Ház vagy membrán? Az újkapitalizmus kritikai elméletéhez
House or Membrane?

Summary/Abstract: The paper shows that in German thought social critiques have always been reactions to the different capitalist economic and state arrangements characteristics of the given era, and looked at the distinctive features of new capitalism through this lens. While the classical critique of capitalism was based on the ideas of permanent crisis and uncontrollability, Horkheimer and Adorno denounce the capitalism mediated by the totalitarian state. Ha­bermas criticizes the welfare capitalism, where the system guided by instrumental reasons colonizes realms that should be governed by mutual understanding. Although the new capitalism might resemble the 19th century capitalism in many regards, it contains a number of features that make the application of previous social critiques inadequate. Subsequently, it is suggested that it would be more appropriate to replace the house metaphor with one of the membrane in new capitalism, as the relationship between state, economy and society has fundamentally changed. In the new capitalism bureaucratic organizations and their environment cannot be strictly separated any longer, since a complex network is developing on the border, made of activists, liberal managers, media representatives, law consultants and local politicians. Due to the pressure of these groups, bureaucratic organizations are more than ever reliant on the endorsement of clients, consumers and employees. All this, however, does not necessarily entertain an emancipatory feature, since it only indicates that the physical force in the final advocacy interests is replaced by manipulative and discursive techniques. It is unknown, however, whether the enhanced participation observable in consensus-oriented systems replacing the authoritative forms contributes to democratization, or—although assuring wider participation—they entail less accountability of the executive.

• Details
• Contents