The Estate of the realm (n.) have private interest as their public affairs, not public affairs as their private interest.
14 definitions
The Estate of the realm (n.) are the point where the state enters into and begins to share the subjective consciousness of the people.
The Estate of the realm (n.) are the nation in miniature against the executive, and the executive amplified against the nation — oppositional and conservative at once.
The Estate of the realm (n.) in the German word Stande, used for both social classes and political estates, preserves a unity they possessed in former times, which one should conclude no longer exists.
The Estate of the realm (n.) are constitutional states' legally sanctioned lie — that the state serves the interest of the people, or the people the interest of the state.
The Estate of the realm (n.) deal not with essentials but with trifling matters, and the passion even these arouse spends itself in party cravings for appointments to higher office.
The Estate of the realm (n.) are the imagined nation — the nation as image, fantasy, representation — which abolishes the actual opposition between nation and executive.
The Estate of the realm (n.) give political significance to the unofficial, unpolitical class — a contradiction in terms.