Civil society is often defined at that third portion of society. The first portion is the government. The next portion is the free market economy. The civil society is the remainder of societal structures and associations. Movements and activities therein may involve the family, the church, fraternal associations voluntary participation private interests, etc.
My interest in the civil society grow out of my readings of Mark Levin's frequent and ubiquitous reference to maintaining and preserving established, traditional civil society as a cultural and political goal of the first order. I have not found his definition of civil society, so I offer my own below.
In this context, the civil society seems to be a spontaneous order (referring not to the economy but to the American heritage of free individuals cooperating and working together to reach social ends, working together in peace and harmony), an existent but flexible, changing pattern of cultural structure used by and appreciated by the majority of citizens in a community, a complex, communal arrangement of social functioning, activities and voluntary associating that is necessary and critical for the survival of our constitutional republic. The people must work together, while living as staunch individualists in that community. Their peaceful, lawful, virtuous, voluntary cooperation in this private sphere is a vital complement to the existence and health of the other functioning portions of the society, the government and the free market economy.
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