Suchergebnisse

Critique of the ideological content of several government-initiated propaganda campaigns promoting honesty, hard work, and prudence, 1977-87.

A central question in Jurgen Habermas's Legitimation Crisis (London: Heinemann, 1976) is examined: to what extent has the growth of the capitalist economy affected precapitalist moral values? Habermas's progressive displacement thesis is reviewed, noting the problems in state economic management produced by the absence of established, internalized values, which both restrain economic demand & reinforce a work ethic. F. Hayek's proposal of enforced state-economy separation in Law, Legislation and Liberty (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976) is evaluated as a possible alternative; his model is viewed, however, as implying a legitimation crisis of a different order, in relying too strongly on a functionally weak market. Habermas's own proposal for a rational consensus morality (Sittlichkeit) is then critiqued, stressing that while rational discussion of values is significant, Habermas's recourse to an ideal "undistorted communications" medium remains unrealistic & untenable. 20 References. Modified HA.

AbstractThis paper explores one aspect of the recent work of Jürgen Habermas on Legitimation Crisis. It focuses attention on Habermas's claim that the pre‐capitalist moral values on which capitalism has hitherto relied have become progressively displaced by the growth of the capitalist economy. This has produced central problems for the state management of the economy, in the absence of an established internalized set of values which could act both as restraints upon economic demands and as reinforcements to an ethic of work. Various attempts to solve this problem proposed by Hayek and Luhman are discussed together with Habermas's own proposal for a rational consensus view of morality which could lead to a new Sittlichkeit. The conclusion of the paper is that while rational discussion of values is important, this does not entail that the possibility agreement is required to make sense of this activity. Habermas's notion of undistorted communication as a way of recommending a moral foundation for politics is not feasible.

One of Marx's basic assumptions was that rationalism was a valid approach to life, & that human beings were rational. J. Habermas's Legitimation Crisis, (publication data unavailable) represents an attempt to deal with the undermining of this assumption by the experience of the twentieth century. Much of J. Miller's review (publication data unavailable) of the book is based on the assumption that Habermas, as a critic of system theory, should not use its results; this is akin to saying that Marx should not have used classical economic theory. Habermas is more of a materialist than the classical Frankfurt school, in incorporating recent evolutionary knowledge about the human species to his work. Miller also appears to misunderstand Habermas's theory of communicative competence, which rests on the idea of the intersubjective constitution of meaning & on the idea that communication is not a disembodied mechanism but comes into being through concrete social relations, which can impair & thus repress human beings as communicators. Finally, Habermas shows that everyone's life is saturated with structures of exploitation & oppression, & seeks a cure in the reconstitution of social relations on democratic socialist lines, an intrinsically rationalist enterprise identical with the program of Marxism. Miller's reading does deserve credit for the effort it makes to understand Habermas, but it is flawed by excessive intellectual combativeness. W. H. Stoddard.

Aktuelle Analyse der komplexen innenpolitischen Situation in Südafrika. Anstelle des üblichen Schwarz-Weiß-Feindbildes wird versucht, eine allen Seiten gerecht werdende Interpretation der südafrikanischen Wirklichkeit zu geben. Gruppenrechte, Rassen und Klassenbildung. Reformmaßnahmen und weiterhin bestehende Apartheidsstrukturen. Rolle und Einstellung der Wirtschaft gegenüber der Apartheidsgesellschaft und der Regierung. Fragen an die Zukunft. (DÜI-Hlb)

On 21 March 1985, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the infamous Sharpevile incident, South African police, without provocation or warning, killed 20 unarmed black marchers at Langa in the Eastern Cape. Most were shot in the back. The outnumbered contingent of white and black police with two armoured vehicles, felt that the blacks, on their way to a funeral, would threaten the white township.The repetition of this crudest form of state violence against politicised youngsters and workers, threatened by recession after two-and-a-half decades of anti-apartheid opposition, suggests that little has changed in the repression by a minority ré. The rulers command the guns and the subordinates are left wiht no alternative but to submit or perish.