Habermas and Capitalism: an historic overview
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2318-9800.v27i2p51-68Keywords:
Habermas, Capitalism, Life-World, Economic System, Theory of Communicative ActionAbstract
The article reconstructs Habermas’ view of capitalism from the 1970s to his most recent writings. It takes its starting point from Wolfgang Streeck’s claim that Habermas has failed to acknowledge that the real enemy of democracy is not bureaucracy but capitalism and that, therefore, he underestimates the role of capitalism in shaping the global order. It first returns to the diagnoses of late capitalism that Habermas developed in the 1970s and early 1980s and then moves on to some of his later writings. This will reveal that there was indeed a shift of emphasis from a critique of capitalism to a critique of technocracy, but not because of Habermas’ unawareness of the role of capitalism in shaping reality. Rather, he has come to objectify capitalism while looking for legal and political tools for reining it in instead of looking for possible alternatives to it.
Downloads
References
Fraser, N.; Jaeggi. R (2018). Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (1961). Einleitung: Über den Begriff der politischen Beteiligung. In: Student und Politik by J. Habermas et alii. Neuwied: Luchterhand, pp. 13-55.
Habermas, J. (1973). Labor and Interaction. Remarks on Hegel’s Jena Philosophy of Mind. In: Habermas, J. Theory and Practice. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 141-169.
Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, J. (1984). Theory of Communicative Action. 2 vols. Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, J. (1988). Legitimation Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (1991) A Reply. In Communicative Action. Essays on Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action, ed. by A. Honneth and H. Joas, Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (2000). The Postnational Constellation. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (2009). Europe: The Faltering Project. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (2013). The Crisis of the European Union. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (2015). The Lure of Technocracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jaeggi, R. (2016). What (If Anything) Is Wrong with Capitalism? The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 54: 44-65. doi:10.1111/sjp.12188
Jaeggi, R. (2018). Critique of Forms of Life. Cambridge (MA): Belknap
Love, N. S. (1995). What’s Left of Marx? In The Cambridge Companion to Habermas, ed. by St. White, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 46-66.
Marx, K. (1990). The Capital. Vol. I. London: Penguin.
Meiksins Wood, E. (2002). The Origin of Capitalism. A Longer View, London: Verso.
Melo, R. (2013). Marx e Habermas. São Paulo: Saraiva.
Mouzelis, N. (1992). Social and System Integration: Habermas’ View. British Journal of Sociology, v. 43, n. 2, 267-288.
Müller-Doohm St. (2016). Habermas. A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Neumann, F. (1980). Die Herrschaft des Gesetzes. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp.
Piketty, Th. (2014). Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Belknap.
Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation. London: Rineheart & Co.
Rockmore, T. (1989). Habermas on Historical Materialism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Streeck, W. (2017). What about capitalism? Jürgen Habermas’s project of a European democracy. European Political Science, v. 16, n. 2, p. 246-253.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Alessandro Pinzani
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Information and conceptions on the texts are complete responsibility of the authors.
All the articles submitted before July 5th 2018 and those published after July 2021 are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND license – except those published between the aforementioned dates, which are under the CC BY-NC-SA license. The permission for the translation of the material published under the license CC BY-NC-ND by third parts can be obtained with the consent of the author.
Open access policies - Diadorim
Rules applied before July 5th 2018:
Presenting a submission to our Editorial Board implies granting priority of publication for “Cadernos de filosofia alemã”, as well as transferring the copyright of texts (once published), which will be reproduced only with the manifest authorization of the editors. Authors keep the right to reuse the texts published in future editions of their work, without paying any fees to "Cadernos”. We will not grant the permission to re-edit or translate the texts for third parts without agreement of the author.
Funding data
-
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Grant numbers 302590/2018-8