CHAPTER IX

THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY:

HABERMAS’S RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

MANUEL B. DY, Jr.

            The tendency in discussing the economic structure of society is to limit the discussion to the sphere of society concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, thereby forgetting the social relations involved and the socialization processes. If society is not just a mere conglomeration of individuals in a particular situation, but a system or systems of human beings acting and interacting with each other in coordination, then the economic structure of society includes both the productive forces and the relations of production, This is the merit of Jürgen Ha-bermas’s general theory of social evolution.

            I shall attempt to present in this paper the economic structure of society from his reconstruction of Marx’s historical materialism, its evolution and crisis mechanism. Towards that end, I shall try to bring out the value implications at stake this entails.

OUTER NATURE AND INNER NATURE

            At the outset, let us understand "society" as "all systems which -- through linguistically coordinated (instrumental and social) actions -- appropriate outer nature in production processes and inner nature in socialization processes."1

            Outer nature refers to the resources of the non-human envi-ronment. These are appropriated in production processes, setting free energies that are transformed into use values. Social systems organize and train labor power and develop technologies and stra-tegies. These require technically utilizable knowledge which em-ploys utterances that admit of truth. "Work or instrumental action, is governed by technical rules."2

            Inner nature refers to the organic substratum of the members of society, which is appropriated in socialization processes. So-cialization processes enable the members of the system to become subjects capable of speaking and acting with the help of normative structures, where needs are interpreted and actions are allowed or made obligatory. Social systems integrate inner nature through the medium of norms that have need of justification. Communicative action is governed by correctness or appropriateness, by valid norms.3

            Both control of outer nature and integration of inner nature occur through the medium of language, for language has a double structure: speaking about something and to someone.

            In sum, "the exchange between social systems and their envi-ronment takes place in production (appropriation of outer nature) and socialization (appropriation of inner nature) through the medium of utterances that admit of truth and norms that have need of justification."4

SOCIAL LABOR

            Marx pointed to socially organized labor as the specific way in which human beings reproduce their lives:

Man can be distinguished from the animal by consciousness, religion, or anything else you please. He begins to distinguish himself from the animal the moment he begins to produce his means of sub-sistence, a step required by his physical organi-zation. By producing food, man indirectly produces his material life itself.5

            Marx did not limit "production" to the instrumental action of a single individual, but included the social cooperation of different individuals:

A certain mode of production or industrial stage is always combined with a certain mode of co-ope-ration or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself a "productive force". We observe in addition that the multitude of productive forces accessible to men determines the nature of society and that the "history of mankind" must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange.6

            Habermas explicates this socially organized labor of Marx in terms of three types of rules:7

            1. the reshaping of material according to the rules of ins-trumental action or purposive-rational action,

            2. the instrumental activity of different individuals organized for purposes of production according to the rules of strategic action, and

            3. the socially organized distribution of products through the systematic connection of reciprocal expectations of interests ac-cording to the rules of communicative action or social norms.

            The system that socially regulates labor and distribution is the economy. For Marx, the economic form of reproducing life is characteristic of the human stage of development. "As individuals express their life, so they are what they are; life, therefore, coincides with what they produce and how they produce."8

            But for Habermas, Marx’s concept of social labor does not capture the specifically human reproduction of life. Social labor and economy may be suitable to distinguish the hominid from the pri-mates, but not human life itself. Among the hominids, we find the adult males forming hunting bands which: (a) made use of weapons and tools (technology), (b) cooperated through division of labor (cooperative organization), and (c) distributed the prey within the collective rules of distribution (rules of distribution).9

            What actually distinguishes the homo sapiens is not the economy, but the family. Humans broke up the one-dimensional rank-ordering of the animals in which every animal is transitively given one and only one status. With the introduction of the father’s role, the family system of human beings made possible the com-bination of the status of the male in the hunting band with that in the female and child system. Now the function of social labor is inte-grated with that of nurturing the young, and the function of male hunting is coordinated with those of female plant gathering. The familial social structure supplemented the economy of the hunt. The organization of society along kinship lines replaced the animal status system with a system of social roles and norms, based on inter-subjective recognition of normed expectations of behavior. But this presupposes the development of language. The specifically human form of reproducing life "first took place in the structures of labor and language. Labor and language are older than man and society."10

            Habermas summarizes the above in four points:11

1. The concept of social labor is fundamental. The social orga-nization of labor and distribution precedes the emergence of lin-guistic communication, and this in turn precedes the formation of social systems.

2. The specifically human mode of life is the joining of social labor with organization along kinship lines.

3. The structure of role behavior marks a new evolutionary threshold vis-a-vis social labor. Rules of communicative action can-not be reduced to instrumental strategic action.

4. Production and socialization, social labor and care of the young, are of equal importance for the reproduction of the human species. The familial social structure is fundamental for the inte-gration of both outer and inner nature.

MODE OF PRODUCTION

            For Marx, the key to the reconstruction of the history of species is in the "mode of production". A mode of production is characterized by the specific state of development of productive forces and by specific forms of relations of production. Productive forces consist of the labor power of producers, technical knowledge insofar as it is converted into means and techniques that heighten productivity, and organizational knowledge insofar as it is employed for mobilization, qualification and organization of labor power. Rela-tions of production, on the other hand, are those institutions and social mechanisms that determine how labor power can be combined with available means of production. The regulation of access to the means of production indirectly determines the distribution of social wealth. Relations of production are expressions of the distribution of power. Marx assumed that the forces and relations of production do not vary independently, but exhibit structural correspondence to one another in such a way that they yield structurally analogous stages which can be ordered developmentally and logically: the handmill produces the feudal lord; the steam mill, the industrial capitalist.12

            Five modes of production are distinguished: (1) primitive com-munal, (2) ancient based on slaveholding, (3) feudal, (4) capitalist, and finally (5) socialist. Later, (6) the asiatic mode was added. These six modes designate the universal stages of social evolution in terms of which any particular economic structure can be analyzed.

            Marx’s analysis of social development in terms of productive forces and social intercourse has advantages over: (a) the dogmatic version of the history of species, where previous world history ex-hibits a unilinear, necessary, continuous and irreversible develop-ment of a macrosubject; (from stone, bronze and iron to artificial materials) or energy sources (from fire, water and wind to atomic and solar energy); (c) the forms of organizing cooperative labor (from family and cottage industry to factory system, to national and multinational concerns); (d) the market structures (household, city, national economy and world economy); and (e) the social division of labor (from hunting and gathering to cultivation of soil and animal husbandry, to urban crafts and rural farming, to industry and agri-culture). Still, there are problems in the application of his schema to available anthropological and historical material. Besides the pro-blem with mixed and transitional forms (there is no pure form of a single mode of production), there are others in applying the schema:

            (a) to the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic societies: both are primitive yet they exhibit marked differences in productive forces and organization;

            (b) to the Asiatic mode of production: is this the last stage or the first form of class society; is it a universal stage or a specific stage alongside the ancient?

            (c) to feudalism: is it a single mode or a concatenation of several; was it universal or unique to medieval Europe?

            (d) to the differences between archaic and developed civiliza-tions: within the framework of the same political form of class orga-nization there occurred a remarkable change in the structure of dominant world views in China, India, Palestine and Greece;

            (e) to advanced capitalism: is state-regulated capitalism the last phase of an old mode of production or the first of a new one?

            (f) to bureaucratic socialism: is it a variant of the same stage as organized capitalism or a higher one?13

            These difficulties suggest that the mode of production is not adequate enough to analyze social development. To strengthen this schema Habermas adds the concept, "principle of organization".

PRINCIPLE OF ORGANIZATION

By principles of organization I understand innovations that become possible through developmental, logically reconstructible stages of learning, and which institutionalize new levels of societal learning. The organizational principle of society circumscribes ranges of possibility. It determines in particular: within which struc-tures changes in the system of institutions are possible; to what extent the available capacities of productive forces are socially utilized and the development of new productive forces can be sti-mulated; to what extent system complexity and adaptive achieve-ments can be heightened. A principle of organization consists of regulations so abstract that in the social formation which it deter-mines a number of functionally equi-valent modes of production are possible. Accordingly, the economic structure of a given society would have to be examined at two analytic levels: firstly in terms of the modes of production that have been concretely combined in it and then in terms of that social formation to which the dominant mode of production belongs.14

            The principle of organization determines the formation of society at any given time. Specifically, it determines: (1) the learning mechanism on which the development of productive forces depends, (2) the range of variation for the interpretive systems that secure identity; and (3) the institutional boundaries for the possible expansion of the steering capacity.15

            It would be a mistake therefore to situate the social formation or the level of development of society simply in terms of the control of the means of production -- relations of production -- or to equate it with the determinate forms of ownership at any given time.16 This is the case of the economistic interpretation of the "base-superstructure" of Marx. According to this theory, the forces and relation of production form an economic structure by which all other subsystems (culture, politics and religion) are determined. In the orthodox Marxist version, the processes in any "higher sub-system" are causally determined upon or structurally limited by "lower" (economic) sub-systems. In the Hegelian Marxist version, the economic structure is construed dialectically as the essence that appears in observable social phenomena.17

            Habermas, however, interprets this theory of Marx in another way: the dependence of the superstructure on the base is meant only for the critical phase in which a society is passing over to a new developmental level. The economic structure is not an ontological constitution of society, but plays a leading role in social evolution. Marx introduced the concept of "base" to single out a domain of problems where innovations can be explained. But to equate the "base" with the economic structure could lead to the view that the basic domain always coincides with the economic system. This is true only of capitalist societies. In primitive societies, the relations of production (the function of regulating access to the means of production and thereby indirectly regulating the distribution of social wealth) were fixed by the kinship system, and in pre-modern societies by the political system. The relations of production can make use of different institutions or institutional nuclei.18

            The institutional nuclei are embodiments of the abstract principles of organization. The institutional nucleus functions as relations of production and determines a dominant form of social integration.19 Social integration secures the unity of the social life-world through values and norms. "If system problems cannot be solved in accord with the dominant form of social integration, if the latter must itself be revolutionized in order to create latitude for new problem solution, the identity of society is in danger."20

            The following are examples of principles of organization corresponding to certain social transformations:21

            (1) Primitive social formation: The institutional core is the kinship system, the organizational principle being the primary roles of age and sex. Here the forces of production cannot be augmented through exploitation of labor power. There is hardly a systematic motive for producing more foods than are necessary, even if the state of productive forces may allow a surplus. Only external change (demographic growth, economic exchange, war and conquest) overloads the steering capacity of this society.

            (2) Traditional social formation: The principle of organization is class domination in political form. The production and distribution of social wealth is transferred from familial forms of organization of ownership to the means of production, with the emergence of bu-reaucratic authority. With private ownership of the means of pro-duction, class societies emerge and a power relationship is institu-tionalized. Forces of production can be augmented with exploitation through organized forced labor, but the order of authority rests on traditional worldviews.

            (3) Liberal-Capitalist social formation: The principle of orga-nization is the relationship of wage, labor and capital, based on the system of bourgeois civil law. With the rise of state-free commerce between private owners of commodities, civil society is segregated from the political-economic system. Now the modern rational state becomes the complementary arrangement to self regulative market commerce which is the institutional nucleus. Labor productivity is enhanced with the uncoupling of the economic system from the political, giving rise to a bourgeois society free from traditional ties and given over to profit-oriented competition. This strategic-utili-tarian morality is based on a Protestant ethic, on the justice of a fair exchange of equivalents.

MECHANISM OF CRISIS

            Marx saw the mechanism of crisis in a dialectic of forces and relations of production:

At a certain stage of development the material pro-ductive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or -- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms -- with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of the development of the productive forces, these rela-tions turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.22

This dialectic of forces and relations of production have been inter-preted in a "technologistic sense" to mean that productive techni-ques themselves determine a certain organization of labor and par-ticular relations of production. Another interpretation is the struc-turalist interpretation: an endogenous learning mechanism provides growth of technical knowledge and its conversion into productive forces. According to this interpretation, the mode of production is in the state of equilibrium only if there exists a structural corres-pondence between the developmental stages of forces and relations of production. Endogenous development of productive forces gene-rates structural incompatibilities between these two orders, which in turn evoke imbalances in the existing mode of production, leading to a revolution in the relations of production.23

            Habermas still finds the structuralist interpretation inadequate. The learning mechanism described does not explain how the problems that arise can be solved. The development of productive forces trigger, but do not bring about, the overthrow of relations of production and an evolutionary renewal of the mode of production. The great developments that led to the rise of the first civilizations did not have any noteworthy development of productive forces as a condition, but only as a consequence. The cognitive potential pro-duced by the postulated learning mechanism can be exploited for developing productive forces only when a new institutional frame-work and a new form of social integration has emerged. But the introduction of new forms of social integration (for instance, the replacement of the kinship system by the state) requires knowledge of the moral-practical kind. This is not technically useful knowledge, but knowledge of the structures of interaction; it is not knowledge of the expansion of control over outer nature, but knowledge that extends the autonomy of society in relation to inner nature.24

            How does the evolutionary step to a new form of social integration come about? The answer of historical materialism is through social conflicts, political struggle and social movements, in short, through class struggle; the answer of Habermas is through a bi-dimensional learning process, cognitive/technical and moral/practical. The development of the forces of production cannot be grasped independently of the development of the forms of social integration.

THE THREE STAGES OF COMMUNICATION

            AND LEVELS OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION

            Habermas focuses his attention on the moral/practical learning process and social integration. The three stages of commu-nication correspond to the stages of Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s stages of moral consciousness and development.

            (1) Stage of symbolically mediated interaction. Speaking and acting are still entangled in a framework of a single, imperativist mode of communication. A expresses a behavioral expectation through a symbol, to which B reacts with an action with the intention of fulfilling A’s expectations, and vice versa: the symbol and action define each other. Participants suppose that they could in principle exchange places, but they remain bound to their performative attitudes. Here actions, motives and acting subjects are perceived on a single plane of reality. This stage corresponds to the pre-conven-tional stage of Piaget and Kohlberg, where only the consequences of action are evaluated in cases of conflict.

            (2) State of propositionally differentiated speech. Speaking and acting are separated for the first time. A and B cannot only adopt the other’s perspectives, but also can take the perspective of an observer. They can connect the performative attitude of the participant with the propositional attitude of an observer. The reci-procal behavioral expectations of the two can be coordinated in such a way that they constitute a system of social roles. At this stage, actions and norms separate. This corresponds to the conventional stage of Piaget and Kohlberg where motives can be assessed inde-pendently of the consequences of action; conforming to a certain social role is the standard.

            (3) State of argumentative speech. The validity claims of speech acts can be made thematic and argued over. Norms and roles appear in need of justification, their validity can be contended and grounded in principles. This corresponds to the post-conventional stage of Piaget and Kohlberg, where systems of norms lose their quasi-natural validity and require justification from universalistic points of view.

            In distinguishing levels of social integration, Habermas prefers to keep separated: (a) generally structures of action, (b) structures of worldviews determinant of morality and law, and (c) structures of institutionalized law and of binding moral repre-sentatives. Below is the sketch of the levels of social integration.26

VALUE IMPLICATIONS

            Habermas’ arguments for the different crisis tendencies (economic, rational, legitimation and motivation) which would have brought us in direct confrontation with Philippine social reality is beyond the scope of this paper. However, our presentation of his economic structure of society is enough to lead us to the following value implications.

            1. Economic development cannot be divorced from moral (or practical, in the Greek sense of "praxis") development. Progress in productive forces, though it may lead to a highly differentiated division of labor processes and to differentiation of the organization of labor within industries, does not by itself bring about a develop-ment of moral-practical consciousness.27 For a society to develop, system integration must be complemented with social integration. Social integration pertains to the identity of society, to the systems of institutions in which speaking and acting subjects are socially related in their life world.28 In this regard, social justice becomes more important than commutative justice. While commutative justice sets the agreements of individuals with regard to the problem of wages and work conditions, it is social justice that creates the social conditions and agreements which commutative justice must observe.

            2. The value of the family cannot be overlooked. It is the family system that is the locus of interaction between the individual and society. Socialization begins with the family. If development is to be specifically human it must foster the integration of the family.

            3. The mode of production of any society needs a principle of organization embodied in an institutional nucleus. This institutional nucleus must be suited to the particular culture of society. If econo-mic development is to benefit all the members of a society and if the people’s welfare is the foremost interest, then technical and stra-tegic acting are not enough. There is need for a principle of orga-nization -- an institutionalization of "people power", where the citizenry actively participate in the decision-making process -- and a feedback mechanism. However, this presupposes that the par-ticipants are mature enough to enter the stage of argumentative speech in order to discuss, criticize and justify norms based on universualizable principles.

            4. Social formation or transformation cannot be brought about by class conflicts because these threaten the identity and integration of society. Instead, transformation requires a bi-dimensional learning processes. These may take a long span of time, but in the long run they are the only alternative to violence. We must remember that economic liberation is only a step, albeit a major step, to total liberation.

NOTES

            1. Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jürgen Ha-bermas (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982), p. 248.

            2. Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 9.

            3. Ibid., pp. 9-10.

            4. Ibid., p. 8.

            5. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, in L. Easton and K. Guddat, eds. Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (New York: 1967), p. 409.

            6. Ibid., p. 421.

            7. Jürgen Habermas, Communication and Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976), p. 132.

            8. Marx and Engels, op.cit., p. 409.

            9. Jürgen Habermas, op.cit., pp. 135-136.

            10. Ibid., p. 137.

            11. Ibid., pp. 137-139.

            12. Ibid., pp. 138-139.

            13. Thomas McCarthy, op.cit., pp. 240-241.

            14. Jürgen Habermas, The Normative Content of Modernity (Boston: MIT), pp. 153-154.

            15. Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, pp. 7-8.

            16. Ibid., p. 16.

            17. Thomas McCarthy, op.cit., p. 243.

            18. Jürgen Habermas, Communication and Evolution of Society, pp. 143-144.

            19. Ibid., p. 144.

            20. Ibid., p. 144.

            21. Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, pp. 18-24.

            22. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (New York: Dobbs, 1970), Preface, p. 21.

            23. Thomas McCarthy, op.cit., p. 244.

            24. Jürgen Habermas, Communication and Evolution of Society, pp. 145-147.

            25. Ibid., pp. 154-156.

            26. Ibid., pp. 156-158.

            27. Ibid., p. 146.

            28. Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis. p. 4.