07. Social freedom in contemporary capitalism: A reconstruction of Axel Honneth’s normative approach to the economy

Abstract

This paper discusses two related issues, namely how to adequately describe the economy within the framework of a critical social theory, and how to understand the interrelation between the socio-economic and political dimensions of democracy. Concerning the first issue Honneth stresses the moral quality of social integration, and concerning the second issue he develops a conception of ‘democratic Sittlichkeit.’ In reconstructing these issues, both the promises and problems of Honneth’s work for analyzing and criticizing contemporary developments in the economy are explored. The paper concludes that the unresolved challenge for Honneth is not to succumb to a nostalgic return to 19th century solutions – a nostalgia that can also be found in the recent article where Honneth (2014b) argues for a return to an organic conception of society – but to combine the insights of Hegel and Durkheim concerning our fundamental interdependence with insights concerning the new emancipatory aspects of contemporary forms of individualism.

Towards an Immanent Conception of Economic Agency: Or, A Speech on Metaphysics to its Cultured Despisers

“…1. 8 Honneth's early engagement with craft-work is aimed at demonstrating something like this second claim, i.e., that even relatively Fordist models of industrial production require selfdetermining activity on the part of individual workers (Honneth 1980, Arentshorst 2015. 9 Of course, there is the additional question of what, metaphysically, is an individual agent in Hegel's sense.…”

“…Hans Arentshorst has characterized this shift by saying thatHonneth has moved between two opposites in the thirty years between the articles ‘Labor and instrumental action’ (1980) and ‘Labor and recognition’ (2010a). Whereas his early craftsman ideal was immanent but lacked rationality, his recent approach of normative functionalism is rational but lacks immanence… (Arentshorst 2015: 142)…”