Modern Society – A Complex, Evolutionary, Self-Organising, Antagonistic System

C. FUCHS: MODERN SOCIETY – A COMPLEX, EVOLUTIONARY, SELF-ORGANISING, ANTAGONISTIC SYSTEM

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Modern Society – A Complex, Evolutionary, Self-Organising, Antagonistic System

Christian Fuchs

Institute of Design and Technology Assessment

Vienna University of Technology Favoritenstr. 9-11

A-1040 Vienna Austria

[email protected] http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/

INTAS PROJECT “HUMAN STRATEGIES IN COMPLEXITY” RESEARCH PAPER

Abstract The aim of this paper is to outline some foundational aspects of a theory of self-organising social change. Synchronous social self-organisation is based on a contradiction between structures and actors that produces emergent results. The cycle of expanded reproduction of capital outlined by Marx can be interpreted as economic type of autopoiesis or self-reproduction. Aspects of Marxist crisis theory can be incorporated consistently into the framework of a theory of social self-organisation. Capitalism is a complex, evolutionary, antagonistic system that is shaped by a dialectic of chance and necessity: In diachronic social self-organisation of capitalism, the evolving economic, political and cultural antagonisms as objective conditions of existence again and again result in phases of crisis and instability where the future development of the system is highly undetermined. The objective structures condition a field of possibilities, it is not pre-determined which alternative will be taken. In such phases of crisis and bifurcation, agency and human intervention play an important role in order to increase the possibility that a certain desirable alternative will be taken. Certainty can’t be achieved, but agency also is not made impossible by the principles of self-organising social change. The whole movement of social self-organisation is based on a dialectic relationship of chance and necessity. Regulation theory sees the development of system shaped by a dialectic of chance and necessity as well as by a dialectic of generality and specificity in the same manner as self-Organisation Theory. Mechanistic, reductionistic, economistic and deterministic arguments that have been characteristic for traditional crisis theories are avoided, a crisis of society is not reduced to economic factors and to a single economic antagonism. Regulation theory rather considers besides economical also political and ideological factors as relatively autonomous ones that influence crises of society. An unity of a regime of accumulation and a mode of regulation that is characteristic for a specific mode of development that is shaped by a specific structure of antagonisms is assumed. There are distinct parallels between the regulation approach and self-organisation theory, but the relationship between general and specific categories as well as between chance and necessity is still largely unsettled in the regulation approach (as well as in systems theory). It seems that the regulation school assumes a development of capitalism that is largely shaped by random evolution of antagonistic structures that is not dialectically related to general categories and antagonisms. Nonetheless regulation theory gives us a detailed analysis of Fordism, its crisis and Postfordism as well as a very useful model of the development of society. Hence my own approach is partly based on this theory. Keywords: self-organisation, self-organization, autopoiesis, capitalism, society, political economy, Marx, Marxism Acknowledgement: This paper is a result of research undertaken in the INTAS-research project “Human Strategies in Complexity“ (contract number MP/CA 2000-298) funded by the European Union.


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1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to outline some foundations of a theory of social self-organisation and to consider capitalism as a complex, evolutionary1, antagonistic, self-organising system. For doing so, I first give a short introduction to the sciences of complexity (part 1). Self-organisation can both be conceived in terms of autopoietic self-reproduction or order that arises from chaos in phases of instability (principle of order by fluctuation). Both principles can be metaphorically applied to society in order to demonstrate aspects of synchronous (part 2) and diachronic social self-organisation (part 3). This paper suggests that Marxist dialectical thinking in terms of contradictions and antagonisms due to conceptual parallels can be consitently integrated into a theory of social self-organisation. This is especially the case when we analyse reproductive cycles and crises of society. Dialectical thinking is like self-organisation theory opposed to reductionism. When talking about the causal relationships of different subsystems of society, integrating aspects from the French regulation approach into a theory of social self-organisation could prove succesful in constructing a non-reductionistic, multidimensional theory. Hence I will take a look at the conceptual relationship of regulation theory and self-organisation theory (part 4). Part 5 finally draws some conclusions about the role of agency in self-organising social change. The theory of self-organisation has lead to a change of scientific paradigms: from the Newtonian paradigm to the approaches of complexity. There is a shift from predictability to non-predictability, from order and stability to instability, chaos and dynamics; from certainty and determination to risk, ambiguity and uncertainty; from the control and steering to the self-organisation of systems, from linearity to complexity and multidimensional causality; from reductionism to emergentism, from being to becoming and from fragmentation to interdisciplinarity. This has been interpreted as a shift from modern to post-modern knowledge (Best/Kellner 1997) and from non-classical to post-non-classical science (Stepin 1999). The social sciences are still dominated by the Newtonian paradigm (Wallerstein 1991): methodologically systematic and precise empirical investigations followed by inductive generalisations dominate instead of ascending from the abstract to the concrete; traditionally the social sciences have been fragmented into anthropology, economics, political science and sociology, there is a lack of inter- and cross-disciplinarity. Still social scientists’ main concern is to discover universal rules that fully explain individual and social actions and that make it possible to plan and predict the development of society. Such views do not take into account the dialectics of generality and concreteness and of chance and necessity that are suggested by the sciences of complexity. A further flaw of classical approaches within the social sciences has been that human history has been conceived as inevitably progressive. Personally I think that during phases of instability and crises we find points where the further development of history is not determined, but relatively open. Such points again and again show up, but it is not determined how the outcome will look like (Fuchs 2002a). In physics and chemistry, self-organisation has been described as the spontaneous emergence of order out of chaos in thermo-dynamical systems (Nicolis/Prigogine 1989, Prigogine 1980). Similarly to Prigogine, Hermann Haken has described aspects of physical self-organisation, but in terms of synergetic systems which can be characterised by synergies between their parts that result in the emergence of new qualities (Haken 1978, 1983). In biology, self-

1 By evolution we don’t mean Darwinian development in terms of mutation and selection, but a general process-dynamic of systems that involves “the accumulative transformation of systems u ndergoing irreversible changes“ (François 1997).


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organisation has been conceived as the autopoietic self-reproduction of living systems (Maturana/Varela 1992). Niklas Luhmann (1984, 1988) interpreted social systems as autopoietic, but by denying the importance of the human being in society he functionalistically syncopates the complex relatonship of actors and structures (cf. Fuchs 2002e, 2003e). For Prigogine an open system is one that imports and exports energy, i.e. there is an energy throughput that drives the system far from thermal equilibrium. Entropy is a measure of the degree of disorder of a complex system. Dissipative systems are open thermodynamic systems that are far from thermal equilibrium. In such systems local instabilities spread if the critical value of a certain control parameter is reached. This results in order, i.e. a decrease of entropy. A dissipative system imports energy, uses this energy up and exports low-energy-matter. So-called “bifurcations“ typically occur in such critical points: several possibilities for the further development of the system are possible, one of them is selected, but it is not determined in advance which one. In dissipative systems, order emerges from disorder in phases of instability. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (1992) have tried to find a consistent definition of life, they say that living systems are biologically self-organising ones, i.e. the permanently produce themselves. They call such self-producing systems autopoietic (autos=self, poiein=to make something). Autopoietic systems or biological self-organisation can be characterised by the following items: 1. They permanently produce their parts and their unity themselves 2. An autopoietic organisation is characterised by relations between its parts 3. These relations result in a dynamic network of interactions 4. Autopoietic systems are operationally closed: the effects of the network of interactions

don’t go beyond the network itself 5. The autopoietic unit forms its own border, it delimits its structure from its environment. In

a cell the membrane is such a border. 6. The production of the system’s components enables the forming of a border, a border is a

precondition for a dynamic that is needed for the self-production of the system (circular causality)

7. Living systems constitute themselves as different from their environment, they are autonomous units.

8. Structural coupling: Perturbations from the environment can influence an autopoietic unit, but it can’t fully determine changes of the system’s str ucture

The main characteristics of an autopoietic system are self-maintenance, self-production and production of its own border2. Concerning causality, the new sciences suggest a shift from reductionism and determinism to emergence and mutual as well as circular causality. Reductionism can be defined as epistemology that explains new properties of a system and the whole in terms of old properties and the system’s parts. A system is seen as the agglomeration of its parts, a differentiation of a system, its structure and its behaviour in time and space are explained by reference to processes immanent to single parts of the system. Determinism can be defined as a mechanistic and rigid epistemological approach that argues that an event or a sum of events necessarily result(s) in a certain way and in a certain output. In the social sciences,

2 Engels anticipated the idea of autopoiesis, he said that life exists in the “constant self -renewal of the chemical constituents“ it has (Engels 1878: 75), life is a “self -implementing process“ (ibid.: 76), albumen would not only permanently decompose itself, it would also permanently produce itself from its components (Engels 1886: 558f).


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deterministic theories argue that a certain social system, subsystem or category determines other events or systems necessarily and to a full extent. No autonomy and degree of freedom is granted to the category that is considered as the one being determined by a determining instance. Phenomena in one system are completely reduced to events in other systems. Determinism argues that causes and effects can be mapped linearly: each cause has one and only one effect, similar causes have similar effects, different causes have different effects; and it assumes that small changes of causes necessarily have small effects and large changes of causes necessarily have large effects. Emergentism which can be considered as the philosophical level of the new sciences of complexity (see Corning 2002, Goldstein 1999, Krohn/Küppers 1992, Stephan 1999) argues in opposition to reductionism that the new and the whole are more than the old and the parts (of a system). A system is considered to be more than the sum of its parts. The qualities that result from temporal and spatial differentiation of a system are not reduced to the properties of the components of the system, it is maintained that the interactions between the components results in new properties of the system that can’t be fully predicted and can’t be found in the qualities of the components. Microscopic interactions result in new qualities on the macroscopic level of the system. Checkland (1981: 314) defines an emergent quality in similar terms “as a whole entity which derives from its component activities and their structure, but cannot be reduced to them”. Self-organising systems have a complex and circular causality. In such systems, causes and effects can’t be mapped linearly: similar causes can have different effects and different causes similar effects; small changes of causes can have large effects whereas large changes can also only result in small effects (but nonetheless it can also be the case that small causes have small effects and large causes large effects). Thinking in terms of complexity and non-linearity is opposed to determinism that has dominated the sciences for a long time. In systems theory, the term “complexity” has three levels of meaning: 1. there is self-organisation and emergence in complex systems (Edmonds 1999), 2. complex systems are not organised centrally, but in a distributed manner; there are many connections between the system’s parts (Kauffman 1993, Edmo nds 1999), 3. it is difficult to model complex systems and to predict their behaviour even if one knows to a large extent the parts of such systems and the connections between the parts (Heylighen 1996, 1997; Edmonds 1999). The complexity of a system depends on the number of its elements and connections between the elements (the system’s structure). According to this assumption, Kauffman (1993) defines complexity as the “number of conflicting constraints” in a system, Heylighen (1996) says that complexity can be characterised by a lack of symmetry (symmetry breaking) which means that “no part or aspect of a complex entity can provide sufficient information to actually or statistically predict the properties of the others parts” and Edmonds (1996) defines complexity as “that property of a language expression which makes it difficult to formulate its overall behaviour, even when given almost complete information about its atomic components and their inter-relations”. Aspects of complexity are things, people, number of elements, number of relations, non-linearity, broken symmetry, non-holonic constraints, hierarchy and emergence (Flood/Carson 1993). In self-organising systems one not only finds complex and multidimensional causality, such systems are per definition also circular causal. Circular causality involves a number of processes p1, p2, …., pn (n≥1) and p1 results in p2, p2 in p3, …. , pn-1 in pn and pn in p1. A simple example of this has been described by Manfred Eigen in what he calls a hypercycle (Eigen/Schuster 1979): A hypercycle is a catalytic circuit of autocatalytic processes. Autocatalysis means a chemical process where a product is the catalyst of its own synthesis, a


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chemical product produces itself. In a hypercycle each processes produces itself and the first produces the second, the second the third, … and the last produces the first. Eigen describes the emergence of life as a hypercycle of protein-molecules and nucleic acid-molecules. Speaking philosophically, it can be said that all self-organising systems are circular causal because such a system is reason and cause of itself. It is not in need of other concepts to be explained, it is its own reason (causa sui), its essence involves its own existence. Already Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling pointed out that the whole universe and nature have their reality in themselves and are their own products. The evolution of the universe has its own reason, such arguments do not have to refer to some God-like, external creator, a mover that is not moved himself. Self-organisation theory shows that materialism and atheism are right, the substance of the world is the permanent movement and self-organisation of matter (Fuchs 2003a). The new sciences of complexity do not simply substitute determinism by complete in-determinism and do not suggest that all evolutionary processes (in the universe, nature and society) are completely governed by chance (this would also have to result in a dismissal of the human capability of intervention and systems-design that can increase the possibility that a system will develop in a desirable way). Rather it suggests a dialectic of chance and necessity: There are certain aspects of the behaviour of a complex system that are determined and can be described by general laws, whereas others are governed by the principle of chance. Self-organisation theory confirms certain views of dialectical materialism such as that matter is uncreateable and indestructible and that it is in permanent movement and constant flux. Matter is causa sui, it is its own reason and produces itself. Self-organisation theory is only one type of systems theory. Others are e.g. first order cybernetics (Wiener 1948, Ashby 1964, Bertalanffy 1968), ’mental’ cybernetics (Bateson 1972, 1979), rhizomatic systems theory3(Deleuze/Guattari 1987), posthumanistic cybernetics (Hayles 1999), emergent computation systems theory (Forrest 1991, Kauffman 1995), network systems theory (Barabasi 2002), cybernetics of communication (Luhmann 1984, Serres 1984), constructivist systems theory (von Foerster 1981, 1996, von Glasersfeld 1995). I prefer referring to concepts of self-organisation that have been worked out by scientists like Prigogine, Haken, Laszlo and Maturana because a close analysis shows that there are many conceptual parallels between dialectical materialism and self-organisation theory (Fuchs 2003a). What is called emergence of order, production of information or symmetry breaking in self-organisation theory corresponds to Hegel’s notions of sublation (Aufhebung) and negation of the negation (Fuchs 2003a). The concept of emergent evolution corresponds to the principle of dialectical development, the dialectics of chance and necessity as well as of attraction and repulsion that have been described by Hegel, Engels and Marx are constitutive for processes of self-organisation (ibid.). The other way round, the examples Engels gave for the dialectics of nature can also be seen as examples of the self-organisation of matter (ibid.). 2. Social Self-Organisation: Self-Reproduction as the Synchronous Moment of Society I want to point out shortly some foundations of a dialectical theory of social self-organisation. Unfortunately, I have no space here to cover more details and the reader must be referred to other works (Fuchs 2001, Fuchs 2002a-g, Fuchs 2003a-e, Fuchs/Hofkirchner/Klauninger 2002, Fuchs/Schlemm 2003, Fuchs/Stockinger 2003). Social analysis has to begin with “individuals producing in a society“ (Marx 1857: 615), “the existence of living human

3 Deleuze’s and Guattari’s concept of rhizomes is important as I have tried to show elsewhere (Fuchs 2001) for a theory of social self-organisation in respect to networked, decentralised forms of protest, but as an overall systemic concept it is certainly only applicable to a limited extent.


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individuals“ (Marx/Engels 1846: 20). The human being is a social, self-conscious, creative, reflective, cultural, symbols- and language-using, active natural, labouring, producing, rationally abstracting, objective, corporeal, living, real, sensuous, anticipating, visionary, imaginative, expecting, designing, co-operative, wishful, hopeful being that makes its own history, with chances to strive towards freedom and autonomy. All social systems and societies permanently reproduce themselves, hence in some respect it can be said that on a synchronous level of description society can be seen as an autopoietic system. Social structures don’t exist externally to agency, but only in and through agency, in mutual penetration. By social interaction, new qualities and structures emerge, they cannot be reduced to the individual level. The process of bottom-up emergence is called agency, invention or creation. Emergence in this context means the appearance of at least one new systemic quality that cannot be reduced to the elements of the communication system to which the action is coupled. So this quality is irreducible and it is also to a certain extent unpredictable, i.e. time, form and result of the process of emergence cannot be fully forecasted by taking a look at the elements, their history and their actual interactions. Social structures are coupled to and influence actions and thinking, although not linearly. They constrain and enable the practice of social actors, “guiding” them in this way. This is a process of top-down emergence where new properties of actors and groups can emerge. The bottom-up- and the top-down-process together form a cycle that permanently results in emergence on the level of structures and the level of actors. This whole cycle is the basic process of systemic social self-organisation that can also be called re-creation (see fig. 1). By permanent recurrence to processes of agency, constrained/enabled actions co-evolve within a social system, which therefore can maintain and reproduce itself. Agency again and again creates its own unity and maintains itself. Social structures enable and constrain the practice of social actors and are a result of social actions. Individuals are “creative as well as created” (Williams 1961: 82). Fig. 1.: Self-organisation in social systems Society reproduces human actors as social beings and human actors produce society by socially co-ordinating human actions. Man is creator and created result of society, structures and human actors produce each other mutually. Such a conception of social self-organisation acknowledges the importance of the human being and its actions in social systems. Saying that man is creator and created result of society corresponds to Anthony Giddens’ formulation that in and through their activities agents reproduce the conditions that make these activities possible (Giddens 1984: 2). Re-creation denotes that actions, as moments of a social system, permanently change their communicative environment. This enables the social system, as a necessary condition for it,

structure

actors

constraining and

enabling

agency

social self-

organisation


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to change, maintain, adapt and reproduce itself. The term re-creation refers to the ability of humans to consciously try to shape and create social systems and structures, an ability that is based on self-consciousness and the reflexive monitoring of action. Social action systems are re-creative ones because they can create new reality, not from zero, but by changing the old one. The socio-cultural human being has the ability to create the conditions for his further evolution all by himself. Creativity means the ability to spontaneously, gradually or revolutionary change actual settings, creating something new that seems desirable and helps to achieve defined goals. It is not an isolated human quality, but linked to the co-evolution of other human social qualities. Terming the self-organisation of society re-creation acknowledges as outlined by Giddens the importance of the human being as a reasonable and knowledgeable actor in social theory (for a discussion of the relationship between structuration theory and social self-organisation see Fuchs 2002e, 2003e). Giddens himself has stressed that the duality of structure has to do with re-creation: “Human social activities, like some self -reproducing items in nature, are recursive. That is to say, they are not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by them via the very means whereby they express themselves as actors“ (Giddens 1984: 2). Saying that society is a re-creative or self-organising action system means that the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organise and both enable and constrain actions. Structuration theory holds that the structures drawn upon in the production and reproduction of social action are at the same time the means of system reproduction (Giddens 1984: 19). In this respect, human social activities are recursive because they are continually recreated by the actors whereby the latter express themselves as actors. Social structures don’t exist outside of and are based on actions, they are “rules and resources, or sets of transformation relations, organised as properties of social systems” (Giddens 1984: 25). In and through their activities agents reproduce the conditions that make these activities possible (ibid.: 2). “According to the notion of the duality of structure, the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organise” (ibid.: 25) and they both enable and constrain actions (ibid .: 26). Social systems and their reproduction involve conscious, creative, intentional, planned activities as well as unconscious, unintentional and unplanned consequences of activities. Both together are aspects, conditions as well as outcomes of the overall re-creation/self-reproduction of social systems. The mutual relationship of actions and structures is mediated by the habitus, a category that describes the totality of behaviour and thoughts of a social group. The habitus is neither a pure objective, nor a pure subjective structure. The habitus means invention (Bourdieu 1977: 95, 1990b: 55). In society, creativity and invention always have to do with relative chance and incomplete determinism. Social practices, interactions and relationships are very complex. The complex group behaviour of human beings is another reason why there is a degree of uncertainty of human behaviour (Bourdieu 1977: 9, 1990a: 8). Habitus both enables the creativity of actors and constrains ways of acting. The habitus gives orientations and limits (Bourdieu 1977: 95), it neither results in unpredictable novelty nor in a simple mechanical reproduction of initial conditionings (ibid.: 95). The habitus provides conditioned and conditional freedom (ibid.: 95), i.e. it is a condition for freedom, but it also conditions and limits full freedom of action. This is equal to saying that structures are medium and outcome of social actions. Very much like Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu suggests a mutual relationship of


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structures and actions as the core feature of social systems (for a discussion of the relationships between Bourdieu’s theory and social self -organisation see Fuchs 2003b). The habitus is a property “for which and through which there is a social world” (Bourdieu 1990b: 140). This formulation is similar to saying that habitus is medium and outcome of the social world. The habitus has to do with social practices, it not only constrains practices, it is also a result of the creative relationships of human beings. This means that the habitus is both opus operatum (result of practices) and modus operandi (mode of practices) (Bourdieu 1977: 18, 72ff; 1990b: 52). The concept of the habitus reflects the importance of incomplete determinism and relative chance in social systems. There are certain degrees of freedom of action and communication, social relationships are always non-linear, complex and result in emergent properties. In society one can find more global and more local levels, global structures are e.g. state laws, a nation state, the property structure, capital, global networks and institutions etc. One more local levels one will find certain subsystems (economy, politics, culture, media, family, education, art etc.), social organisations and finally individual actors. There might be stability and coherence on a higher level for a long time, but this stability can only be maintained by dynamics and the permanent emergence of new qualities on lower levels. In phases of stability, order on a higher level results from permanent change on a lower level. There is a permanent flux and movement in society. As Pierre Bourdieu has shown, this has to do with social and symbolic struggles. On the structural level of society, we find social forces and social relationships (Fuchs 2003c). Social forces are entities that enable social organisation and are developed by human beings entering social relationships. Social forces are modes that co-ordinate, orient, guide, enable and constrain social actions and relationships. They are medium and outcome of social actions. In society we find economic (productive), political and cultural forces. And there are different social relationships – economical, political and cultural ones – that individuals enter which are mostly independent and party dependent from their will. In re-creation of society and social systems, we also find a dialectic of social forces and social relationships on the structural level: Based on social forces, individuals enter social relationships which are already a structural aspect of society. Agency within these relationships results in structural forces which again influence social relationships. Within these social relationships, individual actions and thinking are imprinted, constricted and enabled by the structural forces. So the process of structuring influences social relationships in a first step and the individual in a second step. The re-creation of society involves a dialectic of structures and actions as well as a dialectic of social forces and social relationships. The re-creation of society results in qualitative moments such as the economy, politics and culture that form subsystems that have their own relative autonomous logic and way of functioning (Fuchs/Schlemm 2003).


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Fig. 2.: The dialectical relationship of social relationships and social forces All qualitative subsystems of society have their own logic of self-organisation. Speaking about e.g. “the self -organisation of the economy” is not enough, still too less concrete, hence we have to speak in this case about “the self -organisation of the capitalistic economy”, i.e. the accumulation of capital. Economy, politics and culture are in modern society based on accumulation and asymmetrical flows, the accumulation of capital, power and hegemony. These accumulation processes are autopoietic or self-producing in the sense that the system reproduces itself by increasing the quantitative amount of one of its elements, i.e. it transforms its elements and herewith creates its unity. In the economic cycle of self-organisation this means that from an initial quantity of capital more capital is produced. This is not the place to exactly point out the logic of these processes in all subystems of society, but exemplearily I want to point out the functioning of the autopoiesis of capital accumulation (fig. 3, cf. Fuchs/Schlemm 2003). This process is based on the dialectical relationship of productive forces and relations of production. Relations of production describe the ways of social mediation between the opposing classes that act as agents in economic processes. The productive forces are a systemic totality of living labour force and factors that influence labour. Living labour and its factors form a relationship that changes historically and is dependent on a concrete formation of society (such as capitalism). The influencing factors can be – as suggested by Marx – summed up as subjective ones (physical ability, qualification, knowledge, abilities, experience), objective ones (technology, science, amount and efficacy of the means of production, co-operation, means of production, forms of the division of labour, methods of organisation) and natural ones. These forces can only be viewed in their relationship to living labour. The system of productive forces can never be reduced to these forces, the system is only possible in combination with human labour. This system is more than the sum of its parts, it is an integrated whole that lies at the foundation of economic processes. Capital accumulation means a autopoietic cycle that has been described by Marx as the expanded reproduction cycle of capital in his labour theory of value4. The starting point can be seen as money capital which is a social relationship. The capitalist buys with his money (M) the commodities (C) labour power (L) and means of production (Mp). This means that here a relation between relations of production and the productive forces is established (upward arrow in fig. 2). The means of production are considered in their value form as constant capital (c) and can be subdivided into circulating constant capital (the value of the utilised raw materials, auxiliary materials, operating supply items and semi-finished products) and fixed constant capital (the value of the utilised machines, buildings and equipment) (Marx 1885: chapter 8). The value of the employed labour power is termed variable capital (v). Constant capital is transfused to the product, but it doesn’t create new value. Only living labour increases value – labour produces more value than it needs for its own reproduction. In 4 For a discussion of productive labour in informational capitalism see Fuchs (2002g)

social forces

social

relationships

constraining and

enabling

agency

social self-

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production due to the effects of living labour onto the object of labour surplus value (s) is produced. This means that in the system of productive forces an autocreative process takes place: living labour (i.e. human subjects) make use of the objective, material part of the system in order to produce something new, a new good emerges. This good is more than the sum of the parts of the old system. A surplus that is due to living labour power is objectified in it. This creative process is itself a self-organisation process within the overall economic autopoietic cycle, something new emerges. The value of a produced commodity C’ = c + v + s, this value is larger than the value of the invested capital (C = c + v). The difference of C’ and C (∆w) can exist due to the production of surplus value and is itself surplus value. Surplus value is transformed into profit (surplus value is “realised”) and value into money capital by selling the produced commodities on the market. The transformation of the surplus value of the product into profit means that the product as a new emergent property of the system of productive forces is transformed into a commodity (downward arrow in fig. 2). This means that the overall economic self-reproduction has resulted in the self-transformation of the system, the accumulation of capital. This autopoietic process is based on exploitation, alienation and estrangement. Social structures are alienated social structures in capitalism, they can’t be controlled by t he individuals, these structures are the structures of the dominating groups. They are imposed on the individuals as interest “alien” to them and are independent of them in the sense that they can’t control them. This is not only true for the economy, but for all realms of modern society. The self-reproducing (i.e. self-increasing, self-valorising, self-expanding) cycle of capital just outlined exists in and through agency: The actors enter social relationships and produce emergent properties within them. The social forces are a materialisation of the social relationships individuals enter. Together these two moments are structural components of a social system. These structural moments are based on human action and can only reproduce themselves autopoietically by reflexive actions that are enabled and constrained by the reproduced structures. It is not sure if all produced commodities can be sold, hence not all surplus value is necessarily transformed into profit. But normally after the whole process there is more money capital than has been invested into production, and such “surplus value generating money” is termed “capital” and is partly re -invested into new production (accumulation). Modern society is an antagonistic system, it can’t reproduce itself permanently and steady. So self -reproduction, i.e. self-expansion and self-valorisation, only occurs in a phase of stabile (economic, political or cultural) accumulation. Due to the antagonistic character of this process the system is from time to time driven into crisis, crisis means discontinuity and disruption of accumulation. So when talking about autopoiesis or self-reproduction one can only grasp the synchronous aspect of society, but its also necessary to grasp those moments when this self-reproduction results in heavy noise and phases of instability. Hence I suggest that in order to avoid functionalistic shortcomings, one should not only apply autopoiesis metaphorically to society, but also Prigogine’s principle of order through fluctuation so that it’s possible to grasp the discontinuous, diachronic moments of the development of society and history.


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Fig. 3.: The economic self-reproduction of capital: The expanded reproduction cycle of capital The model of self-reproduction of the economy is an idealisation, capitalism doesn’t have (although suggested by liberal economists) the ability of economic self-reproduction. The social structures of modern society are antagonistic ones, hence stabile reproduction is interrupted by heavy fluctuations and phases of instability. In such a phase, the future is open. Hence there is only the possibility for self-reproduction, not an automatic reproduction of capitalism. The economy (just like politics or culture) is not a fully autonomous system as suggested by Hayek and others (cf. Fuchs 2002a). The scientific description of the economy as a autonomous system serves ideological, neo-liberal purposes. In reality the economic, political and cultural cycles are mutually dependent and coupled, their autonomy is only a relative one. This means that in order to make capital accumulation possible for a certain period of time, political and ideological regulation of the economy is necessary5. The relationships of economy, politics and culture develop in a stabile manner only for a limited time, these relationships have themselves an antagonistic character which results in large, secular crises. Such crises and their results are focus of the diachronic analysis of social self-organisation.

5 “A regime of accumulation is not, however, some disembodied e ntity which exists in the etheral world of schemas of reproduction. If a schema is to be realized and to reproduce itself for any length of time, there must also be institutional forms, procedures and habits which either coerce or persuade private agents to conform to its schemas“ (Lipietz 1987: 33). “Capitalism cannot secure through market forces alone all the conditions needed for ist own reproduction that it cannot exercise any sort of economic determination in the last instance over the rest of the social formation“ (Jessop 2002: 11). There is “the need for extra -economic institutions to compensate for partial or total market failure“ (ibid.: 43). Aglietta (1979) mentions that social forms are necessary for the “mitigation of social contradictions“ (383) and that capitalism can only escape an organic crisis by “generating a new cohesion“ (385).


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3. Social Self-Organisation: Order Through Fluctuation as the Diachronic Moment of Society Theories of social self-organisation such as the one of Niklas Luhmann that describe society as a self-reproducing or in analogy to Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela as a autopoietic system, have been criticised as putting forward static and functionalistic conceptions. A number of authors (Laszlo 1987, Jantsch 1975, 1979, Mueller-Benedict 2001, has tried to conceive sociological models in analogy to Ilya Prigogine’s principle of order through fluctuation (Nicolis/Prigogine 1989, Prigogine 1980). They see society as a system where not equilibrium and stability is the normal state, but non-equilibrium and instability. Ervin Laszlo (1987) argues that Prigogine’s principle of order through fluctuati on is a general one that applies for the evolution of all complex systems. According to this hypothesis systems do not remain stabile, if certain parameters are crossed, instabilities emerge. These are phases of transition where the system shows high entropy and high degrees of indetermination, chance and chaos. Evolution would not take place continuously, but in sudden, discontinuous leaps. After a phase of stability a system would enter a phase of instability, fluctuations intensify and spread out. In this chaotic state, the development of the system is not determined, it is only determined that one of several possible alternatives will be realised. Such points in evolution are called catastrophic bifurcation (Laszlo 1987). Laszlo says that evolution takes place in such a way that new organisational levels emerge. He identifies the following successive steps of evolution: quarks, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, macro-molecules, protozoa, metazoa, ecological, social and socio-cultural systems. Concerning the evolution of socio-cultural systems he again distinguishes successive steps: pre-historic nomads, small communities based on kinship, archaic empires, city states, princedoms, monarchies, colonising nation states and finally specialised and interdependent nation states. What is important is that each of these steps has not emerged automatically, it has been one of several possible alternatives in a phase of socio-cultural bifurcation. In contrast to theses of non-steerability and non-intervention it should be stressed that the principle of order through fluctuation can also be found in society, but that this doesn’t deprive human beings of agency and intervention into social systems. Social systems permanently reproduce themselves and from time to time they enter phases of crisis which have a non-determined outcome. Due to the antagonistic structure of modern society and the complex interplay of human actions it is not determined when such phases of crisis emerge, what the exact causes and triggers will be and what will result from them, it is only determined that crises will show up again and again. Phases of instability are not separate from human actions, but result from their complex interplay. Social evolution is not determined by fortune and chance, human beings can consciously design evolution. This means that the objective conditions of social existence condition a field of possibilities (see for this concept Hörz 1974) that consists of several possible alternative ways of development a system can take in a phase of crisis. Human beings can’t steer which alternative will be chosen, but by agency and human intervention they can try to increase the possibility that a desirable alternative will be taken and decrease the possibilities that less desirable ones will be taken. Human history is guided by dialectic relationships of chance and necessity as well as of subjectivity and objectivity. Reducing these complex, dialectical relationships to one side will result in reductionistic conceptions that see social change as either fully determined by chance or by conscious steering. Ilya Prigogine puts forward a discontinuous interpretation of the development of system, i.e. not being, but becoming, change and non-equilibrium is the normal state of the art of a


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complex system. He acknowledges that his conception is related to dialectical thinking. “The Hegelian philosophy of nature systematically incorporates all that is denied by Newtonian science. In particular, it rests on the qualitative difference between the simple behavior described by mechanics and the behavior of more complex entities such as living beings. It denies the possibility of reducing those levels, rejecting the idea that differences are merely apparent and that nature is basically homogenous and simple” (Prigogine/Stengers 1984: 89). “The idea of a history of nature as an integral part of materialism was asserted by Marx and, in greater detail, by Engels. Contemporary developments in physics, the discovery of the constructive role played by irreversibility, have thus raised within the natural sciences a question that has long been asked by materialists. For them, understanding nature meant understanding it as being capable of producing man and his societies” (Prigogine/Stengers 1984: 252). Due to these parallels it could prove successful to try to integrate aspects of the theories of self-organisation into a dialectical and Marxist theory of society. For Marx and Engels the evolution of society was a discontinuous process. They anticipated the ideas of self-organising evolution that shape science today. Marx conceived capitalism as a dynamic, process-like, non-equilibrium, evolutionary system that is in constant flux. Haustein (1998) hence argues that Marx anticipated modern evolutionary economics and the idea of today’s self -organisation theories that phases of instability show up in the economic system from which order or a new whole emerges (Haustein 1998; Hirschl 1997: 161f). Marx’s discontinuous interpretation of history very much reminds us of Prigogine’s principle of order through fluctuation and Stephen Jay Gould’s concept of punctuated equilibrium. Eldredge and Gould (1972) tried to show that evolution isn’t a full gradual process, but that fossil records seem to show "bursts" of speciation, then long periods of stability. Their paleontological theory suggests relatively short episodes of rapid evolution followed by long periods of stability. Sampling of the fossil record will reveal a pattern of most species in stasis, with abrupt appearance of newly derived species being a consequence of ecological succession and dispersion6.

Due to the conceptual parallels between Marxist concepts and modern science, it is consequent to try to integrate aspects from Marxist crisis-theory into a theory of social self-organisation. I now want to outline a few foundational aspects of the self-organisation of modern, capitalist society (for details see Fuchs 2002a). There are three levels one should consider and one can methodologically ascend from the abstract to the more concrete levels of analysis: 1. society in general, 2. the formation of society, 3. modes of development The two-fold dialectical process of re-creation ás outlined in part 2 takes place within the three subsystems of society: the economy, politics and culture. The economic realm has to do with the production, distribution and allocation of use values and resources. Use values and 6 Gould has pointed out the conceptual affinities between his theory and dialectical materialism: "If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices. In the Soviet Union, for example, for example, scientists are trained with a very different philosophy of change - the so-called dialectical laws, reformulated by Engels from Hegel's philosophy. The dialectical laws are explicitly punctuational. They speak, for example, of the "transformation of quantity into quality." This may sound like mumbo jumbo, but it suggests that change occurs in large leaps following a slow accumulation of stresses that a system resists until it reaches the breaking point. Heat water and it eventually boils. Oppress the workers more and more and bring on the revolution. Eldredge and I were fascinated to learn that many Russian paleontologists support a model very similar to our punctuated equilibria“ (Gould 1980).


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societal resources are structural forms of the economy. Politics deals with decisions which refer to the way resources are being used and how they are distributed. Politics refers to decisions which influence the ways of life of the members of society and to the way material aspects of society are organised. Decisions and power are social forms in the political subsystem of society. Culture can be seen as the subsystem of society in which ideas, views, knowledge, social norms and social values are being formed within the framework of habits, ways of life, traditions and social practices. Culture includes the creation of new world-outlooks and the whole ways of life, including collective ideas, knowledge, institutions, descriptions by which society reflects experiences and makes sense of them, ways and traditions of acting and thinking and intentions that result from it. Norms, values and knowledge are social forms on the cultural level. The dialectics of social structures and actions and of social relationships and social forms can be found on all three levels and the three subsystems of society are mutually related within the framework of a hierarchical model (for a detailed explanation of this model see Fuchs 2002c, d). The overall self-reproduction of society is not a smooth, permanently stabile process, it is in constant flux and from time to time enters phases of crisis. These are periods of instabilities where the further development of the overall system is not determined. In modern, capitalist society, periods of crisis are caused by developing structural antagonisms. This brings us to the second level, the one of a formation of society. A formation of society is a concrete historical and societal epoch that is characterised by a concrete expression of social structures and relationships that remain cohesive from beginning till the end of the formation although they change dynamically on a still more concrete level. There is homogeneity within diversity of social structures and relationships of a formation of society. The formation of society we live in is capitalism which can be described as an antagonistic formation of global scope. Contradictions between dual categories are forms of movements of matter, life and society that drive the development of systems. Such categories are on the one hand opposed to each other, on the other hand they also require each other and they push forward towards sublation in the threefold Hegelian sense of preserving, eliminating and lifting up. The concept of contradiction is based on the fact that every abstract proposition of understanding, taken precisely as it is given, naturally veers round its opposite” (Hegel 1874: Note to §81). The negative constitutes the genuine dialectical moment (Hegel 1874: §68), “o pposites [...] contain contradiction in so far as they are, in the same respect, negatively related to one another or sublate each other and are indifferent to one another“ (ibid.: §960) Opposites, therefore, contain contradiction in so far as they are, in the same respect, negatively related to one another or sublate each other and are indifferent to one another. The dialectical movement involves two moments that negate each other, a somewhat and an another. As a result of the negation of the negation, “something becomes an other; this other is itself somewhat; therefore it likewise becomes an other, and so on ad infinitum” (Hegel 1874: §93). Contradictions are constitutive for the movement of all systems, whereas an antagonism is a dialectical relationship of colliding forces that can’t be sublated in a simple way. An antagonism “ emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence“ (Marx 1858/59: 9). The sublation of antagonisms is only possible by a substantial change of the foundational structures of the system that embeds them and which is constituted by them. The principle of contradiction is a continuous one, the one of antagonism a transitory one. Capitalism consists of antagonistic structures and relationships within the economy, politics and culture. Hence the capitalist economy is antagonistic economy, capitalist politics is antagonistic politics and capitalist culture is antagonistic culture. In modern society basic social forms are commodities, money capital, market (=economic forms), laws and the state (=political forms) and dominating social norms, values, knowledge and ideologies (=cultural


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forms). The structural forms in capitalism are antagonistic structural forms. In order to maintain the control over processes of accumulation, capitalist try to institutionalise class struggle (Aglietta 1979: 382), structural forms channel class struggles, shape the regularities of accumulation and are historical products of class struggle. In capitalism, social relationships are class relationships. Capitalism is a formation of society that is also based on the accumulation of capital in the economy, politics and culture. Capital refers to those structural forms that can be accumulated and result in profits. Economic capital has been described by Marx as commodities and money capital, political capital is “a capital of social connections, honourability and respectability that is often essential in winning and keeping the confidence of high society, and with it a clientele, and may be drawn on, for example, in making a political career” (Bourdieu 1986: 122) and cultural capital has to do with qualification, education and knowledge. Academic qualifications “are to cultural capital what money is to economic capital” (Bourdieu 1977: 187). The accumulation of economic capital takes place within the framework of economic forms, the accumulation of political capital (which is an accumulation of power7) within the framework of political forms and the accumulation of cultural capital within the framework of cultural forms. These processes of accumulation result in exclusion of individuals and groups from wealth, power and participation. The main classes of society are a result of the distribution of the whole (i.e. economic, political and cultural) capital (Bourdieu 1986). This results in a social hierarchy with those at the top who are best provided with capital, and those at the bottom who are most deprived. Within the classes that get a high, medium or low share of the total volume of capital, there are again different distributions of capitals and this results in a hierarchy of class fractions. The social position and power of an actor depends on the volume and composition of capital (i.e. the relative relationship of the three forms of capital) that s/he owns and that s/he can mobilise as well as the temporal changing of these two factors (Bourdieu 1986: 114). Cultural and political capital are just like the economic one unequally distributed in society and dominating classes are deriving profits from them at the expense of others – profits in distinction and legitimacy as well as material profit (Bourdieu 1986: 228) The essence of part 2 of this paper was that all societies are based on a contradiction between actors and structures that drives forward the their development. In societal formations such as capitalism structures are alienated from the human beings and the human beings are estranged from the societal structures because certain groups determine the constitution and development process of these structures and exploit others for facilitating these processes. Alienated social structures still exist only in and through agency, but some groups have privileged access to and control of these structures, whereas it is much harder for others to influence them according to their own needs and interests. Societal structures in alienated societies are an object and realm of societal struggle. Man becomes a “being alien to him and a means of his individual existence” (Marx 1844: 517) and a class individual (Marx/Engels 1846: 76) subsumed under exploitative and alienating forces. So in heternomous societies like capitalism the contradiction between actors and structures becomes an antagonism. This antagonism has specific expressions within the economy, politics and culture. The antagonisms that structure capitalism and social relationships and that evolve by agency and processes of class struggle can be summed up:

7 Power is the disposition over the means required to influence processes and decisions in one’s own interest, domination refers to the disposition over the means of coercion required to influence others or processes and decisions. Domination always includes sanctions, repression, threats of violence and an asymmetric distribution of power.


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Economic antagonisms: • Antagonistic class relationships8: This refers to the fact that in class society the general

mutual relationship between structures and actors is antagonistic in the sense that certain groups have much better access to and control of structures.

• Antagonism between the accumulation of wealth and relative pauperisation (general law of capitalist accumulation)9: Viewed as a process of accumulation of economic capital, the antagonism between alienated structures and actors results in an unequal distribution of property and wealth.

• Antagonism between necessary and surplus labour10: A certain amount of labour is needed in each society for its reproduction, the alienation of labour in capitalism that is a manifestation of the antagonistic relationship of actors and structures results in the antagonism that one tries to increase surplus value by methods that decrease necessary labour and herewith (at least temporarily) destroy the foundation of accumulation.

• Antagonism between use value and exchange value11: Products satisfy basic needs in all societies, the alienated relationship of actors and structures typical for capitalism results in the domination of this satisfaction by the logic of commodity and exchange.

• Antagonism between productive forces and relationships of production which results in the tendency of the rates of profit to fall12: The antagonistic relationship of actors and

8 “All history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles bet ween exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social evolution“ (Engels 1883 :3). A class relationship is an “antagonism between the exploiter and the living and labouring raw material he exploits“ (Marx 1867: 350) 9 “The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour-power at its disposal. The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases therefore with the potential energy of wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour-army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus-population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour“ (Marx 1867: 673f). These formulations have been frequently interpreted as a hypothesis of impoverishment of the dominated classes, i.e. that the development of the productive forces will result in impoverishment which will cause social revolution. But one should note that Marx here is speaking not about absolute, only about relative relationships. With the overall increase of wealth, the social situation of the dominated classes might improve although at the same time the relative share they get can decrease. 10 “Hence, the application of machinery to the production of surplus -value implies a contradiction which is immanent in it, since of the two factors of the surplus-value created by a given amount of capital, one, the rate of surplus-value, cannot be increased, except by diminishing the other, the number of workmen. This contradiction comes to light, as soon as by the general employment of machinery in a given industry, the value of the machine-produced commodity regulates the value of all commodities of the same sort; and it is this contradiction, that in its turn, drives the capitalist, without his being conscious of the fact, to excessive lengthening of the working-day, in order that he may compensate the decrease in the relative number of labourers exploited, by an increase not only of the relative, but of the absolute surplus-labour“ (Marx 1867: 429f). “Capital it self is the contradiction [, in] that, while it constantly tries to suspend necessary labour time (and this is at the same time the reduction of the worker to a minimum, i.e. his existence as mere living labour capacity), surplus labour time exists only in antithesis with necessary labour time, so that capital posits necessary labour time as a necessary condition of its reproduction and realization“ (Marx 1857/58: 448f). 11 “The antithesis, use -value and value; the contradictions that private labour is bound to manifest itself as direct social labour, that a particularised concrete kind of labour has to pass for abstract human labour; the contradiction between the personification of objects and the representation of persons by things; all these antitheses and contradictions, which are immanent in commodities, assert themselves, and develop their modes of motion, in the antithetical phases of the metamorphosis of a commodity. These modestherefore imply the possibility, and no more than the possibility, of crises“ (Marx 1867: 128). Already in the Grundrisse Marx described that the doubling of commodity into use value and exchange value causes crises (Marx 1857/58: 81-85). 12 “The contradiction, to put it in a very general way, consists in that the capitalist mode of production involves a tendency towards absolute development of the productive forces, regardless of the value and surplus-value it contains, and regardless of the social conditions under which capitalist production takes place; while, on the other hand, its aim is to preserve the value of the existing capital and promote its self-expansion to the highest


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structures means that also the structural moments themselves (productive forces, relationships of production) are related antagonistically.

• Antagonism between living and dead, objectified labour13: Technology is employed in capitalism in such a way that it diminishes human activities in order to maximise the efficiency of production, but this also results in the destruction of the source of surplus value and hence contributes to crises. This antagonism refers to the antagonistic relationship of agents and technology (the latter being a structure).

• Antagonism between single production and social need that can result in disproportions between branches and departments of production, i.e. an antagonism between the organisation of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally14: The antagonistic relationship of actors and structures is an uncoordinated one that results in economic disproportions.

• Antagonism between production and consumption that can result in overproduction or underconsumption15: The antagonism between actors and structures that is fundamental for

limit (i.e., to promote an ever more rapid growth of this value). ... The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. It is that capital and its self-expansion appear as the starting and the closing point, the motive and the purpose of production; that production is only production for capital and not vice versa, the means of production are not mere means for a constant expansion of the living process of the society of producers. The limits within which the preservation and self-expansion of the value of capital resting on the expropriation and pauperisation of the great mass of producers can alone move — these limits come continually into conflict with the methods of production employed by, capital for its purposes, which drive towards unlimited extension of production, towards production as an end in itself, towards unconditional development of the social productivity of labour. The means — unconditional development of the productive forces of society — comes continually into conflict with the limited purpose, the self-expansion of the existing capital“ (Marx 1894: 259f). “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of so ciety come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters“ (Marx 1858/59: 9). 13 “Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition - question of life or death - for the necessary. On the one side, then, it calls to life all the powers of science and of nature, as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed on it. On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value“ (Marx 1857/58: 601f) 14 “Each man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to have, and for such exchange as he may require to satisfy his remaining wants. No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production“ (Engels 1880: 214f). Marx has described this antagonism in such a way that “ under capitalist production the proportionality of the individual branches of production springs as a continual process from disproportionality, because the cohesion of the aggregate production imposes itself as a blind law upon the agents of production, and not as a law which, being understood and hence controlled by their common mind, brings the productive process under their joint control“ (Marx 1894: 267) 15 “Since the aim of capital is not to minister to certain wants, but to produce profit, and since it accomplishes this purpose by methods which adapt the mass of production to the scale of production, not vice versa, a rift must continually ensue between the limited dimensions of consumption under capitalism and a production which forever tends to exceed this immanent barrier. [...]On the other hand, too many means of labour and necessities of life are produced at times to permit of their serving as means for the exploitation of labourers at a certain rate of profit. Too many commodities are produced to permit of a realisation and conversion into new capital of the value and surplus-value contained in them under the conditions of distribution and consumption peculiar to capitalist production, i.e., too many to permit of the consummation of this process without constantly recurring explosions“ (Marx 18 94: 267f). “The extension of the markets cannot keep pace with the extension of production. The collision becomes inevitable, and as this cannot produce any real solution so long as it does not


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capitalism also results due to its uncoordinatedness in tendencies of overproduction and underconsumption.

• Antagonism between socialised production and capitalistic, private appropriation16: The capitalistic relationship of structures and actors is also antagonistic in the sense that production is only possible within social relationships whereas there is private ownership of the means and results of production.

• Antagonism between producers and means of production (technology as an end in itself, alienation, reversal of means and ends of technology)17: The antagonism between structures and actors results in the degradation of human beings to the level of an appendage of technological structures (machines).

Political antagonisms: • Political fractioning of classes, political conflicts between opposing interests on a

regional, local, national and global level: In the political realm the antagonistic relationship of structures and actors produces conflicts over the distribution of power structures that are largely controlled by certain groups. This fractioning also results in fragementation within classes and produces antagonisms between class fractions (such as between finance capital and industrial capital).

• Antagonism between the asymmetrical distribution of power and participation in societies based on the principle of domination: The alienation of structures from actors results in such an asymmetrical distribution and a lack of participation.

• Antagonisms between inclusion and exclusion into processes of decision and between self-determination and heteronomy in societies based on the principle of domination: The alienation of structures from actors also results in the domination of exclusion and heteronomy.

Cultural antagonisms: • Symbolic and cultural conflicts arising from the dialectic of upclassing and downclassing18

and on a global scope from the unequal distribution of wealth, power and possibilities for

break in pieces the capitalist mode of production, the collisions become periodic. Capitalist production has begotten another "vicious circle"“ (Engels 1880: 218). 16 “The contradiction between the general social power into which capital develops, on the one hand, and the private power of the individual capitalists over these social conditions of production, on the other, becomes ever more irreconcilable, and yet contains the solution of the problem, because it implies at the same time the transformation of the conditions of production into general, common, social, conditions“ (Marx 1894: 274). This contradiction has later been described by Lenin as an antagonism between monopoly and competition. 17 “Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour-process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour-process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital“ (Marx 1867: 674). “Every kind of capitalist production, in so far as it is not only a labour -process, but also a process of creating surplus-value, has this in common, that it is not the workman that employs the instruments of labour, but the instruments of labour that employ the workman. But it is only in the factory system that this inversion for the first time acquires technical and palpable reality. By means of its conversion into an automaton, the instrument of labour confronts the labourer, during the labour-process, in the shape of capital, of dead labour, that dominates, and pumps dry, living labour-power“ (Marx 1867: 446). 18 People, families and groups in modern society commonly strive for upclassing and if it becomes necessary they struggle against downclassing. There are strategies of groups for distinguishing themselves form the group below and identifying with the group immediately above which they recognise as the possessor of the legitimate life-style. Groups, classes and class-fractions hence try to symbolically distinguish themselves, their tastes and


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participation: In the cultural realm the alienation of structures from actors results in symbolic-material conflicts over cultural goods.

• Antagonism between dominating and marginalised life-styles in societies based on the principle of domination: The alienation and antagonistic structure-actor-relationship typical for capitalism also results in a competition between different life-styles.

• Antagonism between competing, irreconcilable norms, values and ideologies in societies based on the principle of domination: When the relationship of structures and actors is an antagonistic one, norms and values collide and can’t be reconsiled and hence certain manipulative ideologies that try to forestall social change arise.

The antagonisms just mentioned certainly (have to) overlap in concrete processes of economic, political and cultural accumulation. Nonetheless it is possible to analytically separate them. There are more economic than political and cultural antagonisms because the economy is the central subsystem of capitalism which doesn’t mean that it is determining in the last instance, but that it is a dominating system that strongly perturbates the other subsystems. In the structural coupling between the economy and the other two subsystems the influences from the economy onto the other systems are the decisive ones. All antagonisms listed stem from the one central antagonism between actors and structures, nonetheless each of them has a certain autonomy. In traditional Marxist theory it has been frequently assumed that crises of capitalism result from one universal antagonism. Depending on which antagonism is selected, these theories can be categorised into four groups (for details see Fuchs 2002a: 252ff): theories of overaccumulation, theories of overproduction/underconsumption, theories of disproportion and profit-squeeze-theories. Social complexity results from the numerous social relationships individuals enter and which change historically. There are no good reasons to believe that capitalist crises stem from only one universal antagonism or from only one subsystem of society such as the economy because society is a complex system with multidimensional causality. In complex systems, causes and effects can’t be mapped linearly: similar causes can have different effects and different causes similar effects; small changes of causes can have large effects whereas large changes can also only result in small effects (but nonetheless it can also be the case that small causes have small effects and large causes large effects). The complexity of a system depends on the number of its elements and connections between the elements. The idea of multidimensional and complex causality that is put forward by self-organisation theory shows that each crises of capitalism is due to specific causes that result from the complex and unique interactions between general antagonisms. These antagonisms are all expressions of the central antagonism of capitalism between structures and actors, the structure of antagonisms of capitalism is based on a dialectic of unity and plurality. From time to time, a social systems enters crisis and phases of instability due to social antagonisms. The auto-creation and re-creation of social systems takes place permanently. This is a very general level of analysis. Phases of stabile re-creation result in phases of instability where the future development of the system is highly undetermined. The objective structures condition a field of possibilities, it is not pre-determined which alternative will be taken. In such phases of crisis and bifurcation, agency and human intervention play an

life-styles from others. This results in symbolic struggles (Bourdieu 1986: 244-256), the devaluation of objects and an endless drive for novelty. “Struggles over the appropriation of economic or cultura l goods are, simultaneously, symbolic struggles to appropriate distinctive signs in the form of classified, classifying goods or practices, or to conserve or subvert the principles of classification of these distinctive properties” (Bourdieu 1986: 249). Taste and identity are at the heart of symbolic struggles and are employed by the dominating classes and class-fractions to stigmatise the dominated classes and class-fractions. Cultural conflicts are conflicts which involve opposing life-styles, norms and values.


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important role in order to increase the possibility that a certain desirable alternative will be taken. Certainty can’t be achieved, but agency also is not made impossible by the principles of self-organised social change. The whole movement of social self-organisation is based on a dialectic of chance and necessity. Due to the complexity of society, capitalist crises have economic, political and cultural aspects and are not caused by one universal antagonism. Due to the material base of society, economic antagonisms play an important and dominating role, but they do not fully determine the occurrence and outcome of crises. Capitalism is itself a sequence of different phases, i.e. the structure of capitalism changes on a certain level and new qualities emerge. Such phases are our third level of analysis and are also called modes of development, a term which describes a temporal coherent unity of economic, political and cultural aspects. For each mode of development, i.e. each phase of the capitalist formation of society, there is a specific structure of antagonisms which is a concrete expression of the more general antagonisms of capitalism listed above. Concerning the evolution of a specific mode of development, we find a dialectic of chance and necessity: It is determined that this evolutionary process will sooner or later result in a large societal crisis, but it is not fully determined which antagonisms will cause the crisis and how the result of the crisis will look like. There could e.g. be the emergence of a new mode of development, the ultimate breakdown of society due to destructive forces or the emergence of a new formation of society caused by social agency of intervening subjects. Each historical mode of development has its own relatively autonomous antagonistic structure. These structures are a concrete expression of certain overall antagonisms (listed above) in the capitalist economy, capitalist politics and capitalist culture. Capitalist crises can, but do not necessarily have to originate in the economic system because the subsystems of society function according to their relatively autonomous logic, but nonetheless are highly interdependent. Crises can be triggered by economic, political or cultural fluctuations stemming from the antagonistic social structures of a concrete mode of development or by a complex interplay and reinforcement of economic, political and cultural factors. An analysis of the causes of the crisis of Fordism shows that there wasn’t one universal antagonism at play, but that there was an interplay of several concrete expressions of general economic, political and cultural antagonisms of capitalism (for details see Fuchs 2002a). Concerning the evolution of a concrete mode of development there is a dialectic of chance and necessity: It is determined that this mode will collapse and enter crisis, but the exact causes, the exact point of time as well as the outcome of the crisis is not determined. Economical, political and ideological antagonisms unfold themselves and can reinforce themselves due to mutual references and causalities. A crisis is a phase of instability with social fluctuations. An overall crisis of society involves economical, political and cultural aspects. Indicators for economic crisis are a fall of the rates of profit, bankruptcies and an aggravation of macro-economic variables such as output, rate of investment, GDP, employment rate, consumption, state expenditures, price levels and interest rates. A political crisis can result in class struggles, strikes, demonstrations, civil disobedience, protests, refusals of work, large distrust against politicians, new elections, civil wars, revolts, putsch or a change of existing premises of regulation. A cultural crisis results in the breakdown or questioning of existing norms, values and ideologies. In a phase of crisis of society, the future development is not determined, it is a historical point of bifurcation of social dynamics. But the development of society as an evolutionary-self-organised system in such an unstable phase and is not left to chance fully, it depends on a dynamical dialectic of chance and necessity. On the one hand it is determined that


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antagonistic structures of society will again and again result in phases of crisis. The exact point of time cannot be predicted due to the complex causality that generally shapes self-organising systems. Concerning a point of bifurcation in society, the historical development is relatively open, but it nonetheless depends on certain subjective factors, i.e. on agency and human intervention which can increase the possibility that certain paths will be taken and that others will be avoided. But there can be no certainty, the sciences and hence also the social sciences are confronted with an end of certainties (Wallerstein 1997a). Concerning a mode of development, it is not sufficient to speak of a unity of the economic, the political and the cultural subsystem because on this level of analysis one will find concrete expressions of these subsystems and of general capitalist structures and antagonisms. Hence a mode of development can be described as a coherent unity of a regime of accumulation, a mode of regulation and a disciplinary regime. This unity shows that there are economic, political and ideological aspects of capitalist crises. The concepts of the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation have been introduced by the French theory of regulation19: Regime of accumulation: • “A regime of accumulation is a form of social transformation that increases relative

surplus-value under the stable constraints of the most general norms that define absolute surplus-value“ (Aglietta 1979: 69).

• A regime of accumulation “describes the fairly long -term stabilisation of the social allocation of social production between consumption and accumulation. This implies a certain correspondence between the transformation of the conditions of production and the transformation of the conditions of reproduction of wage-labour, between certain of the modalities in which capitalism is articulated with other modes of production within national economic and social formation, and between the social and economic formation under consideration and its ‘outside world’ […] [It refers to a] systematic and long -term allocation in such a way as to ensure a certain adequation between the transformation of conditions of production and the transformation of conditions of consumption” (Lipietz 1987: 14+32).

• “A regime of accumulation is defined by the whole set of regularities which allow a general and more or less consistent evolution for capital formation, i.e. which dampen and spread over time the imbalances which permanently arise from the process itself“ (Boyer 1988: 71).

Mode of regulation: • Alain Lipietz (1986: 16) argues that the mode of regulation encompasses the entirety of

institutional forms, networks and explicit and implicit norms that ensure compatibility of behaviour within the frame of accumulation regime – according to the condition of the social situation as well as exceeding its conflictual characteristics.

• “ The mode of regulation [...] designate[s] any set of rules and individual and collective behaviours which [...] make possible conflicting decentralized decisions compatible without the necessity for individuals or even institutions to comprehend the logic of the whole system; they control and regulate the prevailing accumulation mode; the reproduce basic social relationships through a system of historically determined institutional forms“ (Boyer 1988: 75).

19 For a detailled analysis of aspects of self-organisation in Regulation Theory see Fuchs (2002a), pp 213-252.


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Robles (1994) criticises that Aglietta’s definitio n of the regime of accumulation mixes economic aspects with aspects belonging to the mode of regulation. What Aglietta does show is that the regime has to do with the mode of production, the way how surplus value is produced and that Marx has distinguished two forms of producing surplus value: the methods of absolute and relative surplus production. Lipietz takes into account that the regime of accumulation also involves aspects of distribution and consumption as well as mechanisms that try to stabilise the relationship between (economic) capital accumulation and consumption. This last point is also emphasised by Boyer who speaks of regularities that try to counterbalance the imbalances of (economical) capital accumulation. The regime of accumulation secures a temporal consistency between norms of production and consumption. This guarantees to a certain extent the realisation of surplus value. The regime of accumulation can only maintain itself if enough surplus value is produced and the rate of surplus value is high enough. A necessary condition for this is the embedding of the regime into a network of institutions that secures that people act in accordance with the existing norms of production and consumption. Both definitions of the mode of regulation given above show that that the latter refers to the institutional framework of (economic) capital accumulation. Lipietz says that these are not only state institutions and norms, but also private and semi-public institutions. Compatibility of behaviour and the consent of the masses are necessary conditions for a temporal stabilisation of capital accumulation. This shows that the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation are not just structural aspects of society, but are dialectically mediated with social actions. The regime of accumulation describes the concrete forms of capital accumulation, production, distribution and consumption in a specific mode of development. Its result is the accumulation of economic capital within the framework of antagonistic economic forms (money, commodities, market) and economic class relationships. It includes aspects of production such as the productivity of labour, the degree of mechanisation, the distribution between branches of production, norms of productivity, technologies of production, means of labour and organisation, connections between different modes of productions and organisational modes of decision, class relationships, the existing forms of the appropriation of nature and knowledge; as well as aspects of consumption such as conditions that shall secure demand, modes, patterns and norms of consumption and channels of distribution. The mode of regulation refers to the institutional framework of capital accumulation which is organised by the state. Its result is the accumulation of political capital within the framework of antagonistic political forms (laws, the state) and political relationships. The state not only includes the coercive apparatus of political society, but also civil society, i.e. the political non-government institutions (Gramsci 1971: 262f). The mode of regulation includes market rules, money relationships, financial networks, welfare, associations, trade unions, the political system, think tanks, police, military, secret service, the juridical system, parties, social movements, federations, consultants, monetary and credit relationships, the institutional relationships of capital and labour (as e.g. in social partnerships), forms of state intervention and international regulatory instances. The definitions given by the regulationists for the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation or not simply structuralistic definitions. Lipietz says that regulation includes “norms that ensure compatibility of behaviour within the frame of accumulat ion regime”. This shows that regulation means agency that works as a sort of cohesive force on the economy.


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There are both systemic, objective and action-based, subjective aspects in the categories employed in regulation theory. Lipietz has pointed out a dialectical relationship of strucutres and actors that is very close to e.g. Giddens’ duality of structure. He says that the human being is both a subjective and an objective being, “to produce objects he is produced and reproduced himself as a social being; […] he obeys the laws of nature” (Lipietz 1993: 123f). “Objectifying practice” and “objectified practice” would be two dialectically connected moments. “The question is neither of two different moments (humans will sometimes be followers of routine, and sometimes innovators), nor of a division of humanity into two groups (‘leaders’ and sheep), but into two aspects, always coexisting in variable proportions, in all human practice. Such is the opposition currently used (from Poulantzas to Giddens) between structure and practice” (ibid.: 124). Modern society is highly differentiated, political institutions can be distinguished from cultural ones. Culture is not a part of politics, it is a relatively independent subsystem of society that depends on its own logic although it is mutually connected to politics and the economy. Regulation theory overlooks this relative autonomy of culture and hence subsumes ideological and cultural aspects within the mode of regulation. To avoid these shortcomings we suggest to add a third aspect to a mode of development: the disciplinary regime which is made up by mechanisms that secure the hegemonic consent of the oppressed to the dominating mode of development. It produces hegemony, ideologies and dominating norms and values and results in the accumulation of cultural capital within the framework of cultural forms (dominating norms, knowledge, values, ideologies) and cultural relationships. Hegemony can be seen in accordance with Antonio Gramsci as “the ‘spontaneous’ consent of the masses who must ‘live’ those directives [of the state, CF], modifying their own h abits, their own will, their own convictions to conform with those directives and with the objectives which they propose to achieve“ (Gramsci 1971: 266). Hegemony always h as political and cultural aspects, it is formed in the framework of the complex relationships between politics and culture. In this process of enforcing a consent between dominators and the dominated, political institutions such as law and the repressive state apparatus are important, but also cultural institutions, i.e. institutions which organise ways of life and socialisation, are necessary. Cultural institutions involve the family, churches, religion, media, the educational system, schools, art and science. Hegemony can only work in and with ideology. An ideology is a system of ideas and believes that dominates the consciousness of a human being or a social group (Althusser 1977). This definition shows that ideologies are cultural aspects of societies that are based on the principle of domination, they fulfil a certain function. Ideology is a 'representation' of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence, i.e. they do not map reality, but are social constructions that show how certain groups want to define reality in order to make others see reality the same way. Someone who favours a certain ideology takes part in certain practices (going to church, meetings, consumption of information and culture etc.). These practices show that ideologies have a material existence and are not confined to the ideational realm. Ideology calls human beings as subjects, this is a process termed “interpellation” by Althusser. Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects and makes them become subjects (members of families, churches, associations, parties etc.). An interpellation takes place in the name of an absolute subject (god, leader, state, boss, guru etc.). The individual is interpellated as a free subject so that it voluntarily submits to the will of the absolute subject. What is important is that a phase of capitalist crisis does not automatically result in a new mode of development. In such a point of bifurcation, the future is relatively open, there are several possible alternatives which the system can take. The field of possibilities (Hörz 1974) is conditioned by the objective conditions of existence, which alternative will be chosen


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depends highly on agency and class struggles. It is determined that a mode of development will get into crisis and that something new will result from instabilities, but it is open what exactly will result. If society doesn’t completely break down due to crisis (which could e.g. be the case by devastation of the ecology or a nuclear war), some kind of order will emerge. This means that the self-re-production of society on the first level will shift from crisis to relative temporal cohesion and stability. Concerning the formation of society there are two possibilities: either a new formation of society emerges or the old one is restored. If the first takes place, the foundational structures of the formation of society will be sublated and we will find a type of revolutionary evolution. If the latter takes place, a new mode of production will emerge. This means that new qualities of the regime of accumulation, the mode of production and the disciplinary regime will emerge that can’t be reduced to old qualities. The foundational structures of the formation of society will remain, but will find a new concrete expression in a new mode of development. A change of the formation of society also means a shift in the mode of societal self-reproduction, it is an overall change of the three levels (an ultimate breakdown of society is as well, but such a development would result in the end of all social reproduction), whereas the establishment of a new mode of development doesn’t change the foundations of the formation of society and will be a new concrete expression of economic, political and cultural qualities of the existing formation of society. Sublation only takes place on the third level. The emergence of a new mode of (capitalist) development doesn’t necessarily restore temporal stability, it only means that new qualities of the three parts of the mode will emerge. But in fact the overall system can remain crisis-ridden as has been the case after the crisis of Fordism which has resulted in a new post-Fordist mode of development that has not restored economic and social stability. Arguing that capitalism is a complex, evolutionary, self-organising systems means that one is keen on avoiding deterministic and reductionistic arguments. Regulation theory has been one of those strands of Marxism that has tried to stress the embededness of the capitalist economy into political regulation. A dialectical theory of social self-organisation seems intuitively to be related in some sense to the anti-reductionistic and anti-deterministic conception of regulation theory. Hence it seems to be fruitful to discuss the conceptual relationship between self-organisation theory and the regulation approach. 4. Self-organisation Theory and the Regulation Approach Conceptual parallels to self-organisation theory come to mind where regulation theorists discuss the open character of history and dismiss general laws of history (Görg 1994: 19). Both theories oppose the view that systems evolve in a mechanistic and deterministic way. ”Class stru ggle [...] is itself beyond any ‘law’. It can neither be assigned a limit, nor be confined by a determinism whose legitimacy could only be metaphysical. In a situation of historical crisis, all that a theory of regulation can do is note the conditions that make certain directions of evolution impossible, and detect the meaning of the actual transformation under way. Thereafter, however, the future remains open“ (Aglietta 1979: 67f). In regulation theory there is criticism of economistic theories of crises, self-organisation theory was conceived in opposition to the Newtonian worldview that stresses the possibility of fully steering and predicting the historical development of systems. Concerning causality, both theories argue against reductionism and determinism. Regulation theory opposes views that consider the economy as (the fully) determining factor of society and history (economic reductionism) and stresses the importance of political and ideological aspects of crises. The regulation approaches criticise “the vulgar Marxist tendency to overemphasise class struggles” (Jessop 2001a: 221) and the “redu ctionistic temptation in Marxist theorising to see


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the logic of the capitalist market economy as somehow determinant ‘in the last instance’ of an entire social formation” (ibid.: 228). “The stabilization of a regime of accumulation or a mode of regulation obviously cannot be analysed in terms of its economic logic alone. Such ‘discoveries’ are the outcome of asocial and political struggles which stabilize to form a hegemonic system” (Lipietz 1987: 20). Jessop (2002) says that there can’t be economic determ ination in the last instance because this would mean that the economy is a fully self-contained system without external causes and that the econmic and the extra-economic are necessary corresponding. “The economic lacks the self-closure necessary to determine the extra-economic without being reciprocally determined by the latter in turn” (Jessop 2002: 23). Jessop opposes economic determinism, but it seems appropriate in order to argue materialistically (and to avoid idealistic turns) to assume as he does that the economy is a dominant system. Economic and political regimes would be structurally coupled, they are both operationally autonomous and interdependent, but the economy would be dominating due to its ability for spontaneous self-reorganisation. Economic domination would mean hegemony of certain class fractions, usage of economic power in order to force the compliance of other systems, extension of commodity relations into spheres not currently subject to the logic of accumulation and imposition of the logic of profit-seeking on other systems. Also the state would be operational autonomous, it is not “a simple instrument or functional mechanism for reproducing capitalist relations of production”, there is “no guarantee that political outcomes wil serve t he needs of capital” (Jessop 2002: 41). Self-organisation theory shows that complex systems have multidimensional forms of causality where one effect can have many causes and one cause many effects. Regulation theory takes this into account by stressing the importance of the mode of regulation. A materialistic theory of society that is not reductionistic must assume that the economy is an important, dominant subsystem of society, but that it is mutually connected to other subsystems such as politics and culture. There are mutual influences between these subsystems and a relative autonomy of each of them. This means that all subsystems of society have their own specific logic that functions in a unique manner. Nonetheless there are influences and mutual causations between these subsystems. One system influences and perturbates the others, but it can’t (fully) determine them. Applying complexity theory to an analysis of the causes of capitalistic crises, one has to assume that crises don’t have always one and the same cause, but are caused by an interplay of specific economic, political and ideological factors. Lipietz explains that Althusserianism would have also pit an end to the “myth of the single contradiction […] between the productive forces and the re lations of production” (Lipietz 1993: 106). Regulation theories stresses that there is a multiplicity of contradictions and that crises can’t be reduced to one single universal contradiction. E.g. Lipietz says that the crisis that emerged in the second half of the 20th century “is a crisis in profitability [due to a profit squeeze and the rise in the organic composition of capital], whereas the crisis of the 1930s was a crisis of overproduction” (Lipietz 1987: 43). Opposing reductionism, Bob Jessop (1999) argues that what happens in the world is not due to a single causal mechanism. “Instead the concrete actualisation of events results from the interaction of diverse causal tendencies and counter-tendencies”. It wouldn’t be possible to generate explanation o f complex phenomena by simple algorithms. Lipietz (1993) mentions that the regulation approach opposes “the oversimplification, determinism and mechanism inherited from the Stalinist period” (Lipietz 1993: 99). Althusser


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would have greatly helped to disengage Marxism from “a determinist vision of historical evolution which conceived of the ‘productive forces’ themselves (traditional ‘locomotives’ of history for Stalinist Marxism’) as social relations born in the organization of production” and Stalinist dogmatism (ibid.: 100). It would be “mechanistic, economist, productivist and ultimately cynical” to see the development of the productuve forces “as the index of historica progress” (Lipietz 1987: 194). But Althusserianism reduced the human being to a “bear er of structures” that reproduces the structures, a “spectator in an authorless theater”. Capitalism would function through “processes without a subject”. Subjects, contradictions and market relations were unimportant for Althusser. Althusserianism “finds itself powerless to apprehend the new, humanity in the process of making the world […], it fetishizes, in an academic mode, the ‘conditions’ that it has analyzed so well, by denying that the ‘conditions’ should themselves be the product of subjects” (Lipie tz 1993: 125). The regulation approach has been keen on “taking into consideration the conscious element” (101). The term regulation was employed in order to avoid the functionalistic implications of Althusser’s concept of the autonomous reproduction of a structure without a subject. Lipietz says the regulationists could be seen as “rebel sons” of Althusser. Regulation theory also opposed technological reductionism as it can e.g. be found in Schumpeterism. Long wave theory would have been falsified because “it its very difficult to see any downturn in technological innovation during the 1960s, indeed the emergence of microelectronics would seem to imply the opposite” (Lipietz 1987: 43). Elsewhere Lipietz says that long wave theory reduced economic history to the evolution of an unexplained technological parameter (Lipietz 1998b: 37). Robert Boyer stresses that a “difficulty lies in the temptation to relapse into technological determinism according to whoch economic growth as well as most social institutions derive from purely technical matters. If this kind of statement was not made by Schumpeter himself, it turned out to be a salient feature of the present recovery of neo-Schumpeterian ideas“ (Boyer 1988: 67). Regulation theory considers technology not as a separate system, but as part of the accumulation regime and heavily influenced by the mode of regulation in order to avoid technological determinism. “The fate of any technological system cannot be disentangled from social (particaular the wage-labour nexus) and economic determinants (the evolution of the mode of development as a whole)” (Boyer 1988: 89). Lipietz opposes the determinism of functionalistic arguments: “by presenting concrete history as the inevitable unfolding of a conceppt such as imperialism […], by arguing that the world is as it is because it was designed to serve ‘the interests of the powerful’ or ‘the interests of the system’ […] [one would suggest] that there is some Great Engineer or Supreme Entrepreneuer who organizes labour in terms of a pre-conceived world plan” (Lipietz 1987: 4). Such a “pessimistic functionalism” would leave out spontaneity, chance, the human subject and the complex mediations of the world. Such arguments would politically either result in pessimism (“we can’t do a nything”) or a new opium of the people (“it will soon collapse all by itself due to its internal contradictions”). Like self-organisation theory the regulation approach stresses the limits of predictability. Lipietz mentions that one can’t deduce the foll owing moments from the actual moment because there could be no “general equation” that foresees the transformation of societies and “contradictions do not ‘displace themselves’; they can, as Althusser would say, ‘fuse’ into explosive conjunctures on the other side of which the complex whole is restructured in another ‘illumination’, in a radically different structure which redefines all contradictions” (Lipietz 1993: 119). Hence one should concentrate on the analysis of contradictions of a concrete conjuncture. The regulationists see society as a complex system, hence it wouldn’t


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be possible to fully forecast and predict its development. The same understanding can be derived from self-organisation theory. Lipietz (1987) warns against schemes that are considered to be established “by some Great Author” (1987: 4) and neglect concrete contradictions and analyses. It would be an error to deduce “concrete reality from immanent laws which are themselves deduced from a universal concept” (ibid.: 9), hence one would have to study each national social formation in its own right (ibid.: 20). In questioning determinism one has to be careful in order to avoid the assumption that social evolution happens fully by chance. In regulation theory the mediation between general laws of capitalism and categories that are specific for a certain mode of development is unclear. It is inappropriate to assume that there are only antagonisms that are specific for one mode of development and that with a new mode a completely new logic of accumulation, regulation and discipline emerges. If one made such an assumption, this would mean arbitrariness. Self-organisation theory suggests the importance of chance, but it doesn’t fetishise chance. In complex systems, we find a dialectic of chance and necessity and of generality and concreteness. For a theory of capitalistic development this means that one should assume that there are certain forms (wage labour, value, capital, competition, surplus value, exploitation, profit, the state, patriarchy, etc.) and antagonisms that are specific for capitalism in general and that there are certain expressions of these fundamental forms and of certain antagonisms for a concrete mode of development. A regime of accumulation and a mode of development both have general and concrete aspects, like all complex, self-organising systems they are subject to a dialectic of generality and concreteness. It is determined that in each new capitalistic mode of development one will find certain forms that are characteristics for the overall structure of capitalism and that this mode will have an antagonistic character. But one can’t predict how exactly these forms and antagonisms will look like and how they will develop. This depends on agency and the result of class struggles. Overestimating general aspects of development as many classical theories of crises have done results in rather deterministic approaches, overestimating specific aspects means the danger of constructing theories that are based on the logic of arbitrariness. Hegel, Marx and Engels knew that chance and necessity are dialectically coupled categories, chance is based on necessity and necessity on chance. Self-organisation theory reminds us of this and puts it into new scientific categories. Regulation theory underestimates the importance of this dialectic by overemphasising causes of crises that are specific for only one mode of development. When explaining why a regime of accumulation and a mode of regulation are established Alain Lipietz overlooks that it is a necessity for the reproduction of capitalism to establish new regimes and modes in order to temporarily stabilise accumulation and domination. It is undetermined whether or not a new capitalistic mode of development will emerge from an overall crises and how this mode will exactly look like, but it is determined that a new mode must be established if a breakdown of capitalism shall be avoided and that this new mode will again enter crisis. The number of possible developments in a point of bifurcation is limited and depends on the material foundation of the prior structure of society, but it is undetermined which path will be chosen because this depends on the result of class struggle. New modes of development are shaped by the complex interplay of various social struggles. This interplay can’t be fully forecast, but is also limited in diversity. For Lipietz these aspects of necessity happen fully by chance: “The emergence of a new regime of accumulation is not a pre-ordained part of capitalism’s destiny [ ...] Regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation are chance discoveries made in the course of human struggle and if they are for a while successful, it is only because they are able to ensure a certain regularity and a certain permanence in social reproduction“ (Lipietz 1987: 15). Lipietz says e.g. that the crystallisation of the West as the centre of imperialism (that exploits the


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periphery) was a chance discovery: “it could have taken a different form, and it could have taken place elsewhere” (Lipietz 1987: 68). Robles (1994: 78) stresses in respect to regulation theory that structures are not the result of a purely accidental political evolution. Lipietz says that the old international divison of labour wasn’t a result of a rationally planned ‘world capitalism’, but a “chance discovery or rather the result of attempts to resist or adopt chance discoveries” (Lipietz 1987: 26). The hegemony of the USA after 1945 would have also been a chance discovery and hence one should speak of an “implicit hegemony” (ibid.: 39f). There surely are accidental aspects in the facts that Taylorism developed in the USA, that the allied forces defeated the Germans and Japanese and that there were no major destructions in the US during the second world war. However these facts conditioned the economic development after 1945 just like they were themselves conditioned by prior developments. These conditionings are aspects of necessity that condition chance. Hence the hegemony of the USA or the development of the first international division of labour wasn’t due to pure chance, but to relative or conditioned chance. They are an expression of the dialectic of chance and necessity, Lipietz overemphasises chance although it is certainly true that due to the complex interactions of actors events can only be forecast to a limited extent. There are indeed rationally planned actions, but due to the complexity of the world they are only sometimes successful and have unintended consequences. Actions frequently have both intended (necessity) and unintended (chance) consequences of which we sometimes are not conscious or don’t know about . In regulation theory there is a “primacy of internal causes” of a mode of development (Lipietz 1987: 22) and in this respect it is quite similar to self-organisation theory that stresses that the change of a complex system stems from within the system although it might be perturbated by other systems in its environment. Bob Jessop (1999) says that the world is governed by contingent necessity. This means that everything that happens is in some way necessary, but also contingent, because it is caused not by a single factor, but by the interaction of diverse causal tendencies an counter-tendencies. “As a feature of the real world, contingent necessity implies that world’s ontological complexity. Indeed, if the development of the real world involves an infinite succession of contingently interdependent as well as contingently necessary ‘contingent necessities’, then it must also be infinitely complex” (Jessop 1 999). Governance mechanisms would reduce the variety of future possibilities and social complexity. Jessop just like the theory of self-organisation points out a dialectical relationship of chance and necessity. However, when speaking about future possibilities in a point of bifurcation, he considers mainly the emergence of a new mode of development as a real possibility and hence overlooks that in such points the future is highly undetermined, depends on agency and that small fluctuations can easily intensify themselves in such phases of instability. E.g. Jessop suggests that “crises typically act as a steering mechanism for the always provisional, partial, and unstable re-equilibration of capital accumulation” (2001b: 89). Capitalism here is considered not as a non-equilibrium system (as suggested by Prigogine for all open systems), but as a self-equilibrating system; there is generally not much talk about the possibility of fundamental social change that is due to social struggles in Jessop’s works. Jessop (2002: 31) e.g. stresses that class struggles are only inclusive ones that “establish, maintain or restore the conditions for self-valorization within the capitalist economy”. Applied forms of governance would at some time result again in an increased complexity due to conflicting or uncoordinated governance mechanisms. Incompleteness or failures of


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attempts would be contingently necessary aspects of governance. Governance wouldn’t be able to put an end to crisis because capitalism would be based on “struc tural contradictions and strategic dilemmas”. Jessop suggests that certain governance mechanisms emerge from “chance discovery”, this means that he considers them as fully accidental. However, the number of possible governance mechanisms in a phase of capitalism is limited in diversity, although it can’t be predicted in advance how the complex interactions and struggles that determine the exact governance mechanisms that will be applied will look like and which interests will play a more important role in their constitution. This is due to the complexity and variety of the interactions of actors that are involved in establishing new forms of governance. It is also not determined that a crisis must result in a new form of governing capitalism, this is only one of several possibilities. However, it is determined that new, unpredictable forms of exclusive, antagonisticgoverning and regulation will arise as long as capitalism exists because it’s structural antagonisms make such mechanisms a necessity. Similar to Jessop Michel Aglietta (1979: 68) mentions that historical development “is goveerned neither by chance nor by a hereditary determinism. History is initiatory”. In regulation theory there is a tendency to assume functionalistically a permanent self-constitution of capitalism and modes of development that are organised within nation states. This is due to the fact that one is keen on stressing that there can be no automatic breakdown of capitalism. This surely is true, but this doesn’t imply that capitalism automatically has the capability to establish a new mode of development. In a bifurcation point a full breakdown of capitalism that is due to revolutionary action is just like the establishment of a new mode of capitalistic development one of several possibilities. Regulation theory assumes that a regime of accumulation can’t permanently reproduce itself due to structural antagonisms, hence it would be in need of a mode of regulation. Some regulation theorists assume that the nationally organised unity of accumulation regime and mode of regulation can self-reproduce by establishing new modes of development when a structural crisis occurs. Regulation theory stresses a primacy of the nation state. “Regimes of accumulation which are predominantly extensive and regimes which are predominantly intensive obviously relate to the ‘outside world’ in different ways. We may su spect that relations with the outside world were originally very important, that they became less important as capital created its own internal market; that, at its height, Fordism marks the extent to which developed capitalism can be autocentred“ (Lipietz 1987: 46). ”Initially, it [capitalism, Anm. CF] was an eddy within the great ocean of the non-capitalist economy which sustained it, but it then grew into territorialized capitalist structures which gradually became individualized and auto-centred, to use the schema popularized by Prigogine. The ratio of trade flows ‘between the structure and its thermostat’ to flows ‘internal to the structure was initially very high (in terms of manufactured commodities, but not of course in terms of overall material output), and it fell as the home market was consolidated“ (ibid.: 56). Lipietz opposes dependency theory and considers it “an ahistroical dogmatism” (1987: 3). It would have a “tendency to lapse into functionalism and even finalism” (ibid.: 16) and there would be a “primacy of external causes” (ibid.: 18). It would be tantamount to say that every change of capitalism is a planned one, this would have to mean that society is a “perfectly homeostatic cybernetic system” (ibid.: 19): Imperialism would not have been created “in order to resolve” general contradictions to the advantage of certain national capitalisms, per accident it would have been able to resolve them and hence would have survived. Only in past stages of capitalist development it would have been necessary for the Western countries to create demand in the outside world and trade with the periphery would have proved working in resolving the contradictions immanent to capitalism that couldn’t be resolved within a closed national circuit. The development of the world would not as assumed by dependency


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theory be “determined by the movement of world capital” and by initiative for change that “comes from the centre” (Lipietz 1987: 51). Hence one couldn’t say that “developments in the periphery are simply functions of the needs of the centre” (ibid.). The discovery of Taylorism and the establishment of mass production and mass consumption in the Fordist era would have made it unnecessary to exploit the periphery. “It was the very fact that the centre had become so ‘auto-centred’ that had the greatest impact. The diffusion of the intensive regime of accumulation led to an increasing gap between centre and periphery in terms of competitiveness, and expelled the periphery from the international trade in manufactures” (Lipietz 1987: 62). The thesis of “development [of the West] by underdevelopment [of the Third World]” would have been falsified by the fact that a certain degree of industrialisation occurred in Latin America and South East Asia. The ratio of trade flows between the West and the Third World fell as the home market was consolidated, the “’thermostat’ gradually lost its importance as an outlet” (Lipietz 1987: 57). Similarly, Robert Boyer stresses that capitalism can produce its own equilibrium (self-equilibrium). Small cyclical crises would be part of this self-regulation, whereas large secular crises would destroy self-regulation and result in a new mode of development (Boyer 1988: 76). Boyer assumes that capitalism can temporary autonomously constitute itself and also stresses a primacy of the nation state. This self-reproduction would be due to “politial and social choices [that] have to play a role in shaping and restructuring the economy” in order to put an end to structural crisis. In a situation of crisis, the economic system wouldn’t be fully deterministic because political intervention would be necessary. The forms of dependence of the Third World on the West have changed and it is important to stress this fact. But this doesn’t mean that there no longer is the transfer of surplus value from certain regions to others. Lipietz describes imperialism as the import of resources and disregards the export of capital and the transfer of value. Transnational corporations act globally, capitalism today is a networked world system with flexible and decentralised forms of accumulation and domination. There is neither a dichotomy between industrialised and developed countries, i.e. an independent reproduction of both, nor a full determination of the world system by one nation. Toni Negri and Michael Hardt (2000) stress the networked character of the Empire. The primacy of the nation state in regulation theory underestimates the global character of the Empire. Capitalism is not a self-organising system in the sense that a crisis automatically results in the establishment of a new mode of development. Creative actions of human subjects is very important in social change, especially in phases of crises and bifurcation. When describing capitalism as a self-reproducing system one has to avoid the mistake not to assume that capitalism is a historical system with a beginning and an end and that this historicity depends on agency. The end of capitalism can be near in each phase of crisis, but on the other hand this means that it is just as near as the emergence of a new capitalist mode of development. One also can’t say that a mode of development of a certain na tion state is self-reproducing because each national system depends on larger entities such as the world market, other nations, environments of primitive accumulation (as suggested by Marxist feminism, cf. e.g. Bennholdt-Thomsen/Mies/Werlhof 1996, Mies 1996), such as patriarchal and racist modes of production, the Third World and peripheral workers. A national unity of the accumulation regime and the mode of regulation does not autonomously reproduce itself, it influences and is being influenced by an exploited environment. But it is possible to describe the capitalist world system as a self-organising system. This world system is a social totality, it doesn’t have a social environment. From time to time, it enters large crisis. Such a crisis can be initiated in one or more regions, it spreads and intensifies itself. Again due to the networked


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and complex character of the world system, it is not determined where the crisis will start, what its exact causes and its outcome will be. It is determined that such crises will occur again and again due to the overall antagonistic character of capitalism and that in such a point of bifurcation the future of society is largely open and depends on agency. Capitalism does not automatically reproduce itself by entering crisis because such an assumption would mean that alternative paths of development are impossible and that hence history has ended and capitalism will exist eternally. Other possible, post-capitalistic paths of development are taken into account insufficiently by regulation theory. Regulation theory frequently assumes that a crisis necessarily results in a new mode of development (although it is considered as undetermined how this mode will exactly look like). The possibility of revolutionary social change is not considered thoroughly enough. Regulation theory assumes that regulation means state intervention into accumulation. Today we witness a sustained crisis of state regulation that is due to neo-liberal politics. Regulation theorists argue that capitalism is so unstable because there are no new forms of regulation. I suggest that regulation doesn’t necessarily mean regulation by the nation state, the mode of regulation only describes institutional settings of accumulation. These settings can also be international or market-based ones. The Postfordist mode of regulation to a certain extent involves market-based forms of regulation. The absence of state intervention is indeed also a form of regulation. I also suggest that a new mode of development doesn’t nec essarily result in a stabile phase of accumulation. Antagonisms can reach a phase where there is permanent crisis or instability. To a certain extent this seems to be the case today. Nonetheless we can speak of a new, Postfordist mode of development because there are new, emergent qualities of both the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation. So what I am arguing is that the decisive criterion for speaking of a new mode of development is the emergence of new qualities of accumulation, domination and legitimisation, not the appearance of a new stabile phase of accumulation. Bob Jessop (1990, 1999, 2001a, b, c, 2002) wants to avoid economistic arguments by combing Marxism and Luhmann’s systems theory. For Luhmann, politics is a system that is coined by binary codes such as public/private, government/opposition, legal/illegal and progressive/conservative. The central difference in politics would be the one between office holding and no office holding. The state would be a self-description of the political system that reduces the complexity of political processes. Referring to Maturana and Varela Luhmann argues that autopoietic systems are autonomous units, but can be structurally coupled: This means that processes in one such system can result in internal differentiations of another system. There could be no determination from the environment of a system, but perturbations from the outside that result in structural changes within a system. Jessop argues that modes of regulation and objects of regulation are structurally coupled (Jessop 1990: 311). Due to stuctural contradictions, strategic dilemmas, the incompleteness of capital as a purely economic relation and conflicts over governance of these contradictions self-valorisation of capital would be improbable and “cannot be explained in terms of some alleged self -correcting, self-expanding logic. This leads us to consider the mechanisms through which, despite capital’s contradictions, accumulation may get regularized and reproduced” (Jessop 2002: 18). It would be possible to combine Marxism and autopoiesis theory by assuming that the subsystems of society are structurally coupled and that capital accumulation dominates, but doesn’t determine other systems. Jessop says that there is no hierarchic centre of society. By referring to Niklas Luhmann and Karl Polanyi, Jessop (2001a) argues that capitalism is an autopoietic system because due to the repetition of circulation exchange values would be


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produced by the market system itself, i.e. exchange values produce more exchange values by circulation. “An autopoietic system also secures the reproduction of its own elements through the use of its own elements. This feature is well illustrated by the market economy. [...] More generally, the market economy could be seen as an autopoietic system to the extent that market forces define what will count as exchange-values, secure the exchange of the latter through market mechanisms, and also ensure the reproduction of market relations through the continuing circulation of commodities in exchange for money“ (Jessop 2001a: 217f). The self-valorization of capital would be accomplished “in and through regulation” (2001b: 85). Jessop (2001c) adumbrates that also the nation state could be considered as a self-reproducing system. Self-reproduction would mean that in a crisis an institution is replaced by an equivalent institution. This would suggest that a crisis of a specific form of the nation-state would result in its self-transformation or self-reproduction and hence in a new nation state. Jessop (2001a) points out that Polanyi, the regulation approach and autopoietic systems theory stress that the economy is embedded into and regulated by economic and non-economic institutions. Arguing that capitalism is an autopoietic (or self-reproducing) system is again confronted with the danger of functionalistically syncopating the dialectical relationship of social structures and actors and hence assuming that a capitalistic crisis must result in a new capitalistic mode of development. In order to avoid such shortcoming I suggest to argue that in a point of bifurcation the self-reproduction of capitalism is only one possibility (besides fundamental social change, the ultimate breakdown of all forms of society due to social or ecological catastrophes etc.). The market system is not ultimately self-reproducing because there can be a disturbance of circulation due to capitalism’s inherent antagonism between production and consumption. In such a case, in the expanded reproduction cycle of capital the metamorphosis of capital from C’ to M’ can’t be accomplished in an adequate degree and hence underconsumption or overproduction occurs. Capitalism can only reproduce itself when M results in M’ and M’ is large enough. If that’s not the case, economic crisis occurs. In a phase of crisis (that can also have political or ideological causes) the further development of society is relatively open. Prigogine’s concept of order from noise describes fundamental, irreversible changes in systems. This concept is suitable in order to describe the diachronic development of society, whereas the concept of self-reproduction is only suited to describe the stable reproduction of a social formation without crisis. Both concepts must be combined in order to describe modern society adequately. I wouldn’t speak of the ability of capitalism to reproduce itself, only of the possibility of the self-reproduction of capitalism, i.e. the emergence of a new capitalistic mode of development in a phase of crises or the sufficient accumulation of capital, power and false consciousness during a stabile phase of a mode of development. The same is true for the nation-state: It doesn’t automatically reproduce itself in and through crisis, self-reproduction is only one possibility, not a necessity. Jessop’s approach surely leaves open some unanswered question such as the integration of the dialectical relationship of structures and actions, the importance of exclusive class struggle and the possibility for fundamental social change. But he stresses the relationship of self-organisation and regulation theory and hence his approach is very important in establishing a theory of social self-organisation that incorporates aspects from regulation theory. Jessop is aware of the conceptual parallels between self-organisation theory and Marxism and successfully tries to integrate both theories. Lipietz (1998a) describes the evolution of capitalism with the help of two metaphors: warp threads and weft thread. The warp threads represent the existing conditions for economic development, i.e. the mode of regulation. The weft threads describe the economic


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development of a regime of accumulation. This would result in a “tissue”. In a secular crisis

Lipietz sees three possible results: “Three outcome s are possible: 1. The actors separate, and their trajectories thus no longer partake of the same history. It is the ‘final crisis’ of the relationship. 2. The form another kind of relationship: ‘Let’s just be friends’. 3. They renew their relationship, with another institutionalized compromise and another mode of regulation” (Lipietz 1998a: 96). Lipietz overemphasises the need for solution three in order to avoid solution one because he says that revolutionary change is not topical today. Lipietz is aware of the fact that history is relatively open in a point of bifurcation, but nonetheless he underestimates the possibilities of intensification of (revolutionary) action in such a situation (butterfly effect). Fundamental social change is always a possibility just like the self-reproduction of capitalism. Lipietz implicitly acknowledges the insights of self-organisation theory, but nonetheless seems to assume that the self-reproduction of capitalism is a necessity under today’s circumstances. So on the one ha nd he says that history is open (“The history of capitalism is not linear. It may be viewed as a succession of models of development with points of bifurcation and regression”, Lipietz 2001: 18) and that it is left to chance how a new mode of development will look like, but on the other hand he rules out certain possible paths of development. More realistically, the German regulationist Joachim Hirsch argues that there are several options for development in a secular crisis of capitalism: “Both the breakdow n of capitalistic society and revolutionary processes, but also the emergence of a new mode of accumulation and regulation are possible” (Hirsch 1995: 63, my translation). And Bob Jessop (1999) says that in a crisis “much is undecided and […] decisive acti ons can therefore have unusually wide-ranging effects on future developments. Crises make it harder to govern and this enables forces of resistance to intensify the disorder, turbulence, and noise which is always already present in complexity”. There are conceptual affinities between the theory of regulation and self-organisation theory: Both oppose mechanistic and reductionistic views of systems, stress the discontinuous development of systems and non-linear, multidimensional and complex forms of causality. Certainly, several fundamental philosophical issues such as the relationship of generality and concreteness and of chance and necessity are still largely undiscussed in regulationist approaches. Nonetheless it seems to be fruitful to integrate the concepts of the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation (and eventually the disciplinary regime20) into a theory of social self-organisation in order to avoid reductionism and determinism. 5. Conclusion: Agency and Uncertainty in Complex Social Systems Today, we live in a postfordist, neo-liberal, information-societal type of capitalism (see Fuchs 2002a). A new mode of development has emerged which has new emergent qualities. It involves a post-Fordist regime of accumulation, a neo-liberal mode of development and a disciplinary regime that has been described by the term ‘society of control’. These developments are a result of an intensified class struggle waged by the dominating classes against the dominated ones in order to restore profitability (a goal that has only been partly reached) by deteriorating the social and working conditions the masses live and struggle in. Postfordism includes aspects such as the tertiarisation and informatisation of the economy, a new phase of economic globalisation (see Fuchs/Hofkirchner 2001, 2002a, b), triadisation of international trade and of capital-export, further automation and rationalisation which are mediated by information and communication- (ICT) and computer-technologies, outsourcing,

20 Most regulationists are rather vague on the difference between politics and culture/ideology. I would say that as Pierre Bourdieu, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, John Fiske and others have shown that culture has its own relative autonomous logic that works on a material foundation. Hence distingusihing also a mode of legitimatisation and hegemony seems to be necessary.


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lean- and just-in-time-production, diversified quality production, flexible production, small organisational units in corporations, delegation of decision-making from upper hierarchical levels to lower ones, decentralisation of organisational structures, flattening of hierarchies in enterprises, team work, semi-autonomous working groups. Neo-liberalism is a kind of form of regulation that involves the deregulation of the institutional arrangements of capital accumulation, nation-states of competition, withdrawal of the state from all areas of social life, the destruction of the welfare state and of collective responsibility, the preaching of self-help, self-responsibility of the individual for his/her problems and of the capability of the market to regulate itself without human intervention; the presentation of growth, productivity and competition as the only goals of human actions and of old ultraliberal ideas as modern and progressive, the homogenisation of the money and finance markets under the dominance of a few nations, a kind of new Social Darwinism that puts across the message that only the strong and remarkable survive in society and on the market; the establishment and institutionalisation of a permanent insecurity of wage and living conditions (“flexploitation”) and of an individualisation of work contracts; state-assistance and –subsidies for large corporations. Neo-liberal ideologies claim that the economy is independent from society, that the market is the best means of organising production and distribution efficiently and equitably and that globalisation requires the minimisation of state spending especially for social security; these developments are presented as something inescapable, self-evident and without alternatives. Neo-liberalism as the globally dominating type of regulation results in precarious living- and working-conditions of a large, steadily increasing part of the world population. The disciplinary regime that dominated during the area of Fordism operated with the help of disciplines and disciplinary milieus. Disciplines are methods that secure the submission to external forces by surveillance and punishment (Foucault 1976). Disciplines are inherent in modern institutions such as schools, prisons, families, universities, hospitals, corporations etc. because these milieus try to enclose the individual. Disciplines were also incorporated into the Fordist apparatuses of mass production, especially into assembly lines. These aspects still exist today to a certain extent, but concerning the disciplinary regime there is also a shift from the “disciplinary society” (Foucault) to what Gilles Deleuze (1992) calls the “society of controls”. Controls are internalised disciplines, forms of self -discipline that present themselves as liberating and operate in a more subtle manner. “Enclosures are molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other, or like a sieve whose mesh will transmute from point to point [...] The old monetary mole is the animal of the space of enclosure, but the serpent is that of the societies of control. We have passed from one animal to the other, from the mole to the serpent, in the system under which we live, but also in our manner of living and in our relations with others. The disciplinary man was a discontinuous producer of energy, but the man of control is undulatory, in orbit, in a continuous network. [...] The coils of a serpent are even more complex that the burrows of a molehill“ (Deleuze 1992). T he mole as a symbol of disciplinary society is faceless, dumb and monotonously digs his burrows, the snake is flexible and pluralistic. The individual in Fordist capitalism was expected to carry out monotonous labour, management expects individuals in Postfordist capitalism to be flexible, innovative, motivated, dynamic, modern, young, agile and wants them to identify with the corporation and to have fun at work. Strategies of participative management aim at the ideological integration of labourers into corporations. This is a new quality of the disciplinary regime that does not aim at a humanisation of work and life, but at a rise of profits by an increase in productivity and cost reductions achieved by the workers’ disciplining themselves. Bonus systems, team work, share options, corporate identity, attractive design of the work place, construction of a community between management and workers (“we” -identity),


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advancement of spirit of enterprise within the workforce etc. are part of this strategy that constitutes new qualities of the disciplinary regime. Although there is a new mode of capitalist development, we are living in a phase of social chaos, instabilities and global crisis. More and more people in the world have to live under precarious conditions, even in the western-industrialised countries. The infinite Golden Age that has been dreamed of during the Fordist phase of capitalism has ultimately expired. Humans can’t steer the evolution of social systems, but by intervention they can increase the possibility that certain desirable alternatives (such as the survival of mankind) will be taken and decrease the possibility that other undesirable alternatives (such as the escalation of the global problems and the ultimate destruction of mankind and society) won’t be taken. There can’t be certainty, but by gaining competence in social systems design (which involves a shift from competition, exclusion and heteronomy to co-operation, inclusion, participation and self-determination) the individuals and social groups can try to guide evolution. During phases of instability and crises we find points where the further development of history is not determined, but relatively open. Such points again and again show up, but it is not determined how the outcome will look like. They are an expression of antagonistic forces that lead to social crises and instabilities. Is our behaviour determined by social structures? Or can we freely decide how to change these structures? Or can both views be integrated dialectically? Possibly, in phases of instability, social chaos and crisis, social actions are very important and influence the further development greatly. In such situations, small causes can have great effects. It is rather deterministic that a system like capitalism enters crisis and phases of instability periodically. But the outcome, the concrete course and point of time is left to chance. The global crisis we are in is a culmination of the antagonisms of capitalism which are all based on the fact that certain groups are included into the conditions of wealth, participation and decision-making whereas others are excluded from it. The principles of self-determination, co-operation and participation could increase the possibility that we will not face ultimate destruction and that we will advance towards an inclusive, integrative society that is based on the principle of self-determination in all social areas and makes a socially and ecologically development of society possible (Fuchs 2003d). As Immanuel Wallerstein points out, capitalism is a historical system, this means that it has a beginning and an end. It is determined that this system will come to an end, but not when and how this will occur. I agree with Immanuel Wallerstein that the next 50 years will be a phase of instability, the global problems and the levels of national and international violence will increase (see Hopkins/Wallerstein 1996, Wallerstein 1997a, 1997b, 1998, 1999a). This is all due to the antagonistic social structures of capitalism. The outcome is not determined, rather relatively open. It depends upon the social struggles and possible emancipatory social actions. We have no guarantees that a sustainable development will be the result, but the fact is that progress is possible, but certainly not inevitable. ”The future [...] is open to possiblity, and therefore to a better world“ (Wallerstein 1997b).

“[...] this structural crisis leads us into a dark period of struggle over what kind of system will succeed the existing one. We can think of this as a bifurcation, and therefore the beginning of a chaotic period, within which no one can predict the outcome, which is inherently indeterminate. There will be a new structure, a new order, but it may be either better or worse than the existing one. It depends on what we all do in the period of acute struggle and how clearly we understand the forces at work“ (Wallerstein 1999b).


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When it is true that the world is complex and prone to uncertainty then the question arises whether liberating action can be rationally and intentionally organised. Alicia Juarrero (1999) points out that in interaction there is noise and equivocality of information due to the complexity of social relationships. She argues that human beings are contextually embedded into their environment and into time-space. “In light of our own past and in response to interactions with the world, we continuously restructure our internal dynamics” (Juarrero 1999: 212). The mind would be a complex, self -organising, embedded system where disequilibrium can result in the shift from one attractor to another. The crucial role of complexity of time and context would result in the existence both intentional and unintentional behaviour. Similarily Anthony Giddens (1984) stresses that intentional activities are necessary for social reproduction, but not all consequences actions can be foreseen by the actors, i.e. there are also unintended and unexpected aspects of human activity (cf. Fuchs 2002e, 2003e). Ordinary life is possible by ontological security that is based on the routinisation of actions and is made to happen by the actors’ reflexive monitoring their actions (Giddens 1984: 60-64). Actors reflexively monitor their actions, i.e. human behaviour has an intentional and purposive character. But there are also unintended consequences of actions which by the way of causal feedback loops form unacknowledged conditions of further actions. Giddens calls this type of reproduction homeostatic loops. Another type is reflexive self-regulation which are causal loops which have a feedback effect in system reproduction, where that feedback is substantially influenced by knowledge which agents have. Juarrero’s account of account is very similar to the dialectic logic (in terms of a mutual relationship of structures and actors) that is put forward by a theory of social self-organisation and Gidden’s theory of structuration, she stresses that due to being a dynamical, complex system each individual is unique, but that’s only possible by its embeddedness into a larger social context/whole. She suggests that the more robust and well-integrated a system’s higher levels of organisation, the more autonomous and freer the system and its behaviour. This means in my interpretation that antagonistic social systems that cause global problems and instabilities restrict the autonomy and freedom of the individuals, hence it is necessary to reach a non-antagonistic state of society in order to enable the individuals’ and society’s full development. Marx and Engels in this context spoke of well-rounded individuals. Freedom would also mean that one selects only certain (ethical) possibilities of action and that this restriction opens up new possibilities Juarrero puts forward the idea that behaviour depends on complex interactions and the embededness into history and the (social and natural) environment which we change by our activities. In respect to capitalist crises this tells us that they can result in new attractors of behaviour of a lot of people, these attractors can, but don’t have to be revolutionary, discontinuous patterns of behaviour. They can also be integrative, continuous or even regressive (e.g. fascist) types of behaviour. Due to the complexity of the world and of situations of crisis we don’t know the outcome in advance. “W e sometimes grow from a crisis and are the better for it. But there is no guarantee that any complex system will reorganize. […] Which critical fluctuation happens to be the one around which the system wil reorganize or which perturbation os the one that will destroy the system is often a chance matter” (Juarrero 1999: 232). But this doesn’t mean that nothing can be done, because responsible social action can increase the chance that certain paths will be taken and others will be avoided. This means that we an “learn to embrace uncertainty” (Juarrero 1999: 258). Ethical -liberating, wise behaviour is also possible in a world of uncertainty. So crisis does not only mean tremendous risks (in terms of risky behaviour of the actors that results in a negative, risky development of the overall social


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systems), it also opens up possibilities. Bela H. Banathy (1996) has coined the term social systems design in order to stress that we can’t steer, but guide our evolution in order to reach conscious evolution. So the answer to the question raised above is that we can’t fully rationally plan liberating actions, but this is not only a disadvantage because this renders senseless the classical centralised left-wing strategies of political organisation and puts forward the idea of making use of the creativity of chaos in social struggles. Toni Negri and Michael Hardt (2000) put forward the notion of networked, rhizomatic forms of liberating action (for a similar account of protest movements that is based on the concepts of rhizome and social self-organisation see Fuchs 2001). They speak of the multitude as decentralised form of protest, life and work that produces itself autonomously and reproduces the whole lifeworld. The multitude means a reality produced in co-operation, it moves dynamically. It is not fully rationally planned, much of its effectiveness rests on spontaneity and accident. The multitude has the potentiality for becoming a new constitutive power that sublates the capitalistic empire and establishes a new society. Negri and Hardt say that when the multitude becomes a political subject, it becomes a posse whose power lies in constitutive, decentralised activity. The analysis of Negri and Hardt is important because it once again shows that the development of the productive forces has reached a stage where capitalism is based on co-operative economic, political and cultural networks. It enables high degrees of productivity and socialisation which are both material preconditions of a fully participatory, democratic and co-operative society where socialisation permeates all areas of public life including ownership of the means of production that are today still treated as private property although with the increased importance of information as a social, collective and historical product (cf. Fuchs 2002g) the concept of private ownership no longer seems to make sense. We today find the objective, material conditions for a free society, but at the same time the culminating antagonisms produce global problems and false consciousness. The new technologies are also used in such a way that the forestallment of social change by control and manipulation is achieved. Negri and Hardt are too optimistic concerning already achieved progress, it sometimes seems like they consider the new emerging immaterial workers as automatically revolutionary. They speak of “revolutionary subjectivity”, “social workers” and the “multitude” in order to characterise emancipatory subjectivity of co -operating individuals. However, technologies that are based on and foster co-operation don’t automatically mean that their users have revolutionary consciousness that questions capitalism. Revolutionary subjectivity must be achieved in order to sublate capitalism, but it does not yet exist. The newly emerging progressive social movements can be considered as a type of revolutionary subjectivity, but the immaterial workers in software companies, the IT-branch and the New Economy hardly can be considered as revolutionary subjects. Well-qualified employees tend to reproduce the existing ideologies of exploitation, achievement, career and productivity. One has e,g, hardly heard about strikes or unionising in the New Economy. Negri and Hardt overlook that participatory and co-operative management is an ideology that successfully integrates workers and forestalls revolutionary subjectivity by creating false consciousness. Revolutionary objectivity exists today due to the high degree of productivity and networking of the economical and technological productive forces. Human labour finds itself within conditions that can indeed be described as prerequisites of communism. But it is not determined whether revolutionary subjectivity can arise and organise itself to such an extent that the material conditions can gain subjective and objective truth. This depends on the outcome of existing struggles, at this moment of time it doesn’t at all look like enough subjective power can be mobilised, rather manipulation and control flourish and produce false consciousness globally en masse. Participatory management is just like racism, religion,


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esotericism, nationalism, patriarchy, etc. an ideology that is spread in order to hinder revolutionary subjectivity. The material foundations for a society in which individuals co-operate with a high degree of solidarity and where they have the highest degree of self-realisation and well-rounded development exists. But, and these are my greatest concerns, it is still the case that change of the existing direction of progress would mean fundamental change, but social change presupposes that there are vital needs for it as well as the experience of intolerable relationships. In the society we live in, these needs and experiences are forestalled by a apparatus of manipulation. The establishment of a sustainable and socially self-organised society needs revolutionary, self-organising subjects who develop critical consciousness and make use of it in social struggles. It is not certain whether or not this consciousness can be developed and what outcome struggles that result from it will have. The productive forces that are entangled into the existing antagonisms are ready for a higher type of existence. The outcome depends on the conditions of social struggles and of consciousness that develops itself in these struggles. This would also have to encompass subjects who have understood the reasons for their slavery, want liberation and have realized ways towards it (Fuchs 2002f). The new social movements are a type of slight revolt, if self-organised, decentralised forms of protest spread out, one will have all reason to assume that there can be change for the better. Fundamental social change for the better is neither a necessity nor impossible, the theory of self-organisation shows us that the decisive fact is that it is a possibility. The probability of realising this possibility is not determined, it depends on our responsbility. Literature: Aglietta, Michel (1979) A Theory of Capitalist Regulation. The US Experience. London. NLB Althusser, Louis (1977) Ideologie und ideologische Staatsapparate (Anmerkungen für eine Untersuchung). In: ders. Ideologie und ideologische Staatsapparate. Hamburg/Berlin. Verlag für das Studium der Arbeiterbewegung. S. 108-169 Ashby, Ross (1964) An Introduction to Cybernetics. London. Methuen. Banathy, Bela H. (1996) Social Systems Design. New York. Plenum. Barabási, Albert-László (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks. Perseus Publishing Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. San Francisco: Chandler. Bateson, Gregory. (1979) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: E. P. Dutton. Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika/Mies, Maria/Werlhof, Claudia von (1992) Frauen, die letzte Kolonie. Zur Hausfrauisierung der Arbeit. Zürich. Rotpunktverlag. 3. unveränderte Neuauflage Bertalannfy, Ludwig von (1968) General Systems Theory. New York. George Braziller. Best, Steven/Kellner, Douglas (1997) The Postmodern Turn. Guilford Press Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London. Routledge [D] Bourdieu, Pierre (1990a) In Other Words. Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge/Oxford. Polity Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1990b) The Logic of Practice. Stanford. Stanford University Press. Boyer, Robert (1988) Technical Change and the Theory of ‘Régulation’. In: Dosi et al. (1988). pp 67 -94


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Modern Society – A Complex, Evolutionary, Self-Organising, Antagonistic System