An Analysis Of The Essence Of Habermas's Critical Thought On Political Economic

No matter how many achievements the capitalist society has achieved,the essence and principles of it cannot fully represent the highest spirit of human civilization.What is even more frightening is that the late capitalist society caused a split in human rationality and distorted communication.The egoism,instrumentalism,and all kinds of ugly phenomena embodied in social relations are not the means of the highest goal pursued by human society.As an important thinker of the Frankfurt School,Jurgen Habermas is also the successor of Marx’s critical thinking on political economy.He started a comprehensive critique to the late capitalist society and revealed the true symptoms of the late capitalist society.Political economics critique is not purely abstract,its true gold lies in its foundation on social and historical reality.Therefore,based on the "realistic foundation" of late capitalism,Habermas has launched a three-dimensional critique that takes economy as the "starting point",politics as "rising",and then philosophy as "realization".As for the many problems that existed in the late capitalist society,Habermas tried to solve them by rationalizing the communicative behavior.Political economics critique takes economy as the "starting point" : Habermas believes that the late capitalist society has produced a new economic crisis.He asserted that Marx’s economic crisis of overproduction no longer exists in the late capitalist society.The reasons are: On the one hand,science and technology have become the primary productive forces,creating extremely rich social material wealth;on the other hand,the strengthening of state intervention activities and the implementation of monetary and fiscal policies have effectively controlled the natural fluctuations of the social economy.Moreover,the improvement of social welfare effectively stabilized the contradiction between the proletariat and the capitalists.However,Habermas believes that the economic crisis of late capitalism still exists and will appear in new forms.The phenomenon of "stagflation" is a manifestation of the new crisis,and it is accompanied by the government’s severe fiscal deficit,indicating a major lack of administrative capacity.Therefore,Habermas believes that the emergence of the new economic crisis has also triggered a crisis of rationality.The crisis of rationality refers to people’s doubts about the government’s ability to stabilize prices,maintain full employment,and achieve economic growth.Habermas believes that due to the essential nature of capitalist private ownership,the outbreak of a rationality crisis is inevitable.In this way,the crisis has shaken the legitimacy foundation of the ruling class.Habermas believes that the legitimacy of a liberal capitalist society is basically stabilized through ideology.However,due to increased state intervention,the old ideology no longer exists.The crisis of rationality has erupted into a more serious crisis of legitimacy.The old ideology is that people can conduct fair and free exchanges in a market economy environment.Extending to the public domain is that people can speak freely representing their own interests.Due to the policy of state intervention,the public sphere of the late capitalist society has undergone a structural transformation.The public sphere is no longer "public",and it cannot represent the voice of the broad masses of people.The public sphere has become a tool for rulers to try to stabilize their rule through compensation programs.So Habermas said that the public sphere has changed from a "practical problem" to a "technical problem." Furthermore,the disintegration of the old ideology,and science and technology as a new ideology brings about technological supremacy and scientific dominance,which will only allow "instrumental behavior" to invade "communicative behavior" more deeply.Therefore,the motivation for the people to work hard for life is gone,and Habermas calls this a motivational crisis.The motivational crisis is reflected in the cultural realm of capitalist society.Traditional culture is fading day by day under the invasion of instrumental rationality,and new culture cannot be produced.The late capitalist society finally fell into the fourfold crisis of economic crisis,rationality crisis,legitimacy crisis,and motivation crisis.Political economics critiques takes politics as "rising" : Habermas believes that there are two important trends in late capitalist society,namely,science and technology as the primary productive forces and the increase of state intervention.Both of these trends make people’s communication behaviors unreasonable.Science and technology make people become more and more like machines,and the nature of human beings has been alienated,making human "tool behavior" rationalized and human "communication behavior" irrational,that is,people apply the relationship between man and nature to dealing with the relationship between people.As a result,"communication behavior" is increasingly being assimilated by "instrumental behavior",and people are bound to use each other as a means to achieve their ends,which will cause misunderstanding,distrust and contradictions between people.The increase of state intervention has severely infringed the life world in which people live,causing people living in it to be dominated and controlled by various compulsory orders of the economic system and political system,and the behavior of interpersonal communication has been further distorted.Coupled with the transformation of the public sphere of the late capitalist society,the power of public opinion has finally become an important tool for the country to promote the legitimacy of its own rule.This is where Habermas takes the economic dimension as a starting point and realizes a profound interpretation of the socio-political dimension of late capitalism.Political economics critique takes philosophy as "realization" : Many diseases of late capitalism are finally analyzed comprehensively and profoundly through the appearance of philosophy.Habermas believes that the real cause of late capitalism lies in the split of human rationality.The original state of reason is rich and diverse: it can be used for truth-seeking,practical use,and aesthetic use.The "rationality" of the late capitalist society is a rationality that has been extremely split and distorted,and only "instrumental rationality" remains for this kind of rationality.In order to clarify the "rational" development and change process.Habermas traced the germination,growth,peak of reason,and the reflection and criticism of reason.It mainly discusses the power theory that wants to get out of subject philosophy and why it got into trouble.In the end,Habermas believes that the establishment of communicative rationality is the only way to save rationality and return people to the world of life.Therefore,Habermas believes that the establishment of communicative rationality is the rationalization of communicative behavior.This is an antidote prescribed by Habermas for the late capitalist society.Habermas divides human behavior into "instrumental behavior" and "communicative behavior"."Communication behavior" refers to the interaction between people using symbols or language as the medium and social norms as the criterion.Its purpose is to achieve mutual understanding and agreement between people.Realizing the rationalization of communicative behavior is the goal that human beings should strive for.Habermas believes that three paths should be followed to establish the rationalization of communicative behavior: changing the life world,choosing the appropriate language and dialogue,and recognizing and valuing the common category.Wherever there is communicative behavior,there is a language.Wherever language behavior is hindered,it is the place where communication behavior is unreasonable.Therefore,the analysis of language behavior is very important.The world of human language communication is divided into three categories: the objective world of the interlocutor;the world of the intersubjective society;the subjective world of oneself.The three worlds are the truth,human feelings,and mood.Through the expression of language,the three worlds enable participants to achieve understanding and agreement.Habermas puts forward "universal pragmatics" to illustrate the language in which this goal can be achieved.Respecting and acknowledging certain norms is another way to rationalize communication behavior.The norms should be universal,that is,the norms can represent the will of the majority of people.In order to achieve this goal,Habermas has established "Communication Ethics" or "Discussion Ethics".The antidote prescribed by Habermas have great value.It contains profound philosophy,sociology,ethics,political science and other thoughts.With the gradual erosion of social interactions between people,it is worthy of people’s attention to work hard to establish mutual understanding and respectful interpersonal relationships.Therefore,it is not unreasonable that it has received widespread attention from all over the world.However,this set of solutions of Habermas endows language with a priori value and overemphasizes the role of morality in social norms.Moreover,the rationalization theory of communicative behaviors it puts forward has obvious social reformism.