Economy, beetween Functional Subsystem, Ethical Constitution and Reification: Habermas, Honneth and Postone’s Perspective

Abstract

There is an implicit debate between Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth about how the modern market works. For Habermas, the neutralization of the economic subsystem is an inevitable result of the modernization process. For Honnet, on the other hand, it is necessary to understand the economic dynamics from a "moral monism" perspective, centered on the normative principle of esteem. Moishe Postone is not directly involved in this debate, but has produced an original critique of Habermas that yet does not coincide with Honneth's moral monism. On this basis, my hypothesis is that it is possible to intervene originally in the discussion, by arguing that social relations in capitalism are effectively decoupled from communicative interactions between people (against Honneth), but this does not constitute progress but a form of domination (against Habermas). It is possible to return to Marx's critique of capitalist reification as an original way of approaching the debate between moral monism and neutralized economy in critical theory, producing an original contribution that is based on Postone's thought, however, exploring new consequences.