Civil society is the legitimate, enfranchised, empowered basis of society

When the prophets spoke out for Israel's poor and downtrodden they were really talking less about the oppressed and more about the civil society. When we think of them as the subject classes, then we think of them from the perspective of the rulers; when we think of them as the civil society, then we think of them from the perspective of the general public as the legitimate, enfranchised, empowered basis of society.