WHAT DOES A CRISIS MEAN TODAY? LEGITIMATION PROBLEMS IN LATE CAPITALISMAuthor(s): JRGEN HABERMASSource: Social Research, Vol. 40, No. 4 (WINTER 1973), pp. 643-667Published by: The New SchoolStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40970159 .Accessed: 08/08/2013 22:23Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. .The New School is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Research.http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsWHAT DOESA CRISISMEAN TODAY? LEGITIMATION PROBLEMS IN LATE CAPITALISM* BY JRGEN HABERMAS X he expression "late capitalism'*implicitly asserts that, even in state-regulatedcapitalism, social developments are still passing through "contradictions"or crises.Iwould thereforelike to beginby elucidating the concept of crisis. Prior to its use in economics, we are familiarwith the concept of crisisin medicine. It refersto that phase of a disease in which it is decided whetherthe self-healingpowers of the organism are sufficientfor recovery. The critical process, the disease, seems to be somethingobjective. A contagious disease, for instance, af- fectsthe organism fromoutside. The deviationsof the organism fromwhat it should be - i.e., the patient's normal condition - can be observed and, if necessary, measured with the help of indicators. The patient's consciousness plays no part inthis. How the patient feels and how he experiences his illness is at most a symptom of eventsthat he himselfcan barely influence. Nevertheless, we would not speak of a crisisin a medicalsituation of life or death if the patient were not trapped in this process withall his subjectivity. A crisiscannot be separated fromthe victim'sinner view.He experiences his impotence toward the objectivity of his illness only because he is a subject doomed to passivity and temporarily unable to be a subject in full possession of his strength. Crisis suggests the notion of an objective power depriving a subject of part of his normal sovereignty. If we interpret a process as a crisis, we are tacitlygiving it a normative meaning. When the crisisis resolved, the trappedsubject is liberated. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions644SOCIALRESEARCH This becomes clearer when we pass fromthe medical to the dramaturgical notion of crisis. In classical aestheticsfromAris- totleto Hegel, crisis signifies the turningpoint of a fateful process which, although fullyobjective, does not simply break in from theoutside. There is a contradiction expressed in the catastrophic culminationof aconflictof action, and that contradictionis inherentin the very structureof the system of action and in the personalitysystems of the characters. Fate is revealed in con- flicting normsthat destroy the identitiesof the charactersunless they in turn manage to regain their freedom by smashing the mythicalpower of fate. Thenotion of crisis developed by classical tragedy has its counterpart in the notionof crisisto be foundin the doctrineof salvation. Recurringthroughout the philosophy of history in the eighteenthcentury, this figure of thought entersthe evolutionary social theoriesof the nineteenth century. Marx is the firstto develop a sociologicalconcept of system crisis. It is against that background that we now speak of social or economiccrises. In any discussion of, say, the great economic crisis inthe early 'thirties, the Marxistovertonesare unmistakable. Since capitalist societieshave the capacity of steadilydeveloping technologicalproductive forces, Marx conceivesan economiccrisis as a crisis-ridden processof economic growth. Accumulationof capital is tied to the acquisition of surplus. This means forMarx that economic growth is regulatedby a mechanismthat both es- tablishesand conceals a powerrelationship. Thus the model of risingcomplexity is contradictory in the sense that the economic systemkeeps creating new and more problems as it solves others. Thetotal accumulationof capital passes throughperiodic de- valuationsof capital components: this formsthe cycle of crises, whichMarx in his timewas able to observe. He triedto explain the classical type of crisis by applying the theory of value with the help of the law of the tendentialfall of the rate of profit. But that is outside my purpose at the moment. My question is really: Is late capitalismfollowing the same or similarself-destruc- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION645 tive pattern of development as classical - i.e., competitive - capital- ism? Or has the organizingprinciple of late capitalismchanged so greatly that the accumulation process no longergeneratesany problemsjeopardizing itsexistence? My startingpoint will be a roughdescriptive model of the most important structuralfeaturesof late-capitalist societies.Iwill then mention three crisis tendencieswhich today, though not specific to the system, are major topics of discussion. And finally, I will deal withvarious explanations of thecrisistendenciesin late capitalism. StructuralFeatures of Late-Capitalist Societies The expression"organized or state-regulatedcapitalism" refers to two classes of phenomena both of which can be traced back to the advanced stage of the accumulation process. Onesuch class is the process of economic concentration (the creation of national and by now even multinational corporations) and the organization of marketsfor goods, capital, and labor.Onthe other hand, the interventioniststate keeps filling the increasing functional gaps in themarket. The spread of oligopolistic market structures certainlyspells the endof competitivecapitalism. But no matterhow far companies may see into the futureor extend theircontrolover the environment, the steering mecha- nism of the marketwill continue to functionas long as invest- ments are determined by company profits. At the same time, by complementing and partially replacing the market mecha- nism, government interventionmeans the end of liberal capital- ism.But no matterhow much the state may restrictthe owner of goods in his private autonomous activity, there will be no politicalplanning to allocate scarceresourcesas long as the over- all societal prioritiesdevelop naturally - i.e., as indirectresults of the strategies of private enterprise. Inadvanced capitalist societies, the economic, the administrative, and the legitimation systems can be characterizedas follows. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions646SOCIALRESEARCH TheEconomic System. During the 1960s, various authors, using the example of the United States, developed a three-sector model based on the distinctionbetween the private and public areas.Private production is market-oriented, onesector still regulated by competition, another by the market strategies of the oligopolies that toleratea competitivefringe. However, the public area, especially in the wake of armamentand space-travel production, has witnessedthe rise of great industrieswhich, in theirinvestmentdecisions, can operateindependently of the mar- ket.Theseare either enterprisesdirectly controlled by the government or private firms living on government contracts. The monopolistic and the public sectorsare dominated by capital-in- tensiveindustries; the competitive sectoris dominated by labor- intensiveindustries. In the monopolistic and the public sectors, the industriesare faced with powerful unions.But in the com- petitive sector, labor is not as well organized, and the salary levels are correspondingly different.In the monopolistic sector, we can observe relativelyrapid progress in production. However, in the public sector, the companies do not need to be, and in the com- petitive sector they cannot be, thatefficient. The Administrative System. The state apparatusregulates the overall economic cycle by means of global planning. Onthe other hand, it also improves the^ conditionsfor utilizingcapital. Global planning islimited by private autonomous useof the means of production (the investmentfreedomof private enterprises cannotbe restricted). It is limitedon the otherhand by the general purpose of crisis management. There are fiscal and financialmeasuresto regulate cycles, as well as individual measuresto regulate investmentsand overall demand (credits, price guarantees, subsidies,loans, secondary redistributionof in- come, government contractsbased on business-cyclepolicies, in- directlabor-market policies, etc.). All these measureshave the reactivecharacterof avoidance strategies withinthe contextof a well-known preferencesystem. This system is determined by a didactically demanded compromise between competingimpera- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION647 tives: steadygrowth,stability of money value, full employment, and balance of trade. Global planningmanipulates the marginal conditionsof deci- sions made by privateenterprise. It does so in order to correct the marketmechanism by neutralizingdysfunctional side effects. The state,however, supplants the marketmechanismwherever the government creates and improves conditions for utilizing excess accumulated capital. It does so: by "strengthening the competitivecapacity of the nation," by organizingsupranational economic blocks, by an imperialis- tic safeguarding of internationalstratification,etc.; by unproductivegovernmentconsumption(armament and space-travelindustry); by politically structured guidance of capital in sectorsne- glected by an autonomousmarket; by improving the materialinfrastucture (transportation, edu- cation and health, vocation centers, urban and regional plan- ning, housing,etc.); by improving the immaterialinfrastructure (promotion of scientificresearch, capital expenditure in researchand develop- ment, intermediary of patents,etc.); by increasing the productivity of human labor (universal education, vocational schooling,programs of training and re- education, etc.); by paying forthe social costsand real consequences of private production(unemployment, welfare; ecological damage). The LegitimationSystem. With the functionalweaknessesof the marketand the dysfunctional side effectsof the marketmech- anism, the basic bourgeois ideology of fair exchange also col- lapsed. Yet thereis a need foreven greaterlegitimation. The gov- ernment apparatus no longermerelysafeguards the prerequisites for the productionprocess. It also, on its own initiative, inter- venes in that process. It must thereforebe legitimated in the growing realms of state intervention, even though there is now no possibility of reverting to the traditionsthathave been under- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions648SOCIALRESEARCH mined and worn out in competitivecapitalism. Theuniversal- istic value systems of bourgeoisideology have made civil rights, includingsuffrage, universal. Independent of general elections, legitimation can thus be gotten only in extraordinary circum- stances and temporarily. The resulting problem isresolved through formal democracy. A wide participationby the citizensin the process of shaping political will - i.e., genuinedemocracy - would have to expose the contradictionbetween administratively socialized production and a still private formof acquiring the produced values. In orderto keep the contradictionfrom being thematized, one thing is neces- sary. The administrative system has to be sufficientlyindepen- dent of the shaping of legitimating will.This occurs in a legiti- mation process that elicitsmass loyalty but avoids participation. In the midstof an objectivelypoliticizedsociety, the membersen- joy the statusof passive citizenswith the right to withholdtheir acclaim.The private autonomousdecision about investmentsis complementedby the civil privatism of the population. Class Structure. Thestructuresof late capitalism can be re- garded as a kind of reactionformation. Tostaveoffthe system crisis, late-capitalist societiesfocusall sociallyintegrativestrength on the conflictthat is structurally most probable.They do so in order all the more effectively to keep that conflictlatent. In this connection, an importantpart is played by the quasi- politicalwage structure, which depends on negotiations between companies and unions.Price fixing, which has replaced price competition in the oligopolistic markets, has its counterpart in the labor market. The great industriesalmost administratively controlthe prices in their marketing territories.Likewise, through wage negotiations,they achieve quasi-political compromises with theirunion adversaries. In thoseindustrialbranchesof the mo- nopolistic and public sectorsthatare crucial to economic develop- ment, the commodity knownas labor has a "politicar*price. The "wage-scalepartners" finda broad zone of compromise, since in- creasedlaborcostscan be passed on intothe prices, and themiddle- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION649 range demandsmade by both sides against the government tendto converge. Themain consequences of immunizing the original conflictzone are as follows: (1) disparatewage developments;(2) a permanent inflationwiththe corresponding short-livedredistribu- tion of incomesto the disadvantage of unorganizedwage earners and other marginalgroups; (3) a permanent crisisin government finances, coupled with public poverty - i.e., pauperization of public transportation, education, housing, and health; (4) an in- sufficientbalance of disproportionate economic developments, both sectoral (e.g., agriculture) and regional (marginalareas). Since World War II, the most advanced capitalist countries have kept the class conflictlatent in its essentialareas. They have extendedthe business cycle,transforming the periodicpres- sures of capital devaluation into a permanentinflationary crisis with milder cyclical fluctuations.And they have filtereddown the dysfunctional side effectsof the intercepted economic crisis and scatteredthemover quasi-groups(such as consumers, school childrenand their parents,transportation users, the sick, the el- derly) or divided groups difficultto organize. This process breaks downthesocial identity oftheclasses and frag- mentsclass conciousness. In the class compromise now part of the structureof late capitalism,nearlyeveryone both participates and is affectedas an individual - although, with the clear and sometimes growingunequal distributionof monetary values and power, one can well distinguish betweenthose belonging more to the one or to the other category. Three Developing Crises The rapid growthprocesses of late-capitalist societieshave con- frontedthe system of world society with new problems. These problems cannot be regarded as crisis phenomenaspecific to the system, even though the possibilities of coping with the crisesare specific to the system and thereforelimited.Iam thinking of This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions650SOCIALRESEARCH thedisturbanceof the ecological balance, the violationof the per- sonalitysystem(alienation), and the explosive strain on inter- nationalrelations. The Ecological Balance. If physically economic growth can be tracedback to the technologicallysophisticated use of more energy to increasethe productivity of human labor, then the societalfor- mationof capitalism is remarkablefor impressivelysolving the problem of economic growth. Tobe sure, capital accumulation originallypushes economic growth ahead, so there is no option fortheconscious steering of this process. The growthimperatives originally followed by capitalism have meanwhile achieved a global validityby way of systemcompetition and worldwidedif- fusion (despite the stagnation or even retrogressive trendsin some Third World countries). The mechanismsof growth are forcing an increaseof both pop- ulation and production on aworldwide scale.Theeconomic needsof a growingpopulation and the productiveexploitation of natureare facedwithmaterialrestrictions:on the one hand, finite resources (cultivable and inhabitable land, freshwater, metals, minerals, etc.); on the otherhand, irreplaceableecologicalsystems thatabsorb pollutants such as fallout, carbon dioxide, and waste heat.Forresterand othershave estimatedthe limitsof the ex- ponentialgrowth of population, industrial production, exploita- tion of natural resources, and environmental pollution. Tobe sure, theirestimateshave ratherweak empirical foundations.The mechanismsof population growth are aslittle known asthe maximumlimitsof the earth's potential for absorbing even the major pollutants. Moreover, we cannot forecast technological development accuratelyenough to knowwhichraw materialswill be replaced or renovated by future technology. However, despite any optimistic assurances, we are ableto indicate (if not precisely determine) one absolute limitationon growth: the thermalstrainon the environment due to consump- tion of energy. If economic growth is necessarilycoupled with increasingconsumption of energy, and if all natural energy that This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION651 is transformedinto economically useful energy is ultimately re- leased as heat, it will eventually raise the temperature of the atmosphibre.Again,determining the deadline is not easy. Never- theless, these reflectionsshow that an exponential growth of population and production - i.e., an expanded control over ex- ternal nature - will some day run up against the limits of the biologicalcapacity of the environment. This is not limited to complex societal systems.Specific to these systems are the possibilities of warding off dangers to the ecology.Late-capitalist societieswould have a very hard time limitinggrowth without abandoning their principle of organiza- tion, becausean overallshiftfrom spontaneouscapitalistgrowth to qualitativegrowth would require productionplanning in terms of use-values. The Anthropological Balance.While the disturbanceof the ecological balance points out the negativeaspect of the exploita- tionof natural resources, thereare no sure signals forthe capacity limitsof personalitysystems. I doubt whetherit is possible to identify such things as psychological constantsof human nature that inwardly limit the socialization process. I do, however, see a limitationin the kind of socializing that societal systems have been using to createmotivesforaction. Our behavioris oriented by norms requiring justification and by interpretativesystems guaranteeingidentity. Such acommunicative organization of behaviorcan becomean obstaclein complex societiesfora simple reason. The adaptive capacity in organizations increases propor- tionately as the administrativeauthoritiesbecome independent of the particular motivationsof the members. Thechoice and achievementof organizationgoals in systems of high intrinsiccom- plexity have to be independent of the influxof narrowly delimited motives.This requires a generalizedwillingness to comply (in politicalsystems, such willingness has theformof legitimation). As long as socialization brings innernatureinto a communicativebe- havioral organization, no legitimation for normsof action could conceivably secure an unmotivated acceptance of decisions. In This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions652SOCIALRESEARCH regard to decisionswhosecontentsare still undetermined, people will comply ifconvincedthatthosedecisionsare based on a legiti- matenormof action. If the motivesfor acting were no longer to pass through norms requiringjustification, and if the personality structuresno longer had to findtheir unity under interpretative systemsguaranteeingidentity, then (and only then) the unmoti- vated acceptance of decisions would become an irreproachable routine, and the readinessto comply could thus be produced to any desirable degree. The InternationalBalance.The dangers of destroying the world system with thermonuclear weapons are onadifferent level.The accumulated potential for annihilationis a resultof the advanced stage of productive forces. Its basis is technologi- cally neutral, and so the productive forcescan also takethe formof destructiveforces (which has happened because internationalcom- municationis still undeveloped). Today, mortal damage to the natural substratumof global society is quite possible. Interna- tionalcommunicationis therefore governedby a historically new imperative of self-limitation.Once again, this is not limited to all highly militarizedsocietal systems, but the possibilities of tackling this problem havelimits specific tothe systems. An actual disarmament may be unlikely because of the forces behind capitalist and postcapitalist class societies. Yet regulating the armsrace is not basicallyincompatible with the structureof late-capitalist societiesif it is possible to increase technologically theuse-valueof capital to the degree thatthe capacity effectof the government's demand for unproductive consumer goods can be balanced. Disturbances Specific to the System I wouldnow like to leave thesethree global consequences of late- capitalistgrowth and investigate disturbances specific to the sys- tem.I will startwith a thesis, widespreadamong Marxists, that the basic capitalist structurescontinue unalteredand create eco- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION653 nomiccrisesin alteredmanifestations.In late capitalism, thestate pursues the politics of capital with other means.Thisthesis occursin two versions. Orthodox state-theory maintainsthatthe activitiesof the inter- ventionist state, no less than the exchange processes in liberal capitalism,obey economiclaws.The alteredmanifestations (the crisisof state financesand permanent inflation, growingdispari- ties between public poverty and private wealth, etc.) are due to the factthat the self-regulation of the realization process is gov- erned by power ratherthan by exchange. However, the crisis tendency is determined, as much as ever, by the law of value, the structurally forced asymmetry in the exchange of wage labor for capital. As a result, state activity cannot permanentlycompen- sate for the tendency of falling rates of profit. It can at best mediate that trend - i.e., consummateit with political means. The replacement of marketfunctions by statefunctionsdoes not alter the unconsciousnature of the overall economic process. This is shown by the narrowlimitsof the state's possibilities for manipulation. Thestate cannot substantially intervenein the property structurewithout causing an investmentstrike.Neither can it manage to permanently avoid cyclicalstagnation tendencies of the accumulation process - i.e., stagnation tendenciesthat are created endogenously. A revisionistversionof the Marxist theory of the state is cur- rent among leading economistsin the German Democratic Re- public.According to this version, the state apparatus, insteadof naturallyobeying the logic of the law of value, is consciously supporting the interestsof united monopoly capitalists. This agency theory,adapted to late capitalism,regards the state not as a blind organ of therealization process but as a potentsupreme capitalist who makesthe accumulationof capital the substanceof his political planning. The high degree of the socializationof productionbringstogether the individual interestsof the large corporations and the interestin maintaining the system. And all themoreso because itsexistenceis threatened internallyby forces This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions654SOCIALRESEARCH transcending the system. This leads to an overall capitalist in- terest, which the united monopolies sustainwith the aid of the state apparatus. I considerboth versionsof the theory of economic crises in- adequate. One versionunderestimatesthe state, the other over- estimatesit. In regard to theorthodox thesis, I wonderif the state-controlled organization of scientificand technologicalprogress and the system of collective bargaining(a systemproducing a class compromise, especially in the capital- and growth-intensive economic sectors) have not alteredthe mode of production. The state, having been drawn into the process of production, has modifiedthe deter- minantsof the process of utilizingcapital. On the basisof a partial class compromise, the administrative system has gained a limited planningcapacity. This can be used withinthe frameworkof the democratic acquisition of legitimation for purposes of reactive avoidance of crises. The cycle of crises isdeactivated and renderedlessharmfulin its social consequences. It is replacedby inflationand a permanent crisis of public finances. The ques- tionas to whetherthese surrogates indicatea successful halting of the economiccrisisor merely its temporary shiftinto the politi- cal system is an empirical one. Ultimately, this depends on whetherthe indirectlyproductivecapital invested in research, development, and educationcan continuethe process of accumula- tion.It can manage to do so. by making labor more productive, raising the rate of surplus value, and cheapening the fixedcom- ponents of capital. The revisionist theory has elicited the following reservations. For one thing, we cannot empiricallysupport the assumption that the state apparatus, no matter in whose interest, can actively plan, as well as draft and carry through, acentral economic strategy. The theory of state-monopolycapitalism(akin to West- ern theoriesof technocracy) fails to recognize the limits of ad- ministrative planning inlate capitalism. Bureaucracies for planning always reactively avoid crises.Thevarious bureau- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION655 craciesare not fully coordinated, and because of theirlimitedca- pacity for perceiving and steering,they tend to depend largely on theinfluenceof theirclients. It is because of this veryinefficiency that organizedpartial interestshave a chance to penetrate the ad- ministrative apparatus. Nor can we empiricallysupport the other assumption thatthestateis activeas the agent of the unitedmono- polists. The theory of state-monopolycapitalism(akin to Western elite theories) overratesthe significance of personal contactsand directinfluence. Studies on the recruiting,make-up, and inter- action of the various power elites fail to cogentlyexplain the functionalconnectionsbetweenthe economicand administrative systems. In my opinion, the late-capitalist state can be properly under- stoodneitheras theunconsciousexecutive organ of economiclaws nor as a systematicagent of the united monopolycapitalists. In- stead, I would join Claus Offein advocating the theory that late- capitalist societiesare facedwithtwodifficultiescaused by thestate's having to intervenein the growing functional gaps of the market. We can regard thestateas a system thatuses legitimatepower. Its output consistsin sovereignlyexecuting administrativedecisions. To this end, it needs an input of mass loyalty thatis as unspecific as possible. Both directionscan lead to crisislikedisturbances. Output criseshave the formof the efficiency crisis. The admin- istrative system fails to fulfillthe steeringimperative that it has takenover fromthe economic system. This resultsin the disor- ganization of differentareas of life. Input criseshave the formof the legitimation crisis. The legitimationsystem failsto maintain the necessary level of mass loyalty. We can clarify thiswith the example of the acute difficultiesin public finances, with which all late-capitalist societiesare now struggling. The governmentbudget, as I have said, is burdened with the public expenses of an increasingly socialized production. It bears the costs of international competition and of the demand for unproductive consumer goods (armament and space travel). It bears the costsforthe infrastructural output (transportation and This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions656SOCIALRESEARCH communication, scientificand technologicalprogress, vocational training). It bears the costsof the social consumptionindirectly concernedwith production (housing,transportation, health, lei- sure, general education, social security). It bears the costsof pro- viding forthe unemployed. And finally, it bears the externalized costsof environmental damage caused by privateproduction. Ul- timately, these expenses have to be met by taxes. Thestate ap- paratus thushas two simultaneoustasks. It has to levy the neces- sary taxesfrom profits and incomeand employ themso efficiently as to preventany crisesfrom disturbinggrowth. In addition the selective raising of taxes, the recognizablepriority model of their utilization, and the administrative performance have to function in such a way as to satisfy the resulting need for legitimation. If thestatefailsin the former task, the resultis a deficitin adminis- trative efficiency. If it failsin the latter task, theresultis a deficit in legitimation. Theorems of the Legitimation Crisis Iwould like to restrict myself to the legitimationproblem. There is nothingmysterious about its genesis. Legitimatepower has to be available for administrative planning. Thefunctions accruing to the state apparatus in late capitalism and the expan- sion ofsocialareastreated by administrationincrease the need for legitimation. Liberal capitalism constituteditself in the formsof bourgeoisdemocracy, which is easy to explain in termsof the bourgeois revolution. As a result, the growing need for legitimation now has to work with the means of political democracy(on the basis of universal suffrage). The formaldem- ocratic means,however, are expensive. After all, the state appara- tus does not just see itselfin the role of the supremecapitalist facing the conflicting interestsof the various capital factions. It also has to considerthe generalizable interestsof the population as faras necessary to retainmass loyalty and prevent a conflict-ridden This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION657 withdrawalof legitimation. Thestate has to gauge these three interestareas (individual capitalism, state capitalism, and gen- eralizable interests), in orderto finda compromise for competing demands. A theoremof crisishas to explain not only why the state apparatus encountersdifficultiesbut also why certain prob- lemsremainunsolvedin the long run. First, an obvious objection. The state can avoid legitimation problems to theextentthatit can manage to make the administra- tive systemindependent of the formationof legitimating will. Tothat end, it can, say, separate expressivesymbols (which create auniversal willingness to follow) fromthe instrumental functionsof administration.Well known strategies of this sort are: the personalizing of objective issues, the symbolic use oF inquiries,expert opinions, legal incantations, etc. Advertising techniques, borrowedfrom oligopolisticcompetition, both cor firmand exploit curii n structuresof prejudice. By resorting to emotional appeals, they arouse unconscious motives, occupy cer- tain contents positively, and devalue others. The public, whichis engineered for purposes of legitimation,primarily has the function of structuring attention by means of areas of themesand thereby of pushing uncomfortable themes, problems, and arguments below the thresholdof attention. As Niklas Luhmann put it: The political system takesover tasksof ideologyplanning. The scope for manipulation, however, is narrowly delimited, for the cultural system remains peculiarly resistantto admin- istrativecontrol. There is no administrativecreationof meaning, there is at best an ideological erosion of cultural values.The acquisition of legitimation is self-destructiveas soon as the mode of acquisition is exposed. Thus, there is a systematic limit for attempts at makingup for legitimation deficits by means of well aimed manipulation. Thislimit is the structural dissimilarity betweenareas of administrativeaction and cultural tradition. A crisis argument, to be sure, can be constructedout of these considerations only withthe viewpoint thatthe expansion of state activity has theside effectof disproportionatelyincreasing theneed This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions658SOCIALRESEARCH for legitimation. I regard such an overproportionate increaseas likely because things that are taken for grantedculturally, and have so far been external conditions of the political systems, are now being drawn into the planning area of administration. This process thematizestraditionswhich previously were not part of public programming, much less of practical discourse.An example of such direct administrative processing of cultural traditionis educational planning,especially the planning of the curriculum. Hitherto, the school administration merely had to codify a givennaturally evolvedcanon. But now the planning of the curriculumis based on the premise that the traditionmodels can also be different.Administrative planning createsa universal compulsion for justification toward a sphere that was actually distinguishedby the power of self-legitimation. In regard to the direct disturbanceof things that were cul- turally taken for granted, thereare further examples in regional and urban planning(privateownership of land), health planning ("classless hospital"), and family planning and marriage-law planning(which are shaking sexual taboos and facilitating eman- cipation). Anawareness of contingency iscreated not just for con- tents of traditionbut alsofor the techniques of tradition - i.e., socialization. Among preschool children, formal schooling is already competing with familyupbringing. Thenew problems afflicting theeducational routine, and the widespread awarenessof these problems, are reflected by, among other indications, a new type of pedagogical and psychologicalwriting addressed to the general public. On all these levels, administrative planning has unintentional effectsof disquieting and publicizing. These effectsweaken the justificationpotential of traditionsthat have been forced out of theirnaturalcondition. Once they are no longerindisputable, theirdemands for validity can be stabilized only by way of dis- course. Thus, the forcibleshiftof things that have been cultur- ally taken for granted further politicizes areas of life that pre- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION659 viously could be assigned to the private domain. However, this spellsdanger for bourgeoisprivatism, whichis informally assured by the structuresof the public. Isee signs of this danger in strivings for participation and in models for alternatives, such as have developed particularly in secondary and primary schools, in the press, the church,theaters, publishing, etc. These argumentssupport the contention that late-capitalist societiesare afflictedwith serious problems of legitimation. But do these arguments sufficeto explain why these problems cannot be solved? Do theyexplain the prediction of a crisisin legitima- tion? Let us assumethe state apparatus could succeed in making labor more productive andin distributing the gains in pro- ductivity in such a way as to assure an economic growth free of crises (if not disturbances). Such growth would nevertheless pro- ceed in termsof prioritiesindependent of the generalizable in- terestsof the population. The priority models that Galbraith has analyzed from the viewpoint of "private wealth vs. public poverty" result fromaclass structure which, as always, is still being kept latent. This structureis ultimately the cause of the legitimation deficit. We have seen thatthestatecannot simply takeover the cultural system and that, in fact, the expansion of areas forstate planning creates problems for things thatare culturally taken for granted. "Meaning" is an increasingly scarce resource.Which is why those expectations thatare governedby concreteand identifiable needs - i.e., thatcan be checked by theirsuccess - keep mounting in the civil population. The rising level of aspirations is propor- tionate to the growing need for legitimation. Theresourceof "value," siphoned off by the tax office, has to make up for the scanty resourceof "meaning." Missing legitimations have to be replaced by social rewardssuch as money, time, and security. A crisisof legitimation arises as soon as the demands for these re- wardsmountmore rapidly than the available massof values, or if expectations come about thatare differentand cannotbe satisfied by those categories of rewards conforming withthe presentsystem. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions660SOCIALRESEARCH Why, then, should not the level of demands keep within operable limits? As long as the welfarestate's programming in connectionwith a widespread technocraticconsciousness (which makes uninfluenceable system-restraintsresponsible for bottle- necks) maintainsa sufficientamount of civil privatism, then the legitimationemergencies do not have to turn into crises. Tobe sure, the democraticformof legitimation could cause expenses thatcannot be coveredif that formdrivesthe competingparties to outdo one another in their platforms and thereby raise the expectations of the populationhigher and higher. Granted, this argument could be amply demonstrated empirically. But we would stillhave to explain whylate-capitalist societieseven bother to retainformal democracy. Merely in termsof the administra- tive system, formal democracy could just as easily be replaced by a variant - a conservative, authoritarianwelfarestate that re- duces the political participation of the citizens to aharmless level; or a Fascist authoritarianstate that keeps the population toeing the markon a relativelyhigh level of permanent mobiliza- tion. Evidently, bothvariantsare in the long run less compatible with developed capitalism than a party state based on mass de- mocracy. The sociocultural system createsdemands that cannot be satisfiedin authoritarian systems. This reflectionleads me to the following thesis: Only a rigid sociocultural system,incapable of being randomly functionalized for the needs of the administrative system, could explain how legitimation difficultiesresult in a legitimation crisis. This de- velopment mustthereforebe based on a motivationcrisis - i.e., a discrepancy betweenthe need for motivesthat the state and the occupational system announce andthe supply of motivation offered by thesociocultural system. Theorems of the MotivationCrisis Themost important motivationcontributed by the sociocul- tural system in late-capitalist societiesconsistsin syndromes of civil and family/vocationalprivatism. Civil privatism means This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION661 strong interestsin the administrative system'soutput and minor participation in the process of will-formation (high-output orienta- tion vs. low-inputorientation). Civil privatism thus corresponds to the structuresof a depoliticizedpublic.Family and vocational privatismcomplements civil privatism. It consistsof a family orientationwith consumerand leisure interests, and of a career orientationconsistentwith status competition. This privatism thus corresponds to the structuresof educationaland occupational systemsregulatedby competitiveperformance. The motivational syndromes mentionedare vitalto the political and economic system. However, bourgeoisideologies have com- ponents directly relevant to privatistic orientations, and social changesdeprive those components of theirbasis.A briefoutline may clarify this. PerformanceIdeology. According to bourgeois notionswhich have remainedconstantfromthe beginnings of modern natural law to contemporary election speeches, social rewardsshould be distributedon the basis of individual achievement. Thedis- tributionof gratifications should correlateto every individual's performance. A basic conditionis equal opportunity to partici- pate in a competition which is regulated in such a way that ex- ternalinfluencescan be neutralized. One such allocationmechan- ism was the market. But ever since the general public realized that social violence is practiced in the formsof exchange, the markethas been losing its credibility as a mechanismfordistribut- ing rewardsbased on performance. Thus, in the more recent versionsof performanceideology, marketsuccessis being replaced by the professional successmediated by formal schooling. How- ever, this versioncan claim credibilityonly when the following conditionshave been fulfilled: equal opportunity of access to higher schools; nondiscriminatory evaluation standardsfor school perform- ance; synchroniedevelopments of the educationaland occupational systems; This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions662SOCIALRESEARCH work processes whose objective structure permits evaluation according to performances thatcan be ascribed to individuals. "School justice" in termsof opportunity of accessand standards of evaluationhas increasedin all advanced capitalist societiesat least to some degree. But a countertrendcan be observedin the twootherdimensions.The expansion of the educational system is becoming more and more independent of changes in the occupa- tional system, so that ultimately the connectionbetween formal schooling and professional successwill most likely loosen.At the same time, thereare more and more areas in which production structuresand work dynamics make it increasingly difficultto evaluateindividual performance. Instead, theextrafunctionalele- mentsof occupational roles are becoming more and more impor- tant for conferringoccupational status. Moreover, fragmented and monotonouswork processes are in- creasinglyentering sectorsin which previously a personalidentity could be developed through the vocational role.An intrinsic motivation for performance is getting lessandless sup- port fromthe structureof the work process in market-dependent workareas. An instrumentalistattitudetowardworkis spreading even in the traditionallybourgeoisprofessions(white-collar work- ers, professionals). A performance motivation coming fromout- side can, however, be sufficiently stimulated by wage income only: if the reserve army on the labor marketexercisesan effective competitivepressure; if a sufficientincome differentialexists between the lower wage groups and the inactivework population. Both conditionsare not necessarily met today. Even in capi- talistcountrieswith chronic unemployment(such as the United States), the divsionof the labor market (into organized and com- petitivesectors) interfereswith the natural mechanismof com- petition. With a mountingpoverty line (recognizedby the wel- fare state), the living standardsof the lower income groups and the groupstemporarily releasedfromthe labor process are mutu- ally assimilating on the otherside in the subproletarian strata. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION663 PossessiveIndividualism. Bourgeois society sees itselfas an instrumental group thataccumulatessocial wealth only by way of private wealth - i.e., guarantees economic growth and general welfare throughcompetition between strategicallyacting private persons. Collective goals, under such circumstances, canbe achieved only by way of individual utility orientations. This preferencesystem, of course, presupposes: that the private economic subjects can with subjective un- ambiguityrecognize and calculateneeds thatremainconstantover given time periods; that this need can be satisfied by individually demandable goods (normally,by way of monetary decisions that conformto the system). Both presuppositions are no longer fulfilledasamatter of course in the developed capitalist societies. These societieshave reached a level of societal wealth far beyond warding offa few fundamentalhazardsto lifeand the satisfying of basic needs. This is why the individualistic system of preference is becomingvague. The steadyinterpreting and reinterpreting of needs is becoming a matterof the collectiveformationof the will, a factwhich opens the alternativesof eitherfreeand quasi-political communication among consumers ascitizens ormassive manipulation - i.e., strong indirect steering. The greater the degree of freedom forthe preferencesystem of the demanders, the more urgent the problem of sales policies forthe suppliers - at least if they are to maintainthe illusion that the consumerscan make private and autonomous decisions. Opportunisticadjustment of the con- sumersto market strategies is the ironicalformof every consumer autonomy, which is to be maintainedas the faade of possessive individualism. In addition, with increasing socializationof pro- duction, the quota of collective commodities among the con- sumer goods keeps growing. Theurban living conditions in complex societiesare moreand more dependent on an infrastruc- ture (transportation, leisure,health,education, etc.) that is with- This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions664SOCIALRESEARCH drawing furtherand furtherfromtheformsof differentialdemand and privateappropriation. Exchange-value Orientation.HereIhave to mention the tendenciesthat weaken the socializationeffectsof the market, especially theincreaseof those parts of the population thatdo not reproduce theirlives through incomefromwork (students, welfare recipients,social-securityrecipients, invalids,criminals,soldiers, etc.) as well as the expansion of areas of activity in which, as in civil serviceor in teaching, abstractwork is replaced by concrete work. In addition, the relevancethatleisure acquires with fewer working hours (and higher real income),compared with the rele- vance of issues withinthe occupational sphere of life, does not in the long run privilege thoseneeds that can be satisfiedmone- tarily. The erosionof bourgeois tradition brings out normativestruc- tures that are no longer appropriate to reproducing civil and family and professionalprivatism. Thenow dominant com- ponents of cultural heritagecrystalize around a faithin science, a "postauratic" art, and universalisticvalues.Irreversible develop- mentshave occurredin each of theseareas. As a result, functional inequalities of the economicand the politicalsystems are blocked by cultural barriers, and they can be broken down only at the psychological cost of regressions - i.e., with extraordinary motiva- tional damage. GermanFascismwas an example of thewastefulat- tempt at a collectivelyorganizedregression of consciousnessbelow the thresholdsof fundamentalscientistic convictions, modern art, and universalisticlaw and morals. Scientism. The political consequences of the authority en- joyedby thescientific system in developed societiesare ambivalent. The rise of modernscience establisheda demand for discursive justification, and traditionalisticattitudescannothold out against that demand.On the other hand, short-lived popular syntheses of scientificdata (which have replaced global interpretations) guarantee the authority of sciencein the abstract. The authority knownas "science*'can thuscover both things: the broadly effec- tive criticismof any prejudice, as well as the new esotericsof This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION665 specialized knowledge and expertise. Aself-affirmationof the sciencescan furthera positivistic commonsenseon the part of the depoliticizedpublic. Yet scientismestablishesstandards by which it can also be criticizeditselfand found guilty of residual dogma- tism. Theories of technocracy and of democratic elitism, assert- ing the necessity of an institutionalizedcivic privatism, come forth withthe presumption of theories. But this does not make them immuneto criticism. PostauraticArt.The consequences of modern art are some- what less ambivalent.Themodern age hasradicalized the autonomy of bourgeois art in regard to the external purposes for whichart could be used.For the first time, bourgeoissociety it- self produced a counterculture against the bourgeois life style of possessive individualism, performance, and practicality. The Bohme, firstestablishedin Paris, the capital of the nineteenth century, embodiesa criticaldemandthathad arisen, unpolemically still, in the aura of the bourgeois artwork. The alter ego of the businessman, the "human being/' whom the bourgeois used to encounterin the lonesome contemplation of the artwork, soon split away fromhim.In the shape of the artistic avant-garde, it confrontedhim as a hostile, at best seductiveforce. In artistic beauty, the bourgeoisie had been able to experience its own ideals and the (as always) fictitious redemption of the promise of happi- nesswhichwas merelysuspended in everyday life.In radicalized art,however, the bourgeois soon had to recognize the negation of social practice as its complement. Modern art is the outer covering in which the transformation of bourgeois art into a counterculturewas prepared. Surrealism marksthe historicalmomentwhen modernart programmatically destroyed the outer covering of no-longer-beautiful illusion in order to enter life desublimated. The leveling of the different realitydegrees of art and life was accelerated (although not, as Walter Benjamin assumed, introduced)by the new techniques of mass reproduction and mass reception. Modern art had already sloughed offthe aura of classical bourgeois art in that the art workmade the productionprocess visible and presented itselfas This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions666SOCIALRESEARCH a made product. But artenterstheensembleof utility values only when abandoning its autonomous status.The process is cer- tainly ambivalent. It can signify the degeneration of art into a propagandistic mass art or commercializedmass culture, or else its transformationinto a subversivecounterculture. Universalist Morality. The blockage which bourgeois ideol- ogies,stripped of theirfunctional components, createfor develop- ing the political and economic system, is even clearer inthe moral system than in the authority of science and the self-disin- tegration of modernart.The momenttraditionalsocietiesenter a process of modernization, the growingcomplexity results in steeringproblems thatnecessitatean accelerated change of social norms. The tempo inherentin natural cultural traditionhas to be heightened. This leads to bourgeois formallaw which per- mits releasing the norm contentsfromthe dogmatic structureof mere traditionand defining them in termsof intention. The legal norms are uncoupled from the corps of privatized moral norms. In addition, they need to be created (and justified) accord- ing to principles. Abstractlaw counts only forthatarea pacified by state power. But the morality of bourgeoisprivatepersons, a morality likewiseraised to the level of universal principles, en- countersno barrierin the continuing naturalconditionbetween the states. Since principledmorality is sanctioned only by the purely inward authority of the conscience, its claim to universality conflictswith public morality, which is still bound to a concrete state-subject. This is the conflictbetween the cosmopolitanism of thehuman being and the loyalties of the citizen. If we followthe developmentallogic of overall societal systems of norms (leaving the area of historical examples), we can settle thatconflict. But its resolutionis conceivable only under certain conditions. The dichotomy betweeninnerand outer morality has to disappear. Thecontrastbetween morally and legally regu- lated areas has to be relativized. And the validity of all norms has to be tied to the discursiveformationof the will of the people potentially affected. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsLEGITIMATION667 Competitivecapitalism for the firsttime gave a binding force to strictly universalisevalue systems. This occurredbecause the system of exchange had to be regulateduniversalistically and be- cause the exchange of equivalents offereda basic ideology effective inthe bourgeois class.In organized capitalism, the bottom drops out of this legitimation model.At the same time, new and increaseddemandsfor legitimation arise. However, the sys- tem of sciencecannot intentionally fall behind an attained stage of cumulative knowledge.Similarly, the moral system, once practical discourse has been admitted, cannot simply make us forget a collectively attained stage of moral consciousness. I would like to conclude with a finalreflection. If no sufficientconcordanceexistsbetweenthe normativestruc- turesthat still have some power today and the politicoeconomic system, then we can still avoid motivationcrises by uncoupling thecultural system. Culturewould thenbecome a nonobligatory leisure occupation or the object of professionalknowledge. This solutionwould be blocked if the basic convictionsof a communi- cativeethicsand the experiencecomplexes of countercultures (in which postauratic art is embodied) acquired a motive-forming power determiningtypical socialization processes. Such acon- jecture is supportedby severalbehavior syndromesspreading more and more amongyoungpeople - eitherretreatas a reactionto an exorbitantclaim onthe personality-resources; or protest asa resultof an autonomous ego organization thatcannotbe stabilized withoutconflictsunder given conditions. On the activistside we find: the student movement, revolts by high-school studentsand apprentices,pacifists, women's lib.Theretreatistside is rep- resented by hippies, Jesus people, the drug subculture, phe- nomenaof undermotivationin schools, etc. These are the primary areas for checking our hypothesis that late-capitalist societiesare endangeredby a collapse of legitimation. Originally published in Merkur, April-May 1973. This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:23:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions