A hesitação de Jürgen Habermas capitalismo, democracia, crise

Abstract

This paper aims at presenting an overview of the Habermas’ approach to the relationship among capitalism, democracy and crisis within the framework of his analyses of the Welfare State. To do so, it divides his work into 4 moments: the first from 1962 to 1971; the second from 1973 to 1981; the third from 1985 to 1992; and the last one from 1992 to nowadays. Its main justification is the contemporary relevance of this debate, in the face of recent authoritarian threats in Latin America and the world. The fundamental hypothesis is that with these three conceptual elements – capitalism, democracy, crisis – Jürgen Habermas puts himself at a paralysing crossroads, because he sees the unavoidable tensions among these elements, but hesitates before the options to get out of the amalgam they form nowadays. There are two main reasons for this hesitation: an empiricist reductionism and a paradoxical complexity deficit in his social theory.