Para além da Democracia Deliberativa: uma critica marxista a teoria politica habermasiana

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the political theory of Jurgen Habermas, as expressed in the normative model of deliberative democracy. The question it wishes to answer is concerned on the nature of this theory, checking whether is or not a critical one. I adopt the concept ofcritical theory developed by the young Marx, who argued for a coupling between intellectual development and the real struggles of our time. The scrutiny of Habermas' political work is done under the framework of historical materialism, which is understood as a nondeterministic,radically democratic and freedom-centered theory. I discuss the hypothesis that the theory of communicative action and the theory of deliberative democracy are not sufficiently critical. It happens because they are harmed by the following features: a cleavage between work and interaction that is not dialectically interwoven; an assumption of acapitalist economy as inevitable for the material reproduction of complex modern societies; the assignment of a progressive and emancipatory nature to the bourgeois´ law; the idea of a media-steering system of State, only sporadically and informally influenced by a mere peripheral lifeworld; and the understanding of late capitalism as a time of uninterrupted amelioration of workers living standards, and accompanied by a latency of class struggles. These elements hurt Habermas´ theoretical goals, such as overcoming elitism in the field of politics and neoliberalism in the economic realm. Thus, I argue that the successive changes in the normative ideal of deliberative democracy occurring in recent years, driven to its accommodation to the reality of capitalism, do not indicate a divergence with Habermas' thought but, rather, show its full and ultimate application. I conclude that a critical political theory must go beyond the ideas of Habermas and his deliberative democracy, if it really wants to achieve emancipatory and progressive ideas.