3 Critical Theory and Neoliberalism

Abstract

Critical Theory and NeoliberalismCritical theories of society are diagnostic.Rather than describing societies as they exist in a non-normative fashion, they have a practical and evaluative dimension.Critical theories identify the deformed subjective and intersubjective forms of life in modern societies along with the institutional and structural features that generate and maintain relations of domination and oppression, and that present barriers to realization of greater freedom, equality, and solidarity.Diagnostic theories evaluate impediments to human freedom in the conditions of modern life from the standpoint of emancipation from domination.The critic who diagnoses social pathologies is not like the doctor or clinician who diagnoses individual ills.The critic is less an expert observer than a coparticipant who understands social pathologies through an involvement in social life that others share.Fellow participants are also able to interpret and assess, and often share, the diagnoses forwarded by the critic.In its classic form, critical theory linked critique to a (primarily) political-economic analysis.Social pathologies stemmed overwhelmingly from the economic structure of society -that is, from capitalism.While the first generation of the Frankfurt School certainly recognized the intermediation of culture and even psychology with the economic, they still held that in the last instance, the economic was determining.More recent critical theories have emphasized the limits of the model of political economy formulated by Marx and have emphasized concerns rooted in the new social movements.Many of these attempts have formulated an independent line of development of subjectivity and intersubjectivity that is not strictly dependent on the economic sphere, but they have for the most part pursued commitments to justice, equality, and freedom.In the work of Jrgen Habermas and Axel Honneth this has led to the development of an independent logic of mutual