good life as a life of consumption. But the market alone has little incentive to provide the "social minimum" required to give everyone a piece of the good life so conceived.
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