The Limitations of Habermas’s Social and Political Argument

Abstract

Many of the criticisms of Habermas’s theory presented in the preceding chapter are based on considerations brought from “outside” his own social theoretical framework. However, there are also important difficulties internal to his theory, especially stemming from his dualistic conception of society, which require a more “immanent” critique. First, there are many perplexities in regard to the relation between the lifeworld and system aspects of society, especially revealed in Habermas’s analysis of the contemporary capitalist economy. It is particularly important to examine Habermas’s portrayal of the economy because his unrealistic conception of an autonomous economic sphere, shorn of his theoretical terminology, is a very common assumption of social and political discussion today. Second, Habermas’s theory of the dual ways in which contemporary society reproduces itself leads to a much too chaste project of progressive political action. Even on his own terms, the integrity of the public sphere, the key to a healthy and just democracy, can only be preserved through more direct political confrontations with the fundamental processes of contemporary capitalism. I conclude that the concerns of traditional socialist thought are not as easily displaced as Habermas and many other progressives today seem to think.