Critical review of the habermasian reading of Marx:

Social evolution, modernity and capitalism

Abstract

This article proposes to review Habermas’s reading of Marx. It does so from a critical perspective that seeks to evaluate problematic aspects both in Marx’s interpretation and in Habermas’s own doctrine. The article is divided into two main parts, which try to reconstruct two central lines of the habermasian reading of Marx. The first is developed in some writings that go from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, where Habermas reconstructs the vision of the constitution of the human species in the history that underlies Marx’s approach, to which he will impute a reductionist vision which will try to overcome with his own approach. The central point in this part is Habermas’s distinction between work and interaction: in the way of dimensioning and relating both concepts lies both his criticism of Marx and his own contribution. The second interpretative line is reconstructed from the critical examination of Marx posed in Theory of Communicative Action. Here the center of the analysis becomes Habermas's theory of modern society on two levels, as system and life-world, and the problematic way in which according to this author the Marxian analysis of capitalism addresses the relationship between these levels. From this point, Habermas's reading of Marx is questioned and some ambiguities that it reveals regarding the Habermasian analysis of capitalism are indicated.