This essay investigates the history of the concept of ›society‹ in the mid-19th century discourses of early socialism and anarchism in German-speaking countries. It shows that in these writings the term ›society‹ had positive connotations, in contrast to its more negative associations in Hegelian philosophy. As a term and slogan, ›society‹ evoked a future freedom and functioned as an polemic alterative to the concept of the ›state‹. mehr