Soc Just Res (2009) 22:134155 DOI 10.

1007/s11211-009-0091-6

Social Justice and Communication: Mill, Marx, and Habermas

Martin Morris

Published online: 19 February 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract This article concerns how one may theorize a social justice of communication. The article argues that the theory of democracy cannot neglect an analysis of communication and that, indeed, a social justice of communication can be identied in the discourse ethics of Jurgen Habermass deliberative theory of democracy. The socio-political analyses of communication in John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx are examined as precursors to Habermass position because they are useful for setting off the unique synthesis of the liberal and critical traditions that Habermas develops. Such a social justice of communication shows how the communicative mediation of the public sphere can ameliorate the tension between individual autonomy and the solidarity of group membership by communicatively empowering individuals under conditions of mutual respect and equal dignity. Keywords Social justice Communication Communicative rationality Discourse ethics Deliberative democracy John Stuart Mill Karl Marx Jurgen Habermas

Introduction The central question I wish to address in this article concerns how one may theorize a social justice of communication. It is common to identify a close, if not necessary, set of relationships between citizenship, democracy, and social justice, but the connection between social justice and communication is seldom stressed. I seek to explain why no theory of democracy today can afford to neglect an analysis of communication and why the deliberative theory of democracy championed by
M. Morris (&) Department of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave. West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, Canada e-mail: mmorris@wlu.ca

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Jurgen Habermas has gained signicant currency as a response to this theoretical and practical requirement. Habermas, I argue, theorizes communication in terms of the realization of social justicehe advocates a social justice of communication. If no universal distributive principle of justice can be found to govern the determination of needs and allocation of goods in the different social spheres of justice (Walzer, 1983), one may nevertheless theorize a universal principle of communicative ethics (Habermas, 1990a) that focuses on the communicative processes through which citizens may make just decisions about their needs and their social order. Discursive, deliberative democracy promotes individual autonomy along with group solidarity by, in principle, improving the discursive mediation of political and bureaucratic organizations so as to empower people through their communicative acts. As a second generation philosopher of Frankfurt School critical theory,1 Habermas is indebted to the tradition of Western Marxism. But the distinguishing feature of Habermass contribution is that he has rethought the normative foundations of Karl Marxs radical critique of society via the theory of communication. At the same time, Habermass desire to articulate the normative foundations for critique has led him to reassess the liberal tradition of social justice in light of his communications theory of democracy. Social justice thought concerning communication receives signicant attention in the two dominant political theories of the 19th centuryliberalism and Marxismand I develop my argument by considering the positions of their greatest 19th century proponents, John Stuart Mill and Marx himself. Other gures in the history of social and political thought may also be useful in understanding social justice and communication. But since Mills and Marxs theories anticipate and inform Habermass, it is worthwhile considering the formers social critiques in order to better understand the latters unique contribution. While Habermass (dis)continuities with Marx have received attention, no connections have yet been noted between Habermass position and Mills theory of social justice and communication. I want to suggest that Mills rationalism is very close to Habermass, yet the latter has advanced liberal thought principally by conceiving critical reason as the communicative rationality of discourse rather than as the property of individual intelligence. As such, Habermas avoids the liberal reliance on methodological individualism (Lukes, 1973; Macpherson, 1962) that blinds liberalism to the social processes that constitute the individual. Such a communications theory of social justice allows individuals to exercise their autonomy while afrming their solidarity within their communication community, thus presenting a resolution to the tensions between individual autonomy and group membership. To support this, I argue that an understanding of Marxs communicative social philosophy is necessary in order to
1

Frankfurt School critical theory developed under the auspices of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt during the 1920s and 1930s. It was more of a loose intellectual program to rethink Marxism under the new social and historical conditions of the twentieth century than a school per se, and the name Frankfurt School was given to the work of its core gures by their detractors only in the 1960s. Key gures associated with the rst generation Frankfurt School include Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal, and Friedrich Pollock. For a recent history, see Wiggershaus (1994).

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clearly distinguish communicative rationality from the systematic distortions and deceptions of communication under capitalisma distinction that Mills philosophy, as an exemplar of liberalism, is unable to make. Thus I hope to show how Habermass communicative theory of democracy has combined key elements of liberalism and Marxism in order to develop each toward a social justice of communication.

J.S. Mill: Freedom, Social Justice, and Communication A theory of justice conventionally examines the question of the proper order of societythe normative principles that govern relations between people and the relationship between citizens and their government. According to John Rawls, the rst fundamental question about political justice in a democratic society [is]: what is the most appropriate conception of justice for specifying the fair terms of social cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, and as fully cooperating members of society over a complete life, from one generation to the next? (Rawls, 1993, p. 3). Reection on such fair terms of social cooperation has traditionally dened social justice in terms of the fair distribution of goods, resources, and ofces within the context of a society constituted by denite principles of justice. As such, one can have a theory of justice that delineates formal individual rights and the legitimate extent of government power without entailing any notion of social justice. For example, Nozick (1974) holds that people are to be treated equally, as ends in themselves, with rights to hold justly acquired property and to do what they will so long as others rights are not harmed. Individual rights to freedom and equality are fully realized and best protected within a maximal free-market economy in which property may be acquired and transferred without constraint (unjust acquisition is to be appropriately punished). Nozick hence supports a minimal state limited to the protection of individual property rights. State taxation for social policy is explicitly prohibited because it would treat individuals as means (i.e., a source of money) not as ends. Voluntary agencies of charity would be permitted, but no forcible redistribution policies. Similarly, Friedman (1962, p. 15) denes freedom as the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men and for him the capitalist free-market is precisely the mechanism that can best coordinate peoples economic activities without coercion. When economic activity is guaranteed by the enforcement of voluntary and informed contractual transactions, then social cooperation is achieved without coercion. Certain functions that cannot be performed or performed well by the market must be performed by government, but these are minimal and do not extend to almost all welfare and regulatory functions. Friedman also thinks the economic freedom of the free-market best protects the political freedom of society since he is convinced that free-market enterprises invariably perform better than state bureaucratic planners in achieving goals benecial to society due to the formers incentives. Hence, for Friedman, maximizing economic freedom reinforces and protects political freedom. For theorists such as Nozick and Friedman, just social outcomes cannot and should not be imposed by the state; instead, any social outcomefrom income distribution to

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education to urban designis just so long as the procedure through which it was produced is just. That is, if the acquisition and exchange of property was just, if no ones rights were infringed and no one was coerced, then the outcome, whatever that may be, is just and democratic. The perspective of social justice necessarily goes beyond such theories limited to abstract rights and procedural justice because it makes the substantive possibilities implied by the notion of right an essential element of its vision of the just society. Social justice therefore introduces a specic kind of democracya democracy of empowerment and not simply of representation or freedom. Recent political theory has broadened the ideas of freedom and equality properly accorded to citizens of democracies to include many more regions of social cooperation beyond the political-economic. Indeed, it is precisely the extension of rights into the social that distinguishes a social justice perspective from minimalist, market-focused theories of justice. In liberal-democratic and in critical (including social-democratic) theories of justice, substantive, rather than merely formal notions of freedom and equality prevail. With respect to our topic, it is precisely the point at which liberal-democratic thought begins to consider the substantive content of justice that issues of communication are introduced into this tradition. This is clear in the mid-19th century thought of one of the fathers of liberal democracy, John Stuart Mill. Mill introduces freedom of thought and discussion as a further necessary institution for the protection of the individual besides formal constitutional rights. Mill saw that the formal rights embodied in the liberal constitution enshrined peoples individual freedom and equality before the law but that these rights were not enough to guarantee the intellectual freedom and opportunities that individuals required to make good on these rights. For Mill, as for the early liberal, John Locke, to have a rightisto have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of (Mill, 1974, p. 309), although Mills justication is derived from general utility not a Lockean social contract. The liberal idea of distributive justice, based on Mills utilitarian argument, entails that the equal claim of everybody to happinessinvolves an equal claim to the means of happiness, except in so far as the inevitable conditions of human life, and the general interestset limits to the maxim (Mill, 1974, pp. 319320). Equal rights require equal opportunities for people to exercise them. It does not make sense to have a right unless one can actually use it. Mill thus brings democracy to the center of liberalisms concerns by introducing a freedom to doa freedom that needs to supplement the freedom from constraint or interference (on this distinction, see Berlin, 1969). For this reason, Mill advocated a developmental democracy focused on enhancing the potentials for human developmenta community of exerters and developers of their human capacities (Macpherson, 1977, p. 51). His concern with public communication and its contribution to progress is directly related to his defense of this freedom to develop that focuses on the means for achieving happiness and a satisfactory life. Besides the selshness or self-maximization that market society imposes on people, Mill thought that the main cause of unsatisfactory life is the lack of mental cultivation correlated with the present wretched education, and wretched social arrangements (Mill, pp. 265, 264). For Mill, improving mental cultivation

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was the most important political basis for enabling all people to avail themselves of equal opportunities to participate in the economic and political life of society. Indeed, Mill thought that the decay of superstition and the growth of mental activity were two of the core conditions for optimal economic growth and prosperity (1970, pp. 236237). Hence he supported a rationalized public sphere of communication in which such mental cultivation could be achieved most broadly. Progressthe improvement of humankindrequired a political economy that included signicant redistributive policy and a certain socialization of production, since it was only by substantively equalizing social conditions of opportunity that the equal claim of everybody to happiness could be actualized. He placed enormous hope in producers cooperatives, where workers would become their own capitalists and work for themselves jointly, thereby improving participation and establishing a more humane moral life for workers. Yet he never abandoned the need for the competitive market systemindeed, individuals would still be required to act as maximizing consumers and appropriators, which, as Macpherson (1977, p. 61) points out, would give little scope for most of them to see themselves and act as exerters and developers of their capacities. As we will see shortly, Marx seeks to overcome this kind of contradiction in his critique of capitalism. Before that, however, it is worthwhile considering Mills commitment to free speech as the indispensable corollary of social progress. Immanuel Kant, at the end of the 18th century, had argued similarly for a communications-oriented theory of justice that was centered on the progressive enlightenment afforded by public argument and discussion. Kant called for a rationalization of politics and society such that people may enjoy the freedom of the public use of reason to decide their individual and collective destinies instead of being subject to the tutelage of traditional authority (Kant, 1983, p. 43). Mill embraces Kants commitment to the public use of reason (if not the latters transcendental philosophy) and links it squarely to his liberal defence of the individual. This enlightenment interest in the value of public communication for the advancement of human well-being also requires disciplinary policy, as Zerilli (1994) and Passavant (2002) have pointed out. According to Zerilli (1994, p. 98), for example, Mill advocated a series of disciplinary mechanisms that increase the power of the state, place the working-class family under middle-class surveillance, [and] underwrite the factory system as an instrument of moral reform. Mill was among the rst to be sensitive to the impediments and dangers to democratic development presented by cultural constraintsnot only lack of access to cultural resources but also the mental constraint imposed by unreective public opinion. But a certain patriarchal discipline and supervision was still required if the working class (and women and barbarians) were to conform to the rational form Mill thought public communication ought to take. Can such political discipline be justied? For Mill, the sole purpose for which political power over individuals can be justied is to prevent harm to others (Mill, 1989, p. 13). If this is so, then this principle must apply to public communication and political culture because public opinion can cause harm to individuals. But the harm caused by the tyranny of the majority (i.e., majority public opinion) is not limited to the harm done to those whose opinion is suppressedalthough this is equally important. The individual is

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certainly damaged when subjected to conformity: the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deciency, of personal impulses and preferences (Mill, 1989, p. 61). At the collective level, however, Milllike Kantbelieved the whole of society is harmed if public opinion is not constituted by open, rational discussion. A majority culture of intolerance that prevents free and daring speculation on the highest subjects causes greatest harm to the majority itself, since those who would follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought would not in general do so for risk of persecution (Mill, 1989, p. 35). Such a society severely restricts its collective ability to discover new truths and to improve itself in material as well as moral-political ways. Institutions of free discussion and association in the public sphere are just what would help prevent such suppression and would create the best social environment for human ourishing. Mill hoped the facilitation of a diversity of education and an open public discourse on matters of importance to all individuals jointly such that these issues may be regulated by mutual agreement (Mill, 1989, pp. 102, 106). He had a principled philosophical reason for this: it is because no individual, doctrine, or knowledge is infallible that society must rely on individual freedom to scrutinize, test, and criticize any claim to knowledge. Hence the fullest truth will properly emerge only by the collision of adverse opinions (Mill, 1989, p. 59). Any suppression of such freedom to express and criticize opinion (unless, of course, such expression is construed to cause harm to others) is tantamount to a claim of infallibility, which must be rejected on account of human nature. This high regard for the diversity and clash of opinions, however, should not be seen as promoting or permitting a harm (in Mills sense) that might be associated with the moral distress that can accompany challenges to ones deeply held convictions. For example, the sight of two men kissing might reasonably be said to cause harmful moral distress to someone who believes homosexuality is wrong, and hence may provide a Millian justication for political interference in that kind of freedom of expression. This is not the case, however, since Mill regarded moral distress as desirable due to its contribution to the improvement of people and promotion of progress, as Waldron (1987, p. 417) argues: That a man is morally distressed by anothers homosexuality, for example, is for Mill a sign, rst, that he takes his own views on sexual ethics seriously, second, that he recognizes now the need to reassert vigorously the grounds of his own convictions, being confronted so dramatically and disturbingly with a case of its denial, and thirdif (as is probable) the moral truth about sexual relations is the monopoly neither of his orthodox opinion nor its heretical rivalit is a sign that ideas are struggling and clashing with one another in the way that Mill thought most likely to lead to the nal emergence of a more balanced and sober truth about human sexuality. The political response, for Mill, should be to institutionalize freedom of thought and discussion. Mills hope is that the active exercise of this freedom will increase the amount of uncontested opinionbut not to a point at which people will leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful (1989, p. 44). The increased consolidation of true opinion that is, for Mill, the inevitable result of free mutual discussion and argument should not be the end point; such a truth will

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remain living belief only if it continues to be examined, discussed, and reafrmed anew. The universal recognition of truths that are then learned by new generations can have its vitality preserved, Mill thinks, through public exercises of argument that reproduce the intellectual work that would otherwise have occurred when such truths were actually subject to dispute (1989, p. 45). The contrivances Mill advocates are thus not Platonic noble lies nor mere ideology but educational exercises aimed at reproducing the understanding of truth in the population. Mill calls on the power of rational discussion as a universal activity to bring humankind to maturity, a maturity that is based on the ourishing of individual capacities for such intellectual activity. Mill does not see any essential characteristics in humankind, save the natural desire to develop.2 Human nature is not a machine, Mill says, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides (Mill, 1989, p. 60). He does not require an imaginary social contract generated among pre-social yet somehow rationally motivated individuals in order to justify government, as does Hobbess or Lockes earlier liberalisms. Mills orientation is in large part inspired by the nineteenth centurys great excitement with and faith in the potentials of social and economic progress, which is measured only according to social utilitybut utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being (Mill, 1989, p. 14). Mill hence argues that the utility of an opinion is itself disputable and requires examination and discussion. But Mill cannot derive the meaning of the permanent interests of man as a progressive being from utilitarianism itself (for no further standard apart from utility can be generated) and thus he reaches the limit of his normative theory in a faith in reason and progress. Yet Mills view of truth-seeking in the face of fallibility reveals one of his most important contributions to normatively oriented communication theory at the same time as it reveals one of his greatest weaknesses. In the absence of objective standards for judgment such as natural law, one must turn to the processes through which public opinion is formed. For Mill, these processes must be oriented toward pursuing and revealing truth, for truth, he believed without question, is inherently better than falsehood for living a rational life according to utilitarianism. It is the need for truthfor people to have condence that what they believe is in fact true that seems to ground Mills faith in rational discussion and the progress that its free pursuit will foster. As a result, he seems to hold a pragmatic correspondence theory of truth in which true statements correspond to objective states of affairs in the world.3 The truth of an opinion is part of its utility such that no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful (Mill, 1989, pp. 2526). Yet truth itself has no inherent power to prevail against error or the dungeon and the stake, since people can often be just as highly motivated by false opinion as by the truth (Mill,
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Culture is historical, for Mill, and historical context in large part determines the constitution of the individual: the person who regards his own world as being right against other dissentient worlds does not realize that mere accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin (sic) (Mill, 1989, p. 21). For a defense of the correspondence theory of truth, see Searle (1995), Chap. 9.

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1989, p. 31). The feeling sure of a doctrine (Mill, 1989, p. 26) is thus not the issue because people can be equally bound together by false as by true convictions. What is crucial for justifying ones convictions is instead that one understands the grounds upon which they are based. Even when the truth requires a balance between both sides of an issue, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion until we know how [the truth] is shown (Mill, 1989, p. 38). The proper (and strong) conviction that one ought to have regarding the truth of ones beliefs is to be based on ones rational understanding of the reasons why that belief is true. Thus, in an enlightened age, political stability as well as progress will be achieved on the basis of popular intelligence. If the institutions of free thought and discussion operate properly, then we may have condence that the opinions of those who participate in such institutions are rational in a qualitative sense. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used (Mill, 1989, p. 59). This is also why Mill believes that the best arguments that anyone may hear on any issue will come from those who genuinely believe in the truth of their position and who defend them in earnest (1989, p. 38). The effective pursuit of truth is intimately related to sincerity of expression of opinion, and freedom to communicate best fosters such sincerity in public. All of this indicates to Mill that the individuals capacity for reason ought to be the primary authority upon which public opinion is based.

The Problem of Communicative Reason and Ideology: Marxs Critique of Society and Justice Karl Marx, by contrast, was highly critical of rationalist positions such as Kants and Mills. Marxs historical materialist analysis of society reveals the determinate inuence of class relations and the capitalist social system on peoples perceptual and rational faculties. Capitalism generates an ideology of reason and justice that systematically deceives people and prevents them from seeing the real basis of social power in society or understanding their political condition and true interests. Any conventional theory of justice will thus be part of the ideology of the times. For Marx, Kants and Mills efforts to enlighten the masses through the public use of reason are doomed to failure because peoples reasoning faculties are in large part constituted by the systematic distortions required by the economic and social imperatives of capitalism. More than this, the very institutions of justice that Mill sought to rationalize and mobilizeparliament, the public sphere, the state, economic enterpriseswere seen by Marx as structurally and substantively determined by the capitalist system rather than set or capable of being set autonomously against this system. The rationality of such institutions would always be limited by the rationality of capitalism as a determinant power and hence they could only be expected to advance and reproduce forms of justice compatible with capitalism. Such justice will be illusory but, due to the phenomenon of ideology, it will appear fair to participants according to the logic of capitalism. There will always be falsei.e., ideologicaljustice in capitalist society. The inequality, domination, exploitation, and exclusion that Marx criticized are conditions of

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capitalisms normal operation and hence must be justied through ideological deception. As such they can only be addressed adequately by social struggles against capitalism as a whole and not by attempts to use capitalisms legitimating institutions. Let us examine the philosophical basis of Marxs analysis before considering whether Mills and Marxs positions can inform our contemporary understanding of communication and social justice. For Marx, human activity is always social and never individual activity. His methodological approach begins with a view of the social totality as a collective, cooperating and interdependent whole and then looks at individuals, groups, and classes within the context of this whole. Ollman (1993) argues that Marx uses three modes of abstractionextension, level of generality, and vantage pointto move between levels and to bring different aspects of the whole into view. Unlike the liberal tradition, which takes as elemental the individual with fundamental characteristics and motivations, Marx recognizes the inherent relational existence of individuals within the social whole. Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations. The relations within which these individuals stand (Marx, 1973, p. 265). Any discrete social factjust as much as any individual persononly exists in the relational context of a society that actively produces its conditions of existence and satises its needs. Society, for Marx, always involves dynamic collective action with and against nature. Yet nature itself is not simply a static set of materials, since the nature that is worked upon comes into being as suchi.e., as substance capable of being manipulatedonly as a result of communicative, cooperative human labor at the material and the ideational levels of society. Reality is always human realityin the sense that man shapes nature. This act also shapes man and his relations with other human beings; it is a total process, implying a constant interaction with subject and object (Avineri, 1968, p. 71). Any human production, no matter how basic, thus forms a denite mode of life because these analytically distinct levels are always bound together in mutual determination. Production is not simply an activity necessary for physical existence. This explains Marxs focus on real, active men and what he calls their active life-process (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 112), since human beings become what they are because of what they produce and how they produce it (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 107108). Human nature includes no innate pre-social traits because human beings work on and re/produce not just external nature but their own internal nature. If there is a nature common to all human beings, it is the experience of a dynamic historical existence that must constantly be re/produced. Consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness since consciousness is historical and embedded in material production processes (Marx & Engels, 1994b, pp. 112, 117). But it is important to see that it is not a mechanical causal relationship that Marx is describing: life is not an independent variable that might somehow determine consciousness. In all his analyses, the aim is to show how the intellectual production that is expressed in the language of politics, law, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc. is conditioned by a denite development of [human beings] productive forces and of the relationships corresponding to these up to their highest forms (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 111). Ideas arise in reciprocal relations with the material activity of labor. This kind of mutual-causal relationship

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is what Ollman (1971, 1993) calls the philosophy of internal relations in Marx. It is key to understanding his epistemology and methodology in the study of society. Thus social activity, for Marx, is essentially communicative-cooperative productive activitywhere communication is not only linguistic or symbolic but understood as comprehensive communicative-productive human interaction. A certain mode of production or industrial stage is always combined with a certain mode of cooperation or social stage, and this mode of cooperation is itself a productive force. (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 116). The mode of cooperation includes the legal, moral, cultural, and value (motivational) systems and is itself therefore a productive force. This is key to understanding Marxs communicative social philosophy. The forms of intercourse [Verkehrsverha ltnisse] that correspond to the mode of production also have a productive effect (Marx, 1977 p. 90). This is because, for Marx, the communicative interaction of language and ideas expresses productive activity as an integral part of that productive activity. Marx recognizes that the material form of spoken languagethe agitated layers of air, sounds (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 117)is as old as consciousness itself. Human language, he argues, emerges from the need, the necessity of relationships with other men (ibid.). But this is not a functional need or necessity precisely because it expresses human beings relational sociality in the production and satisfaction of needs. This continuous sensuous working and creating, this production is so much the basis of our sensory perception and cognitive abilities, that, were it interrupted for only a year, [we] would nd not only a tremendous change in the natural world but also would soon nd missing the entire world of men and [even our] own perceptual faculty, even [our] own existence (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 114). Our very ability to perceive and understand thingsthose objects that comprise our consciousnessthus depends upon this continuous sensuous working and creating. This brings Marx close to Aristotle in this respect, for language expresses the natural social existence of human beingsMarx can be seen to inherit a certain social ontology from Aristotle (Pike, 1999). For Marx, historical human species being always involves a denite political relationship historically, a class relationshipand therefore the human being is always a political animal as Aristotle said. The concept of praxispractical activity, working on the content of ones life activityis the link between Marx and Aristotle, and the key difference between them turns on the formers rejection of the latters notion of a xed human essence to which practical activity ought to correspond (Margolis, 1992). As I have been presenting it, however, Marxs notion of praxis is still normatively undifferentiated compared to Aristotles, for the communicative-productive interaction that involves the productive force of labor and that of the forms of cooperation mutually determine one another within the totality of the mode of production. This leads Arendt (1958) to criticize Marx for failing to distinguish labor (productive toil) from work (creative endeavor) and action (politics) such that Marxs socialized humankind would lack the capacities and opportunities for speaking and acting in the public realm that afrm the common good of the community. As we will see shortly, Habermas nds a similar need to distinguish instrumental from communicative action in order to theorize political freedom and the common good.

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The power relations inherent in capitalism entail that the products of social labor are not retained by the real, active men who undertake the labor but rather become the property of a ruling class. Alienated labor (Marx, 1964) is the basis and experience of existence under capitalism. Objects produced by the cooperative social labor of workers become the property of others by virtue of the alienation of human beings essential creative powers. But the various separations and divisions within the realm of social labor as a result of alienation produce a communicative world in which the appearance of things masks the social reality that brings them forth. The material inequalities and unfreedoms associated with private property and the division of labor are conditions of existence in capitalism, but they do not appear as such. The social actors involved do not see their products as the embodiments of collective social labor but encounter them instead as discrete commodities that appear to have independent, hostile powers. Furthermore, they encounter one another as competitive individuals and not as essentially cooperative beings (Horowitz & Horowitz, 1988, pp. 255265). Ideology and the fetishism of commodities (Marx, 1977, Chap. 1) mask the real basis of the production of wealth, its distribution, and the possibilities of liberatory change. It is hence these systematic mystications of realitynot merely irrational public opinion, as Mill thoughtthat result in the most important social and political distortions. They function to maintain social acceptance of the existing order and represent as natural and unchangeable that which is social and mutable. Furthermore, the alienation of labor means that our product, our whole world, is totally out of our control, as individuals and collectivities (Horowitz & Horowitz, 1988, p. 251). This is highly signicant politically and scientically because social issues, problems, and conicts are then not what they seem: problems originating with specic individuals or groups. Instead, social pathologies express the material relationships and dynamics of the social system as a whole precisely because the actors aficted with these pathologies are intimately bound up with social processes that affect them behind their backs. For example, manifestations of aggressiveness in modern societyfrom individual male violence to the waging of warare not primarily psychological, gender-related, or even due to competition over scarce resources. On the contrary, aggressiveness is a social behavior that individuals must adopt if they are to participate in a social system based on sink or swim commercial competition. It matters little whether you are a nice or nasty person, a nice or nasty capitalist, because you must behave aggressively in order not just to succeed but to participate at all effectively in the capitalist system. If capitalists do not constantly improve their means of production relative to their competition, they are forced out of business by others who do. The relentless pursuit of advantage favors aggression. Since ones life as a worker or a capitalist is the most immediate and central activity of ones life, it is likely that the behaviors required for this activity will signicantly affect ones characteristics in general. This social-scientic analysis is the main reason why Marx does not, arguably, produce a theory of justice.4 The concept of justice in Marx, according to Wood
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Whether or not Marx had a theory of justice is controversial among scholars. See Geras (1985, 1992) for assessments on this literature.

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(1972), is fundamentally a juridical or legalconcept that expresses the point of view of the moment of political authority in the prevailing mode of production; as such, justice is always a conditioned, historical expression of the rationality of social facts from the juridical point of view (Wood, 1972, pp. 246, 254). For Wood, Marxs critique of capitalism drew its force from his comprehensive theory of the historical genesis, the organic functioning, and the prognosis of the capitalist mode of production. And this is not itself a moral theory, nor does it include any particular moral principles as such (Wood, 1972, p. 281). For Marx, socialisms transformation of political life as it had been known in capitalist societies means the dismantling of politics as an institutionally distinct sphere in society used in the perpetuation of class rulethis is what Held (1996, p. 138) calls Marxs model of the end of politics and it is consistent with the Arendtian complaint against Marxs reduction of action to productive labor. But all this is not to say that Marxs analysis does not speak to struggles for social justice directly. A social system determined by capitalist relations of production is founded on substantive inequality (the constitutive inequality between capitalist and worker) combined with fundamental equality (equality of persons before the law). This is one of the key contradictions found in the political theories of possessive individualism advanced by the early liberal thought of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, according to Macpherson (1962). The equivocations on the concept of equality Macpherson nds in Hobbes and Locke are not logical problems to be solved by a development of liberal thought, but are instead an ideological expression of the material contradictions of the society of possessive individualism (capitalism) that liberal thought seeks to justify. This essential, material contradiction in capitalism had become glaring in the lived experience of the workers by the mid-19th century, which presented the ideological problem to which Mill responded (without realizing it) in his efforts to reform liberal society. But for Marx, such a material contradiction cannot be resolved at the level of reason, law, or bourgeois democracy because substantive inequality is constitutive for the operation of capitalism itself. Hence such contradiction can only be papered over or compensated for. Calls for the extension of social justice in the face of the existential pathologies of capitalist society can never realize their aim as long as the material sources of the pathologies continues. Strategically necessary to motivate social movements opposed to capitalism, such social justice struggles are nevertheless not delusional insofar as they carry the consciousness of the crisis capitalism: their demands that justice address social problems are themselves a product of social conditions thrown up by capitalisms contradictions. Thus, such demands always contain a kernel of truth that validates their authenticity. If, in the nal analysis, the overthrow of capitalism is required to abolish these contradictions, then this can only be achieved politically through social struggle. Hence Marxs critical theory aims to clarify the material basis of such struggles for social justice: to show the world what it is ghting for (Marx, 1978, p. 15). Ideological contradictions and instability are the objects of critique since the unofcial social power of the capitalist class depends on systematic ideological misrecognition on the part of the largely powerless majority. This can be imposed through class power, since the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideasthe

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class relationship structures access to communicative and ideological resources such that the ruling class also controlsthe ideas of those who lack the means of intellectual production (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 129). The social determination of consciousness is hidden from people through the dissemination of the dominant ideology. Ideology is not simply an error or completely false. Ollman (1993, p. 71) stresses that Marx generally described ideology as overly narrow, partial, misfocused, and/or one-sided perception. But ideology also involves self-deception, a rationalization in the Freudian sense in which the surface meaning serves to block from consciousness the subjects true purpose (Eagleton 2007, p. 89). Thus Locke and Adam Smith deceive themselves by believing their philosophies speak the truth about human nature, whereas they are in fact spokesmen for the dominant ideology. Such self-deception is also the case in contemporary mass-produced culture, according to Horkheimer and Adorno (2002, p. 111): The culture industry endlessly cheats its consumers out of what it endlessly promises. The promissory note of pleasure issued by plots and packaging is indenitely prolonged: the promise, which actually comprises the entire show, disdainfully intimates that there is nothing more to come, that the diner must be satised with reading the menuThe culture industrysupresses. The easy pleasures of consumer culture deceive people by substituting a false gratication for one that would otherwise be authenticand qualitatively differentunder conditions of freedom. Thus people deceive themselves concerning their true interests in liberation from capitalist domination.

Communicative Rationality and Democracy: Habermass Response to the Problems of Ideology, Domination, and Exclusion Jurgen Habermas has contributed a critical communication theory that achieves a unique synthesis of the normative thrusts present in both Mills and Marxs analysis of social communication.5 Habermas has taken an explicit communications turn in order to provide a new normative foundation for critical theory that places the rational communicative orientation valued by Kant and Mill at the center yet incorporates Marxs critiques of ideology and capitalism, and reects the latters radical democratic spirit. However, Marxs central concept of social labor, Habermas believes, is too undifferentiated to allow for the recognition of the essentially distinct social processes and institutions of intersubjective communication in society. The activity of intersubjective communication through language is to be distinguished paradigmatically from the creative, productive activity that denes historical human existence for Marx (Habermas, 1973, 1979). Marxs practicalpolitical vision entails freedom and equality realized in a de-differentiated society of re-unied social laborthis appears to be what the abolition of alienation would mean. The state, for example, would be reabsorbed into society because enforcing laws of private property would be unnecessary under conditions of classless
5

Habermas does seek to make critical theory compatible with certain central themes in liberal thought. See, for example, his debate with John Rawls in Habermas (1998, pp. 49101).

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freedom. The key problem, however, is that the production paradigm (Habermas, 1987a) that orients Marxs thought is too narrow to capture the kind of action that might regulate the continuous sensuous working and creating (Marx & Engels, 1994b, p. 114) that the latter believes mediates the metabolism between man and nature (Marx, 1977, p. 133). It is this same continuous sensuous working and creating whose full energies would be released, we may assume, when alienated labor and all the institutions constructed upon it are abolished. Marx did not provide a theory of democracy that indicates how people will then regulate their activities under conditions of genuine freedom. In Capital, he goes only as far as the vague formulation that imagine(s)an association of free men who apportion their labor-time in accordance with a denite social plan (Marx, 1977, pp. 171172). The key practical-political question, however, concerns how people are to determine their needs and their plans individually and collectively. Such needs determination and free individual development, Marx has already stated in the Communist Manifesto, must be compatible with and indeed must be thought of as the condition for the free development of all (Marx & Engels, 1994a, p. 176). If such action coordination is to be carried out collectively in a democratic way, then one requires a theory of communication that goes beyond the practices of free creative productivity, strategy or instrumentality. Following Habermas, needs are to be interpreted and public policy decided ideally in a democracy through intersubjective communicative processes of deliberation and decision-making carried out in the public sphere. The political public sphere is the social space between the power of the state and the citizens and groups of civil society. It is brought into existence every time matters of common concern are debated and discussed by groups of interested citizens. As such, the public sphere encompasses protest marches and public rallies as much as the mass media. The public sphere is hence a network for communicating information and points of view in which communication is ltered and synthesized into bundles of topically specied public opinions (Habermas, 1996, p. 360). Ideally, the public sphere constitutes public opinion through free and open dialog among equal citizens who, in expressing their concerns publicly, resolve them through rational discussion. While signicant impediments to such a free and open public sphere exist in capitalist society, as Marxs critique shows, the ideal of deliberative democracy provides a normative critique of these conditions and shows why a transformation of the public sphere is required for democracy. I would like to focus on this discourse theory and its ethic in order to show why a social justice of communication is necessary for democratic society. According to Habermas, communicative rationality is of a different logical order from that of production, strategy or instrumental rationality, which are all oriented toward egocentric success. Communicative rationality is associated with the achievement of validity, which entails an orientation toward mutual understanding and agreement (Versta ndigung) between speaking subjects. Habermas argues that one accepts or rejects a speakers claim to validity on the basis of the warranty implicit in the communicative offer, namely, that reasons can be given that would secure the claim to the satisfaction of speaker and hearer (1984, p. 302). A reciprocity of mutual understanding is thus required for the recognition of

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validity that produces communicatively coordinated action. No such mutual understanding and agreement is required for the coordination of action mediated by productive labor or strategic-instrumental rationality. Strategic-instrumental rationality is oriented toward success, which is the appearance in the world of a desired state, which canbe causally produced through goal-oriented action or omission. Action oriented toward success is instrumental when following technical rules of action and strategic when following rules of rational choice that aim to inuence the decisions of a rational opponent (Habermas, 1984, p. 285). One treats something instrumentally when a natural substance or a person (such as a worker following the companys orders) is controlled by the rationality of achieving a specic technical goal. In social interaction, As strategic goals do not need to be shared by B who is subjected to As strategy. The success of the strategy only requires B to respond in ways that accord with As strategic goals. Hence it is only in communicative interaction that the parties involved must each share the goal of mutual understanding. The achievement of a valid consensus is based upon the process of discussion and argument that establishes the motivation for mutual recognition. Assent to validity is thus not based upon empirical motivations such as threat or reward and cannot be imposed by force or technical control precisely because the recognition of a validity claim requires understanding and acceptance of the reasons that back up the cognitive value of the claim. One cannot generate acceptance of a claim to validity by threatening or rewarding a hearer because in such cases the reasons for giving assent have to do with factors external to the cognitive content inherent in the claim. The freedom to accept or reject claims to validity on the basis of criticizable reasons is thus a condition for such mutual understanding and agreement since only with the freedom to respond to a validity claim with yes or no (or leave it undecided) could we say that a consensus has been freely and rationally achieved and not imposed. The imposition of consensus is a product of unofcial (sometimes illegitimate) social power, as in the power of capitalist economic interest to exclude some topics from any public discussion at all or the effects of cultural hegemony or ideology that prevents certain kinds of discussion and certain identities from participating. Most consensus is, however, empirical consensusde facto consensus that is unproblematic in the sense that everyday social coordination requires a signicant amount of background agreement in order to occur. Such background consensus may very well be the product of social power (as both Mill and Marx argued), so a democracy must permit critical challenges to societys selfunderstanding in the interests of freedom and equality. When consensus breaks down or is challenged, communicative interaction is required to restore agreement so that social coordination can resume. A consensus that is produced by discussion and deliberation under conditions of freedom and reciprocity may then be called a rational consensus and a legitimate expression of democratic power because it can be justied to all whose interests it affects. This position is consistent with Mills view of the rational basis of understanding that we do not understand the grounds of our opinion until we know how [the truth] is shown(Mill, 1989, p. 38). For Habermas, We understand a speech act when we know what makes it acceptableIt is part of understanding a sentence that we are capable of

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recognizing grounds through which the claim that its truth conditions are satised could be redeemed [original emphasis] (Habermas, 1984, p. 297). Habermass emphasis on rational argumentation is also consistent with Mills view that the truth will properly emerge only by the collision of adverse opinions (Mill, 1989, p. 59). But Habermas advances Mills position signicantly because he makes truth-seeking inherent to communicative interaction itself and therefore does not need to think of truth as selfevidently better than falsehood for the individual and for society or as a transcendent property of the propositions themselves that is progressively revealed under improved social conditions of communication. Instead of a correspondence theory of truth that reects the Enlightenment commitment to historical progress (the latter which Mill and Marx shared), Habermas adopts a consensus theory of truth that emphasizes the historical contingency of truth within a communication community. Yet unlike contemporary postmodernist emphases on the historical contingency of truth, this contingency is mitigated for Habermas by the democratic production of consensus following the universal norms and conditions of discourse ethics. Any consensus, even a rational consensus, is fallible and potentially can be revised if new information or interests emerge. So Habermas does not need a theory of utility like Mill, since the moral motivation is not instrumental or consequential but a result of the orientation toward seeking mutual understanding and agreement inherent in the truth-seeking nature of speech communication itself. Reaching understanding is the inherent telos of human speech (Habermas, 1984, p. 287). Habermass discourse ethics hence seeks to reconstruct the normative conditions and discursive processes through which legitimate consensus on questions of common concern can be generated. Those engaging in argumentative speech, Habermas believes, are oriented toward reaching a rationally motivated agreement and must rule out all external or internal coercion other than the force of the better argument and thereby also [neutralize] all motives other than that of the cooperative search for truth (Habermas, 1990b, pp. 9091). For people to be willing to argue, they must presuppose something approximating an ideal speech situationa general symmetry and reciprocity between them such that a hearer is convinced by a speakers argument only on the basis of its rational acceptability (and not because of some inducement or coercion). While these conditions are a counter-factual idealization (they rarely, if ever, occur in real life), they are nevertheless inescapable pragmatic presuppositions for argumentation itself to make sense to participants. These pragmatic presuppositions are necessary and unavoidable in the sense that denying them would not only involve us in performative selfcontradiction, but would also show that we did not have the relevant know-how to participate in argumentation (Benhabib, 1986, p. 305). As soon as one engages in argumentation, one enters into a relationship of symmetrical reciprocity with the other; each participant presupposes that the claims he or she makes will either be freely accepted or rejected on the basis of reasons, for otherwise one would not be engaging in argumentation at all but in something else. For example, the manipulation of speech in which A suppresses relevant facts from B or lies to B is a case of strategic communication not communicative actionAs goal is not shared by B. If As claims cannot be questioned by B, then this lack of reciprocity and equality indicates the one-way communication of instrumental or technical

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control not communicative action. If As claims are not meant as arguments, then the social context suspends the pragmatic presuppositions in favor of languages function of world disclosure (as in literature) (see Habermas, 1987b, pp. 185 210) or entertainment (as in the arguments of stand-up comedians), for example. From this analysis of the presuppositions of argumentation, Habermas derives a principle of universalization (U) as a rule of argumentation concerning social norms: a contested norm cannot meet with the consent of the participants in a practical discourse[u]nless all affected can freely accept the consequences and side effects that the general observance of a controversial norm can be expected to have for the satisfaction of the interests of each individual [original emphasis] (Habermas, 1990b, p. 93). The principle of discourse ethics (D) then states that only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse (ibid.). The principle of universalizability asks us to put ourselves in the place of the other and imagine our conversation with those potentially affected by a particular norm. As such, U is a principle that guides argumentationno concrete moral norms can be derived from it. Critics have consequently complained that U is either too indeterminate or too complex or too counterfactual to serve as a test of procedure for what is intersubjectively permissible. Benhabib (1992, pp. 3637) suggests that U is actually redundant in Habermass theory and that it adds little but consequentialist confusion to Dthe basic premise of discourse ethics. It does seem too indeterminate since the interests of each individual could fall on either side of any number of norms and too consequentialist since it requires consensus as the outcome. Instead, Benhabib (1992, p. 31), who has followed Habermas along the discourse ethics path, argues that the test of universalizability is sufciently met with the principles of universal moral respect (we ought to respect each other as beings whose standpoint is worthy of equal consideration) and egalitarian reciprocity (we ought to treat each other as concrete human beings whose capacity to express this standpoint should be enhanced by social practices embodying the discursive ideal). Such principles are readily available to modern subjects as aspects of the political culture of equal dignity that accompanies modernity (see Taylor, 1994). The principle U functions to guarantee consensus for Habermas, but, following Benhabib, consensus emphasizes the result of the process of moral judgment, whereas what is more important is the process for the attainment of such judgment. Consensus is often difcult to expect in complex moral conicts. Better, according to Benhabib (1992, p. 38), is to place less emphasis on rational agreement and more on sustaining those normative practices and moral relationships within which reasoned agreement as a way of life can ourish and continue. Discourse ethics normative thrust of rational argument oriented toward mutual understanding and agreement is preserved without the requirement that a specic result emerge. At its most elemental, discourse ethics requires actual intersubjective participation in discourse and deliberation that is free and equal. As Bohman (1997) argues, such participation requires effective social freedom if the political poverty of certain groups of citizenstheir inability to initiate the joint activity of public deliberationis to be avoided. Powerful economic groups in society have greater social freedom through their use of unofcial power by excluding many topics from

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public debatethreats of capital ight block discussion of redistributive measures, for examplewhich limits everyones political equality (Bohman, 1997, pp. 338339). Political equality would require improving the resources as well as the capabilities of such citizens and groups. Hence Sen (1992) argues that the liberal distributive justice of ensuring a basic level of primary goods is not enough since it cannot respond adequately to the human diversity of condition, ends, means, and opportunities that require qualitatively different forms and levels of primary goods. Instead, Sen contends that human diversity requires capability equality such that the beings and doings of persons are considered constitutive of well-being: Capability reects freedom to pursue these constitutive elements, and may even havea direct role in well-being itself, insofar as deciding and choosing are also parts of living (Sen, 1992, pp. 39, 42). In other words, like Mills advocacy of positive liberty, one must have equal effective freedom to successfully pursue and attain social goodssomething that is not guaranteed by conventional welfare redistribution. Yet, as Bohman (1997, p. 334) argues, Sens emphasis on individual capability freedom cannot capture what is important for effective social freedom in deliberative democracy, for the latter is measured not merely by the capacity to convert resources and other objective conditions into achievements of the agents goals [but] by effective participation in a public process of decision-making. Such effective participation is measured instead by the uptake or recognition by others of my reasonsnot by my achieving my particular goaland this success only shapes and inuences the process of deliberation itself, so that I can at least recognize my reasons as having shaped and inuenced the outcome favorably (Bohman, 1997, p. 335). When one argues, when one participates in public deliberation, one must be motivated by the cooperative search for truth (Habermas, 1990b, p. 91), since strategic or instrumental argument is not really argument at all due to the latters manipulations, deceits and/or exclusions that disqualify any orientation toward mutual understanding and agreement. One of the goals of deliberation is thus cooperation itself, which is an intersubjective, social goal incapable of being measured instrumentally or economically. Effective communicative freedom through the enhancement of communicative resources and capacities is hence required for the realization of political equality against the undue inuence of unofcial social power. It is at this point that we may make a connection between communicative action and social bonding. Communicative action constitutes sociality through the binding and bonding effect that raising and redeeming validity claims accomplishes. The motivation that binds speakers and hearers is a rational force yet, as we have seen, it is not an empirical force like that of threats or rewards. The communicative speaker is bound to the hearer through the validity claiming action inherent in his or her utterance, since every validity claim is always accompanied by the warranty that, if necessary, it can be secured with reasons. The communicative coordination of their social action together expresses this social bond between speakers and hearers and embodies a relation of free and equal interaction centered on the maintenance of mutual understanding and agreement. Although individual autonomy is required to raise and redeem validity claims, this autonomy would not be possible without the mutual recognition of intersubjectively conceived identity. Persons become individualized only through a process of

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socialization that involves gradually taking on an identity in a particular life context. Intellectual autonomy is achieved through symbolic communication with others, as George Herbert Mead made clear (Habermas, 1992b). Thus the system of rights and morality that protects individual identity cannot safeguard the integrity of individual persons without at the same time safeguarding the vitally necessary web of relationships of mutual recognition in which individuals can stabilize their fragile identities only mutually and simultaneously with the identity of the group (Habermas, 1993, p. 98). This means that, in the post-metaphysical context of modernity (i.e., societies not oriented by a religious or a cosmological worldview), individual autonomy is internally related to group solidaritythe reproduction of collective cultural identity depends on the exercise of autonomous communication by individual members and the autonomy of individual communication requires a politics of recognition that protects the integrity of the individual in the life contexts in which his or her identity is formed (Habermas, 1998, p. 208). Solidarity is no longer limited to the embodiment of a particular collectivitythe concrete lifeworld of family, tribe, city, or nationbut is extended and universalized through discourse into an ideal communication communitythat includes all subjects capable of speech and action (Habermas, 1993, p. 99). The tension between individual autonomy and the solidarity of group membership is resolved not through any new identity but through the protection and enhancement of the processes of communication that allow the raising of validity claims and the communicative contexts of mutual recognition in which persons of equal dignity appear. This discussion of discourse ethics is necessarily at a high level of abstraction, so a nal comment on practical application is in order as a way of concluding our discussion. Can discourse ethics guide actual democratic discussion and decisionmaking, as Habermas intends it to do? Scholars have only just begun to test the theorys feasibility for democratic practice. Yet the rst thing to note is that there is always a great distance between normative political theory and the complex, complicated, messy, often emotionally charged world of practical-political life with its pluralism of roles, positions, and arguments. Moreover, the communications of politicians, interest group players, bureaucratic organizations, corporations and the mass media itself are overwhelmingly strategic and instrumental and give little opportunity for the kind of free, open, and reciprocal conditions necessary for a social justice of communication. For this reason, among others, Wolin (1996) thinks of democracy as fugitiveconstantly being chased about and only occasionally seeing the light of day. Under such conditions, democracy is not a constant condition but rather experiences breakouts that are usually short-lived (Blaug, 1999). Yet, as Blaug (1999, p. 136) points out, there are many notable examples of such democratic breakouts and many more that remain unpublicized, which can be used to analyze the problems and possibilities of deliberative democracy. Using discourse ethics, Blaug identies ve elements of the practical decision-making process that must be institutionally embodied: First, there is the moment of problem recognition, in which some difculty or issue becomes gural for the group, and which seems to demand their attention. Second, there is the moment of deliberation, during which

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information is collected, opinions exchanged, and argumentation takes place. But at some point, deliberation must be brought to a provisional closure in order to move to the third momentthe actual making of the decision. The decision is then, in the fourth moment, implemented. Finally, there is a moment of evaluation, whereby the entire process is examined retrospectively. If the process of decision-making as a whole is to be legitimate, all these moments must be as fair as is possible under the circumstances (1999, p. 141). Such a process is neither cheap, fast nor easy, but it is practically possible in a variety of ways and means. Fishkin (1996, p. 134) argues that the televised deliberative opinion poll offers a new method for stimulating the development and measurement of considered judgments that overcome the effects of rational ignorance. As Weeks (2000, p. 371) observes in his study of four large-scale implementations of deliberative democracy at the municipal level, where appropriate conditions prevail, a well-implemented community dialog is a powerful instrument for creating a public will to act. Similarly, Ward, Norva, Landman, and Pretty (2003, p. 294) argue that citizens juries, which are sometimes used by jurisdictions to institutionalize democratic deliberation, ought to be opened up to a wider range of groups and accessed by a greater variety of witnesses in order to allow large-scale participation and foster alternative modes of expression that will have to make room for dissensus and disagreement. Such studies seem to conrm that the discursive mediation of political and bureaucratic organizations through practices of deliberative democracy improve political responsiveness, participation and the recognition of legitimacy in decision-making. As I have argued, Habermass requirement of consensus as the outcome of the deliberative process is excessive and unrealistic, yet his ideal of deliberative democracy is made practical if instead the processes of discursive participation that foster relations of mutual recognition and equal dignity are emphasized. Majority instead of completely consensual decisions can be recognized as legitimate as long as discursive cooperation and mutual respect are reproduced in the communitys political culture through fair and egalitarian participation that in turn reproduces the reective citizens that such democracy requires. The communicative autonomy of the individual participant reproduces the solidarity of his or her group membership. A law is legitimate only if it is agreed to by all citizens in a fair and open participatory process in which they may continue to cooperate freely (Bohman, 1994, p. 922). In these ways, a social justice of communication can be supported that presents at least a democratic dam (Habermas, 1992a, p. 444) against the instrumentalization of communication and more broadly of social life that unofcial power and the market economy promote; it may even present the possibility of gradually expanding and extending democratic culture in political and bureaucratic organizations.

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