Bringing back the internal critique of capitalism? Revisiting the analysis of crises in Habermas' Legitimation problems in late capitalism

Abstract

The work of Jürgen Habermas became famous for his studies on topics such as public sphere, discourse ethics and communicative action. However, given the current crisis of capitalism, it may be productive to revisit a moment of his intellectual experience that was, in a sense, relegated to the background: the crisis theorems of late capitalism, discussed by him in Legitimation Crisis (1973). In this article, we argue that, at a time when critical theory seems to face the challenge of bringing back a reflection about the imbalances and the possible internal limits of capitalism, the kind of analysis that Habermas undertakes in this work can offer us elements for developing new diagnoses of contemporary capitalism.