Hegel, Jena lectures 1805-6:

ii. [Law and Property] This law [relating to] the individual’s immediate existence is, as law, the will of the parents, or sustains their will as such. In the disappearance of the contingent being (death of the parents), the law becomes positive, taking over the existence which they previously were: the state [takes charge]. Law is the actual validation of property, the element of actual existence through the will of all. The law protects the family, leaves it in its being – but like the family, the law is the substance and the necessity of the individual. It is the unconscious guardianship over the individual whose family has “died out” – i.e., insofar as he appears as individual. It is the substance and necessity – the rigid aspect in which the law presented itself.

Law is the universal right, property in general, protecting each one in his immediate possession, inheritance and exchange. But this is merely formal right, which remains quite free in regard to content (the element of chance in inheritance). The individual presents himself as earning by means of labor. Here, his law is only that whatever he works upon or exchanges belongs to him. But the universal is at the same time his necessity, a necessity which sacrifices him in his legal freedom (die ihn bey seiner Rechtsfreiheit aufopfert).

(a) The universal [i.e., the social substance] is pure necessity for the individual worker. He has his unconscious existence in the universal. Society is his “nature,” upon whose elementary, blind movement he depends, and which sustains him or negates him spiritually as well as physically. The individual exists through immediate property or inheritance, completely by chance. He works at an abstract labor; he wins much from nature. But this merely transforms itself into another form of contingency. He can produce more, but this reduces the value of his labor; and in this he does not emerge from universal [i.e., abstract] relations.

(b) Needs are thereby diversified; each individual need is subdivided into several; taste becomes refined, leading to further distinctions. [In the production of goods a degree of] preparation is demanded which makes the consumable thing ever easier to use. And so that all of the individual’s incongruous aspects are provided for (e.g., cork, corkscrew, candlesnuffer), he is cultivated as naturally enjoying [them] (er wird gebildet als naturlich geniessendes).

(c) By the same token, however, he becomes – through the abstractness of labor – more mechanical, duller, spiritless. The spiritual element, this fulfilled self-conscious life, becomes an empty doing (leeres Thun). The power of the Self consists in a rich [all-embracing] comprehension; this power is lost. He can leave some work to the machine, but his own activity thereby becomes more formalized. His dull work constricts him to a single point, and his work becomes more consummate the more one-sided it becomes.

Yet this multiplicity creates fashion, mutability, freedom in the use of forms. These things – the cut of clothing, style of furniture – are not permanent. Their change is essential and rational, far more rational than staying with one fashion and wanting to assert something as fixed in such individual forms. The beautiful is subject to no fashion; but here there is no free beauty, only a charming beauty (eine reitzende Schonheit) which is the adornment of another person and relates itself to [yet] another, a beauty aimed at arousing drive, desire, and which thus has a contingency to it.

Similarly incessant is the search for ways of simplifying labor, inventing other machines, etc. In the individual’s skill is the possibility of sustaining his existence. This is subject to all the tangled and complex contingency in the [social] whole. Thus a vast number of people are condemned to a labor that is totally stupefying, unhealthy and unsafe – in workshops, factories, mines, etc. – shrinking their skills. And entire branches of industry, which supported a large class of people, go dry all at once because of [changes in] fashion or a fall in prices due to inventions in other countries, etc – and this huge population is thrown into helpless poverty.

The contrast [between] great wealth and great poverty appears: the poverty for which it becomes impossible to do anything; [the] wealth [which], like any mass, makes itself into a force. The amassing of wealth [occurs] partly by chance, partly through universality, through distribution. [It is] a point of attraction, of a sort which casts its glance far over the universal, drawing [everything] around it to itself – just as a greater mass attracts the smaller ones to itself. To him who hath, to him is given.  Acquisition becomes a many-sided system, profiting by means or ways that a smaller business cannot employ. In other words, the highest abstraction of labor pervades that many more individual modes and thereby takes on an ever-widening scope. This inequality between wealth and poverty, this need and necessity, lead to the utmost dismemberment of the will, to inner indignation and hatred. This necessity, which is the complete contingency of individual existence, is at the same time its sustaining substance. State power enters and must see to it that each sphere is supported. It goes into [various] means and remedies, seeking new markets abroad, etc., [but] thereby making things all the more difficult for one sphere, to the extent that state power encroaches to the disadvantage of others.

Freedom of commerce: interference must be as inconspicuous as possible, since commerce is the field of arbitrariness. The appearance of force must be avoided; and one must not attempt to salvage what cannot be saved, but rather employ the suffering classes in other ways. [The state power] is the universal overseer; the individual is merely entrenched in individuality. Commerce is certainly left to its own devices – but with the sacrifice of this generation and the proliferation of poverty, poor-taxes and institutions.

Yet the [social] substance is not only this regulatory law, as the power that sustains individuals. Rather, it is itself productive [of a] general benefit, the benefit of the whole (Gut des Ganzen).

Taxes [are of two types:] direct taxes on fixed property, and indirect taxes. Only the former type is in accordance with the physiocratic system. Raw materials alone are the abstract base, but [this is] itself a distinct particular that appears too limited; it is abandoned. This branch is missing in the totality, and then incomes are lessened. The tax system must establish itself everywhere, make its appearance inconspicuously, taking a little from everyone, but everywhere. If it is disproportionate on one branch, it is abandoned. Less wine is consumed if heavy taxes are imposed on it. For everything there is a substitute that can be found, or one does without. But even so, this necessity turns against itself. The costs of detection become more considerable, the discontent ever greater, since the enjoyment of everything is spoiled and is entangled with complicated details. State wealth must be based as little as possible on the landed estates (Domänen), but rather on taxes. The former are private property and contingent, exposed to waste, since no one seems to lose thereby but either gains or hopes to gain. Taxes are felt by all, and everyone wants to see them used well.