Late capitalism or industrial society

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The scientific debate about late capitalism or industrial society was the core topic of the 16th German Sociology Day of the German Society for Sociology (DGS) from April 8th to 11th, 1968 in Frankfurt am Main. After the discussions about role theory and the positivism dispute, it was the third major and groundbreaking controversy in West German post-war sociology. It was about what theoretical background, with what methods and with what aim the West German and West European contemporary society should be analyzed. The controversy between neo-Marxist social analysis (accompanied by activities of the extra-parliamentary opposition ) and empirical social research became so polarized that the next Sociology Day was only held six years later.

Structural and personnel framework

By 1968, three main currents had developed in the Federal Republic of Germany's sociology: the Cologne School around René König and Erwin Scheuch , the Frankfurt School around Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, and a network of philosophical anthropology that was effective at a local level around scientists as diverse as Helmuth Plessner , Arnold Gehlen and Helmut Schelsky . There were also younger but already influential representatives, such as Ralf Dahrendorf and M. Rainer Lepsius , who did not belong to any of the three directions.

Theoretical reference persons of the Cologne School were the French classic Émile Durkheim (especially for König) and the Americans Talcott Parsons , Robert K. Merton and George C. Homans . The training in quantitative social research (especially by Scheuch) was decisive for the Cologne course. In high-circulation publications, König tried to make all special sociologies known. He was the editor of the important Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology .

The central point of reference of the anthropological network was Max Scheler (The position of man in the cosmos) , but it also opened up to international sociology. Works by George Herbert Mead , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Erving Goffman and the emigrant Norbert Elias were made accessible to the German-speaking specialist public. In addition to Plessner, Gehlen and Schelsky, the anthropological direction included Hans Paul Bahrdt , Dieter Claessens , Heinrich Popitz and Friedrich Tenbruck . For this group and the Cologne group, as well as Dahrendorf and Lepsius, Marx and Marxism were considered out of date and the analysis of capitalism an unsuitable instrument for explaining reality. Apart from the political science Marburg School , only representatives of the Frankfurt School held fast to the desideratum of a connection between Marx and modern sociology.

Since the American emigration of its main proponents, the critical theory of society has been a "cover term for a neo-Marxist theory, a Western Marxism that was supported by empirical social research and wanted to clarify the fundamental contradictions in capitalist societies." This was particularly useful for young sociologists working in the Federal Republican society saw a restoration in particular , attractive. Jürgen Habermas , Oskar Negt and Claus Offe were among them .

The main representative of the Frankfurt School Theodor W. Adorno was DGS chairman from 1963 to 1967, his successor was Ralf Dahrendorf. Beyond his term of office, however, Adorno remained chairman of the preparatory committee for the 16th Sociology Day. That is why he was largely responsible for the choice of the general topic of late capitalism or industrial society . Rolf Wiggershaus thinks it is conceivable that the title of the conference was a "tribute to the student movement". For the first time, the public was allowed to actively participate in the discussions in the plenary. This almost exclusively student public created the radical relationship between sociology and the political situation, which led to particularly sharp discussions.

The incumbent DGS chairman Dahrendorf, however, was not involved in the planning of the conference, which he pointed out in his opening speech (according to Claus Offe "a bit pointed") and left the introductory speech to the "actual organizer" Adorno.

Dahrendorf gave his main lecture on the second day of the congress (April 9, 1968) after a joint presentation by Adorno's students Joachim Bergmann , Gerhardt Brandt , Klaus Körber, Ernst Theodor Mohl and Claus Offe. He deviated completely from his prepared manuscript and asked critical questions about Adorno's introductory lecture and the joint presentation.

On the evening of the third day of the congress (April 10, 1968), a public panel discussion took place outside the official conference program, in which Dahrendorf and Scheuch, as well as the students Hans-Jürgen Krahl and Wolfgang Lefèvre took part. According to Dahrendorf, the discussion took place in an “atmosphere of considerable political excitement.” Die Welt headed its report on April 16, 1968 with “Dahrendorf and Scheuch in the lions' den”.

On the last day of the congress (April 11, 1968) Scheuch gave his lecture on methodological problems of societal analyzes. Instead of a planned co-presentation by Habermas (who could not take part due to illness), a panel discussion followed, in which Werner Hofmann and Niklas Luhmann also took part in addition to Scheuch, Adorno and Lepsius .

Not only Habermas was absent from the 16th German Sociologists' Day. Helmut Schelsky, René König and Arnold Gehlen stayed away from the event, the Hessian Minister of Education, Ernst Schütte , whose greeting was announced in the program, was excused, as did the Rector of the University of Frankfurt , Walter Rüegg .

Debates of the 16th Sociology Day

Theodor W. Adorno

In his introductory lecture, Adorno explored the question of whether the capitalist system still prevailed or whether industrial development had made the difference between capitalist and non-capitalist states and thus the criticism of capitalism obsolete. In other words: "Whether the thesis that is so widespread within sociology today that Marx is out of date, is true." He took the view that, given the level of its productive forces, contemporary society can be described as an industrial society ; all borders have become the model of society. With regard to its relations of production , however, society is still to be called capitalism, as late capitalism . Production is still, as before, for the sake of profit. All human needs have become functions of the production apparatus. People would be totally controlled. He concluded: “It is not technology that is fatal, but its entanglement with the social conditions that clasp it.” He accused sociology of failing to adequately address the overall phenomenon of the prevailing social conditions, but rather using more detailed terms such as Neutralize power and social control . In conclusion, he demanded: "If sociology, instead of merely providing agencies and interests with welcome information, should fulfill something for which it was once conceived, then it is up to it, with means that do not succumb to the universal fetish character, be it so humble to contribute that the spell is broken. "

In the joint presentation given by Gerhard Brandt, it was criticized right from the start that the models of political rule developed by sociology had largely been replaced by the material conditions of the respective social and economic structure. This deficiency should be remedied. Then the difference between traditional capitalism and current late capitalism was worked out with the result that “the state regulation of late capitalist societies has brought a new dimension of social inequality to the fore”. This arose from a disparity theory developed in the lecture , which is also useful in today's sociology of social inequality , albeit without the earlier revolutionary style. The collective of authors insisted more clearly than Adorno, who was still trying to mediate between the uses of the term, that the then current social and economic structure be interpreted as late capitalist .

Ralf Dahrendorf

In his presentation, Dahrendorf took a critical look at the statements made earlier. In this he saw a discussion of the theory-practice problem: "The question is whether sociological analysis can be carried out in such a way that it already contains approaches to changing reality." Total analyzes, as presented by Adorno and Brandt, he spoke of this possibility ab: “In a certain way, it seems to me, an analysis of the totality of our social development belonging to a frozen world belongs too sure to their cause; it doubles this frozen world. It is an analysis that calls for complete or not-at-all change, and where complete or not-at-all change is required, the not-at-all change usually occurs. ”He also criticized Adorno and Brandt for this Lack of statements about future opportunities for social and political development. Then he named a number of specific questions that a sociological congress would have to answer, such as, among others, the chances of political structural changes and the possibilities of decentralization, and then commented: “Questions of this kind would, in my opinion, lead us to answers that the Bring practice much closer than a total analysis, however tempting, can ever. "

In the discussion that followed, Adorno insisted on what Dahrendorf called Totalanalysen and emphasized their practical value, since "Practice does not develop in the individual concrete emergency situations, but rather that it includes what the whole means." The inhumanity, What is at stake is precisely that "that people have become objects in their living fate, and it is not the inhumanity of sociology that tries to express it." Werner Hofmann explained: "Mr. Dahrendorf has a theoretical attitude, which I confess to myself, dismissed as useless for the practice. One should consider whether there could be something more practical and also more threatening than a consistent theory. ”And Claus Offe characterized what Dahrendorf had put forward as a“ call for a pragmatically subdued political initiative based on a liberal image of society. "

In the last event of the Sociologists' Day, Scheuch's lecture on methodological problems of analyzes of society as a whole and the subsequent panel discussion with participation from the plenary (the planned co-lecture by Habermas had to be canceled because of his illness), the difference in opinions about his own science was particularly clear . Scheuch developed, in the tradition of his Cologne colleague and former teacher René König and his plea for a sociology that “wants to be nothing more than sociology”, a sharp separation of the empirical individual science of sociology from a social philosophy that wants to preserve the category of totality. Scheuch regarded it as "a historical misfortune of sociology in Germany since the end of the First World War that the desire for world formulas was combined with the claim to true knowledge that went beyond the individual sciences." Soon after the Sociologists' Day he sharpened his criticism and published an essay titled Does Sociology Produce Revolutionaries? , in it he accused sociological colleagues of proclaiming "social theology" as a science. At the end of his lecture he called for a dialogue between sociology and social philosophy.

In reply to Scheuch, Adorno tried to establish an agreement between positivism and dialectical sociology, that dialectical sociology could not accept the division that aims to separate social science and social philosophy if it does not want to agree to a split in the concept of reason and thus a duplication of truth. In the discussion, however, the opposites became more firmly established. Scheuch presented Adorno with a “solipsistic argument”, and Lepsius spoke even more sharply of “notorious disagreement”. Dahrendorf turned critically in both directions, he held against Scheuch the exclusion of social philosophy from sociology and Adorno the fight against a positivism “which no one advocates”.

In conclusion, the incumbent DGS chairman, Dahrendorf, decided that it should be noted that even at the end of the congress those who were critical sociologists and those who were dogmatic were still on very different ground.

reception

According to Wolfgang Glatzer, tough discussions were held at the Sociologist Day, but the contrasts between Adorno and Dahrendorf were not unusual in the long history of the DGS. But since the conference took place against the background of the unconventional activities of the student movement and it was feared that the DGS could be split up by the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO), there was a moratorium of six years after 1968 before another sociology day was held. Only in this way did the board believe it could save the unity of the DGS.

According to M. Rainer Lepsius (in 1979), the Frankfurt Sociologentag of 1968 symbolized the end of the liberal, time-critical function of sociology in the post-war period. The sociologists were overtaken by the left criticism of time and the system. The student movement and progressive intellectuals had published tracts and pamphlets on rapidly changing fashion topics without being associated with a sociological factual statement or analysis, even if sociological or Marxist terminology was often used: "The trends of the time had more of an effect on sociology than that they started out from sociology ”.

In the opinion of Wolfgang Zapf (a former graduate student at Adorno, who was DGS chairman from 1987 to 1990), the controversy did not split West German sociology because the neo-Marxist interpretation of western societies (late capitalism) quickly separated from sociology. Zeitgeist ”and flowed into the“ student revolts ”and the“ cultural revolution ”and flowed into the political generation conflicts and position battles. In addition, (according to Zapf) the established sociologists adhered to the model of "the western industrial societies developing as liberal democracies and social market economies."

The controversy has persisted in German sociology to the present day with the question of whether social life in the 21st century is determined by social inequality ( class society ) or by problems of the coordination of functional subsystems.

literature

  • Theodor W. Adorno (publisher on behalf of the German Society for Sociology): Late capitalism or industrial society? Negotiations of the 16th German Sociological Congress . Enke, Stuttgart 1969 (referred to as conference documentation in the following individual references ).
  • Wolf Lepenies : Dilemma of a Congress - Dilemma of Sociology. About the 16th German Sociologists' Day in Frankfurt , Soziale Welt , 19th year, issue 2 (1968), pp. 172-182.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Fischer , Federal Republic of Germany Sociology 1949 to Today. Attempt a new sketch of their story . In: Martin Endreß , Klaus Lichtblau , Stephan Moebius , Zyklos 2nd year book for theory and history of sociology , Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2015, electronic resource, ISBN 978-3-658-09619-9 , pp. 73–99, here P. 81 f.
  2. ↑ Joachim Fischer, Federal Republic of Germany Sociology 1949 to Today. Attempt a new sketch of their story . In: Martin Endreß, Klaus Lichtblau, Stephan Moebius, Zyklos 2nd year book for theory and history of sociology , Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2015, electronic resource, ISBN 978-3-658-09619-9 , pp. 73–99, here P. 84 (note 2).
  3. ↑ a b Joachim Fischer, Federal Republic of Germany Sociology 1949 to Today. Attempt a new sketch of their story . In: Martin Endreß, Klaus Lichtblau, Stephan Moebius, Zyklos 2nd year book for theory and history of sociology , Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2015, electronic resource, ISBN 978-3-658-09619-9 , pp. 73–99, here P. 82.
  4. ↑ Joachim Fischer, Federal Republic of Germany Sociology 1949 to Today. Attempt a new sketch of their story . In: Martin Endreß, Klaus Lichtblau, Stephan Moebius, Zyklos 2nd year book for theory and history of sociology , Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2015, electronic resource, ISBN 978-3-658-09619-9 , pp. 73–99, here P. 83 f.
  5. ^ Niels Beckenbach: Industrial Sociology . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012153-0 , p. 211.
  6. ^ Rolf Wiggershaus : The Frankfurt School. History, theoretical development, political significance , 7th edition, dtv, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-423-04484-5 , p. 695.
  7. ↑ Wolf Lepenies : Dilemma of a Congress - Dilemma of Sociology. About the 16th German Sociologists' Day in Frankfurt , Soziale Welt , 19th year, issue 2 (1968), pp. 172–182, here p. 181.
  8. ^ Claus Offe , Academic Sociology and Political Protest: The Frankfurter Soziologentag 1968 . In: Hans-Georg Soeffner (Ed.), Transnational Vergesellschaftungen. Negotiations of the 35th Congress of the German Society for Sociology in Frankfurt am Main 2010 . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2012, electronic resource, ISBN 978-3-531-18971-0 , pp. 977-984, here pp. 979 f.
  9. ↑ Adorno was then also the editor of the conference documentation: Late Capitalism or Industrial Society ? Negotiations of the 16th German Sociological Congress . Enke, Stuttgart 1969.
  10. ↑ Conference documentation, pp. 88–99.
  11. ↑ meeting documentation, p 88 (Preamble).
  12. ↑ Conference documentation, pp. 153–182.
  13. ↑ Hessischer Rundfunk, hr2-kultur: Sociology made in Frankfurt. 1968 and its aftermath , on October 14, 2010 at 8:30 a.m.
  14. ↑ Conference documentation, pp. 12–26.
  15. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 12.
  16. ↑ meeting documentation, p. 19
  17. ↑ conference documentation, S. 26th
  18. ↑ conference documentation, pp 67-87.
  19. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 87.
  20. ↑ Heinz Bude : The phenomenon of exclusion. The conflict between social experience and sociological reconstruction , Mittelweg 36 , 4/2004, pp. 3–15, here p. 9.
  21. ↑ Wolf Lepenies: Dilemma of a Congress - Dilemma of Sociology. About the 16th German Sociological Congress in Frankfurt , Soziale Welt , 19th year, issue 2 (1968), pp. 172-182, here pp. 177 f.
  22. ↑ Conference documentation, pp. 88–99.
  23. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 90.
  24. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 91.
  25. ↑ meeting documentation, S. 99th
  26. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 101.
  27. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 103.
  28. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 113.
  29. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 113.
  30. ↑ Conference documentation, pp. 153–182.
  31. ↑ a b c Wolf Lepenies: Dilemma of a Congress - Dilemma of Sociology. About the 16th German Sociological Congress in Frankfurt , Soziale Welt , 19th year, issue 2 (1968), pp. 172–182, here pp. 173 f.
  32. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 157.
  33. ↑ Conference documentation, p. 157.
  34. ↑ meeting documentation, p.191 f.
  35. ↑ Wolfgang Glatzer : German Society for Sociology (DGS): The academic sociological association since 1909 , sections: The period of the war from 1946 to 1968 and the DGS in the decades after 1968 , DGS website.
  36. ↑ M. Rainer Lepsius : The development of sociology after the Second World War, 1945 to 1967. in Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology , Sociology in Germany since 1945 , special issue 21/1979, pp. 25–70, here pp. 53 f.
  37. ↑ Wolfgang Zapf: Modernization and Modernization Theories (opening lecture for the 25th German Sociologists' Day on October 9, 1990 in Frankfurt am Main), In: ders., Modernization, welfare development and transformation: sociological essays 1987 to 1994 . Edition Sigma, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-89404-143-9 , pp. 111-127, here p. 112 f.
  38. ↑ Markus Schroer , Functional Differentiation versus Social Inequality? On the debate about the basic structure of modern society . In: Georg Kneer , Stephan Moebius (Ed.), Sociological Controversies. Contributions to another history of the science of the social , Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-29548-9 , pp. 291-313.