From Marx to Luhmann – a “Sociological Turn”?

Aspects of the development of European society’s scientific self-description

(The paper contains the written version of one out of a serial of lectures on European social theory, held at the sociological department of Michigan State University between September and December 2003)

 

by Manfred Füllsack

 

The following considerations will regard the social theoretic conceptions of Karl Marx and Niklas Luhmann as two essential cornerstones in the development of European society’s scientific self-description in the last 150 years. The underlying assumption thereby is that the way European society scientifically describes itself has undertaken a decisive turn from social philosophy to sociology in the course of this development, leaving not much more of the original Marxian conception unchallenged than the notion that the form of society’s self-description is determined by society’s social structure. Regarding the consequences this turn has had for social theory I tend to call it a sociological turn.[1]

In order to outline some of the implications of this turn, I will in the following discuss an aspect of the conception of social systems by Niklas Luhmann that is generally referred to as differentiation theory (1.). Subsequently to it, I will use this aspect to review some assumptions of the social theoretic conception of Karl Marx (2.).

 

1.1. observation

Referring to a logical calculus of the mathematician George Spencer Brown, Niklas Luhmann starts out with a basic differentiation by which he defines observation as an act of distinguishing something from something else and indicating one of these two distinguished sides. Observation thus, (admittedly very abstractly) is defined as the synchronous operation of distinction and indication. To observe something as a system for example, means to draw a line between this something and everything else, and to indicate this something as a system.

Defining observation in this abstract way enables Luhmann to conceive the operations of systems themselves in terms of distinctions and indications. Systems of a higher organization level for example, might observe something in their environment as complex, or in other words, as problematic. This means in Luhmann’s terms, these systems distinguish something in their environment and indicate it as complex or problematic. More conventionally one might say, these systems experience, so to speak, a “maintenance-problem” in their environment. In order to overcome this “maintenance-problem”, in order to maintain their operativity (their “existence”) in this complex environment (or: in order to “solve” their problems), systems basically do nothing else than to distinguish something in their environment and indicate it as this something.

For illustration, let us regard the environmental conditions a social system perceives as problem, for instance, in terms of uncontrollable changing weather conditions. A first step to overcome this problem could be to observe weather changes, and in doing so to distinguish, say, rain from sunshine and indicate it as such, or to distinguish temperature differences and to indicate them as such, and so on. Of course, real-life problem solving activities of real-life societies usually will entail much more and much more complex operations than this. But basically, according to Luhmann, they all are made up of the basic operational dual of distinction and indication.

 

By distinguishing and indicating systems try to “solve” what they perceive as “problems” in their environment in order to maintain operativity, or in other words, they try to reduce the complexity of their environment. Every new distinction and indication however, i.e. every new observation, entails a differentiation of the system as well. A society disposing of, lets say, a certain terminology for weather changes, how ever well elaborated this terminology might be, is definitely a more differentiated society than it has been before it developed this terminology. Hence, this society has become a more complex society in the process of trying to solve its problems. Or in other words, it has increased its complexity in the process of reducing complexity.

This circumstance is by no means coincidental in the frame of this theory. On the contrary, it marks a crucial point: according to this theory, every complexity reduction entails an increase of complexity in another regard of the system. What is perceived as reduction and what as increase depends solely on the perspective of the observer. Or in other words, it depends on what kind of phenomena are distinguished and indicated as relevant by an observer. Observing social history for example, in classical Marxist terms, and distinguishing and indicating phenomena like the liberation of productive means from capitalist’s control as “progressive” seemed (at least at some point in history) to give reason to describe this history in terms of complexity reduction (of “problem solutions”). Observing the same history in, say, terms of Max Weber by distinguishing and indicating phenomena like “bureaucratization” can, as we know, as well give reason to describe this history in terms of complexity increase. We will come back to this important point a little bit later and see that the possibility to change (to “oscillate”) between these perspectives itself can be explained as a consequence of system’s differentiation.

 

1.2. constructivism

Let us for the time being stay a bit longer at the purely formal and admittedly high abstract level of Luhmann’s conception. On this level, systems do not distinguish and indicate (observe) “at free will” as one might think experienced sociologists do. Systems always observe in respect to their possibilities. A social system for example, in possession of a certain terminology for categorizing weather changes might observe storms as consequence of air pressure differences. A social system without such terminology, i.e. a less complex, less differentiated social system, might observe storms for example as the anger of gods. In other words, systems always observe their environment in dependence of their own state of differentiation. Their level of differentiation determines their possibilities to observe.

Relative simple systems, as we might for example regard air-conditioning systems, owe their level of differentiation and thus their observation possibilities to their producer, i.e. for example to the engineer who constructed them. Such systems – they are called “allopoietic” in system theory – usually dispose of a certain set of distinction possibilities, in the case of an air-conditioner for example of a set of temperature limits beneath or above of which the system is meant to perform certain actions. In this regard one might say that the environment of such an air-conditioning system (as perceived by this system – not by an external observer!) consists of exactly three phenomena: “too hot” temperatures (in the case of which the cooler is switched on); “too cold” temperatures (in the case of which the heater is switched on); and “normal” temperatures (in the case of which nothing happens). Any changes in the complexity of the environment of this system (any “problems”), the system perceives exclusively in regard to these three phenomena. If the house in which the system is positioned should catch fire and start to burn, the air-conditioning system can do no other than perceive this fact as “too hot”. Switching on the cooler is the only possibility it has to react. Only an external observer, an observer who observes the observations of the air-conditioning system and thus can be called a second order observer, might see that switching on the cooler in a burning house is not the most reasonable reaction for an air conditioning system to maintain operativity. This external observer however, has to dispose of completely different distinction possibilities in order to be able to observe this.

 

More complex systems, as for example such that have developed some kind of memory in order to recall results of earlier undertaken observations might develop an ability to learn. Such systems might become able to alter, enrich and develop their own observation possibilities and eventually may even become able to define values and norms for their observations. Such systems might become self-referential (“self-aware”?) in a way that enables them to observe their own observations and describe preconditions and consequences of this ability in a complex theoretical conception called system theory. But however complex these systems eventually become, basically they still are bound to their own unique perception as it is determined by their possibilities to observe. Their environment as they perceive it, marks, so to speak, their horizon, which can be extended with certain efforts, but can never be left.

In this regard, this conception builds on the assumption that what ever a system perceives is constructed by the system. Or more laxly formulated: what ever an observer is observing is not “out there somewhere in reality”, but is “constructed” by this observer. “Problems” in this regard are always the “problems” of an observer. Problems do not exist independently.

 

For illustration let us take a look at the kind of “problems” social systems were concerned with some 150 years ago, and compare them to the “problems” of modern day’s societies. While for example the organization of industrial labor in the middle of 19th century was perceived so problematic in Europe that it brought force all kinds of “social scientific” activities ranging from Marxism to positivist sociology, big parts of modern societies seem not very much concerned with work anymore. Their “problems”, to pose some striking examples, might consist in endeavors like organizing the next holyday trip or the next weekend’s dinner party, or to keep actual work requirements low in order to be able to “freely” pursue whatever one perceives as his “true” vocation, be it artistry, writing, sports, or philosophy. At least in certain parts of the world, modern society’s “problems” seem to be rather “leisure time” problems than work problems. It should be not astonishing, that these problems ask for different solutions than a 19th century social theory can offer.

How ever simple this circumstance might seem, the decisive point of it is that all these “problems”, be they work or post-work or what ever kind of problems, are genuine problems for the society who has them. Or more tautological: they are “problems” for those who have the possibilities to perceive them as such.

 

And this brings us back to the conception of system’s differentiation: as we said, according to this conception, the perception of an observer is essentially determined by the level of differentiation of this observer’s observation possibilities. If the observer is a social system, and if this social system is complex enough to dispose of an own specialized subdivision (subsystem) for observing and describing the system’s proceedings, lets say, in written form, then this form of societal “self-description” depends essentially on the state and level of system differentiation. In other words, the social theoretic conception of Karl Marx as the one of Niklas Luhmann are both related to the differentiation structure of the society their authors lived in.

 

1.3. relativism

In order to illustrate how this notion differs in its Luhmannian version from the one of Karl Marx, it might be helpful to compare (admittedly very superficially) certain aspects of the state of differentiation of European society some 150 years ago and today.

Without doubt, European society of 19th century might be described as a pretty modern society already, especially when compared to some other societies in its vicinity at the time. Compared with today’s European society however, a couple of remarkable differences still seem to be discernable. Lacking for example the strong “middle class” that tends to “democratize” European society today, the overall social structure of 19th century society seems to have been rather polarized, the social strati more distinctly hierarchically organized. Mobility between strati and between periphery and center, though definitely on the rise, might have not yet reached the level of modern day’s Europe. Social positions might have been still rather “ascribed” than “achieved”. And also the overall differentiation of professions, roles, identities etc. might have bound society’s members still a bit tighter to their inborn place. And last, but not least, the international relations of European society might not have questioned its self-perception and self-awareness in the way two World-wars, an anti-colonization boom and finally the globalization movement has managed to do.

Luhmann calls the type of 19th century European social structure “stratified differentiated” and ascribes to it as characteristic the possibility to observe its own social situation from what has to be called “privileged” standpoints. In other words, the position of society’s observers in this kind of social structure stood out by not yet being permanently subjected to other observations, i.e. to the observations of alternative observers from different social strati, from different subdivisions of society, from different roles, from different nationalities, races, gender etc. as it is the case in modern European society. Again in other words, the differentiation structure of 19th century European society did not yet enable second order observation in the extent European society does today.

As a consequence, societal self-descriptions of these days could be considerably more self-assured of being “true” and “objective” in the picture they made of society. Marxists could, as we know, perceive the Marxian conception of society and its specific understanding of what is “good” and “just” and what is “bad” and “unjust” in this society as “scientifically” proven. As a matter of fact, Marxists, and even more momentous Russian Marxists could even by means of pure “logic” derive from this conception a receipt for society’s “radiant future”.

In contrast to this, the social structure of modern day’s society, – Luhmann calls it “functionally differentiated” – does not seem to provide any “privileged” standpoints for the observation of society anymore. Its differentiation seems to have reached a level of complexity in which due to the possibility of constantly changing the viewpoint observations have become practically permanently exposed to vice versa observations, to second order observations. Observations have become, so to say, recursively networked in this social structure thus making second order observations the prime operation modus of modern social systems and forcing every observer to “autologically” turn back to the preconditions of his own observations. A bit more laxly formulated one might say that today every social scientist with a little bit of experience can see, or better: can not help not to see that the things he observes can be observed in a completely different way by any other observer.

Observations in modern societies thus are forced to operate “bottomless” – without any what so ever kind of sustainable ontological conception of “truth”, “rightfulness” or “justice”. Social science, according to Luhmann, has become a contingent and relativistic undertaking that in addition is forced to realize and internalize this fact and to consider it as a fundamental precondition of its own proceedings and of the descriptions of society it produces.

 

If we now, in front of these conclusions, regard some assumptions of the social theory of Karl Marx, it seems to become strikingly clear in what extent Marx’ conception is the offspring of a different, and this means, of a differently differentiated society.

 

2.1. surplus value

Let us first take a look at the Marxian conception of surplus value and its alleged misappropriation by capitalists. This conception has, as is well known, accounted for some of the more momentous activities undertaken in the course of the venture to put Marx’ utopia into practice.

Surplus value, as Marx conceives it, is first of all an economic entity. Commonly it is defined as the difference between the costs for reproducing a given manpower plus the costs of row material, tools, workplace etc. needed for production in a certain unit of time and the value this manpower with the given material and tools can produce in the same unit of time. In other words, a carpenter who is able to produce a table of 100 Dollar value from wood and tools and other materials of 30 Dollar value while needing for the reproduction and maintenance of his manpower including all additional side costs, say, 30 Dollars has produced a surplus value of 40 Dollars. (100 – (30+30) = 40)

Perceiving human history primarily as an upward pointed development of socio-economic formations at the end of which the radiant height of communism is glooming, this definition of surplus value seems to provide a neat and logical explanation for the advancement of society by means of labor. And it also seems to deliver a good reason to overthrow any kind of social (dis)order that obstructs the “righteous” use of surplus. Scrutinizing this definition however through the filter of the Luhmannian theory, doubts seem to arise regarding its consistency – and this even before regarding the assumption that surplus value might be misappropriated by capitalists. In respect to the relativity of observations under modern conditions, it seems inevitable to raise the question according to whom and according to what given point of time and space the definition of surplus has to be read.

 

An indubitable positive or negative significance surplus value seems only to have when conceived in concrete measures like money. 40 Dollars of surplus is something that probably everybody can clearly appreciate. However, not every output of work can that easily be conceived in such concrete measures as money.

The output of a teacher for social theory for instance, to take a very striking example, probably many of us would be ready to regard as education – an education students later on, once they become social scientists themselves, can use to build their own research and considerations on. Classically, education of course is considered a very positive thing, an indispensable part of “enlightenment”. Unfortunately though, in modern times a rapidly increasing number of students of social science are not able to find work in their trained profession anymore. Sometimes, an extended training in scrutinizing brain consuming theoretical and philosophical conceptions that question everything down to the preconditions of this questioning itself, even seems to significantly reduce chances to find a satisfying job. So what, one might ask, in this regard is the surplus of this educational work? If these students have to be fed by welfare programs because they are unfit to find “normal” jobs, this kind of “work” is generating surminus rather than any surplus.[2]

Hence, whether surplus is surplus rather than surminus depends essentially on what kind of distinction/indication is used in order to observe it. What can be surplus to one observer, can be surminus to another.

 

This problem also concerns the assumption of Marx about what happens to surplus once it is generated. According to Marx’ conception of history, the relation of capitalists and proletarians is not of the obvious expropriative and suppressive kind anymore that the relation of master and slave or the relation of land owner and vassal has been in former times. The relation of capitalist and proletarian is concealed through various complex factors so that proletarians as a rule do not realize that capitalists are expropriating them. According to Marx, it takes philosophy, or in other words, it takes the Marxian conception, to make proletarians aware of the fact that they are producing a surplus in their work that then is skimmed off by their employers.

From a proletarian perspective Marx’ argumentation definitely seems to have its point: the product of the work of a proletarian is not his own. He gets wages for it, but not the product itself. And wages are subject to fixed working contracts so that as a rule the proletarian has neither a chance to work less, nor to work more, neither to consume his product, nor to sell it, etc. The product of his work is alienated to him, because the productive relations are not his own.

From a capitalists point of view however, this situation might look different. However exploitive his wage policies seems to the worker, subjectively employers could have hard times to feel in command of productive relations themselves, when for example the unbeatable cheapness of goods produced in countries with different labor laws skims off the already tightly calculated margin of their activities and delays the break-even-point of investments and profits even further into the future; or when they are forced to take on another expensive credit in order to be able to fight tough competition that has outgrown all local boundaries. Considering the difference in “problem perceptions” as it is to be expected according to the Luhmannian theory, it becomes clear that the “problems” of capitalists can seem just as pressing and worrying to them as can seem the problems of workers to workers.

Of course one might say, there is nothing new in this circumstance. Different viewpoints have polarized society at each point in history, and of course in Marx’ times as well. However, the decisive difference, as pointed out by Luhmann, is the fact that in modern “functionally differentiated” societies differentiation and thus for example the chances for mobility between the two (here ideal-typically exposed) “classes” have reached a level, on which problem perceptions are no longer bound to just one “class” for good anymore. In times of share-holder-value on the one side and ever more rapidly bankrupting enterprises on the other side, to name just two well-known examples, it has become common experience that the positions of capitalists and proletarians can change in a few months even several times. In short, modern society’s members have become well used to accommodate several different problem perceptions at the same time. And they also have become (or at least they seem in the process of becoming) quite well acquainted with the experience that there are no “privileged” problem perceptions in modern society anymore – problem perceptions that might somehow legitimate any “class struggle” as it seemed objectively to be the case to Karl Marx.

 

2.2. alienation

This circumstance also concerns the Marxian notion of alienation and its significance for evaluating social and cultural phenomena. According to Marx, work under capitalist conditions is alienated by several factors. At first, as I have mentioned already, work is alienated because of the growing discrepancy of productive forces and productive relations. According to Marx, as we know, the productive forces, or in other words, the workers and their specific skills and tools due to their involvement in the work process are permanently subjected to development, to “progress”, whereas the employers on the other side are stagnating due to their exclusion from the work process and might eventually even degenerate in their idling, as Marx liked to assume subsequent to Hegel.

In any way, according to Marx the productive relations controlled by employers are not subject to change in the same way the productive forces develop. That is why the discrepancy between productive forces and productive relations is steadily rising until one day it will tear apart social cohesion in revolution. At least until then, one is to assume, workers are forced to work under conditions they did not choose and they have no what so ever kind of control or influence of. In other words, workers are alienated from these conditions and therewith from their work and their product.

Before we reconsider this argumentation in the light of Luhmann’s conception let us look at two more reasons for alienation Marx alludes to. The first is the commodity form of work products and the second, tightly related to the first, is money.

Under capitalist conditions, Marx states, the worker has lost nearly every chance to experience his work product in terms of pure use value and in relation to his own efforts. The very moment the product leaves his hands and is offered on a free market, it is turned into a commodity with an exchange value that is determined by the average (and no longer the individual) manpower needed for its production. This exchange value as a rule has nothing to do with its original use value anymore, and it also has no relation to the actual spent manpower. Due to this transformation the worker might not even be able to purchase his own product. If it is rare on the market and takes on a high exchange value it might get completely out of his reach.

What is more, under capitalist conditions the product, as well as the manpower of its producer, as a rule is measured in money, i.e. in an abstract exchange medium that does not allow to relate the amount of work directly to the needs and requirements that initiated work in the first place. The original reason to work therewith gets completely out of sight of the worker. What he is working for is an abstract entity, an average value for certain commodities he thinks he requires. From his original needs and requirements he is alienated.

 

As is well known, this conception of alienation has found much reference in all sorts of so-called critical social theory. Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse have used it to conceive cultural industry, as well as totalitarian societies. Guenther Anders has used it to analyze TV-entertainment and advertising, George Lukacs and in his succession André Gorz have applied it to economical reason, and still Jürgen Habermas, although not using the term itself very often, alludes in his conception to a deviation, or as he calls it, to a “pathologization” of human development paths that he considers reasonable for modern societies.

When regarded from the perspective of Luhmann however, these references bear one fundamental problem. To speak of alienation inevitably needs a notion of a state or condition from which something can be alienated. In other words, to speak of alienation asks for a notion of a non-alienated condition. And this condition is hard to maintain in a world as relativistic as Luhmann perceives it. In modern “functionally differentiated” societies, with their “perpetuated” vice-versa- (or second-order-) observations, a “privileged” standpoint, an Archimedian point of view, so to say, from where it would be possible to conceive a normal, a non-alienated state of society is nowhere to be found anymore. Modern societies in their complexity and in their specific form of differentiation do not provide such a standpoint.

As is well known, Marx and especially some of his Russian followers believed that a certain, seemingly proto-communistic organization form of rural Russian society, called obščina, might provide such a non-alienated starting point at which productive forces and productive relations corresponded to each other and work was solely done in perfect match with the needs of the worker. Today we know that neither this obščina, nor any other kind of allegedly harmonic social organization comes somehow close to the paradisiacal state Marx and his successors thought them to be. On the contrary, as far as we know, working live in former days has not been significantly more enjoyable than today’s.

This complies with what is to be expected according to Luhmann’s theory. As there is no imaginable beginning of the complexity reducing process of systems – what one calls a “beginning” depends (as everything else) on the observer –, there cannot be any imaginable beginning of the human work or problem solving process as well. Keeping in mind that work as well, is always only the kind of activity an observer is able to perceive as “work” (think of “work” of nature, “work” of history, etc.), “work” has all along started, without any conceivable beginning and without any conceivable end. To speak of an alienation of work (which, as we concede, might not be completely senseless on a less theoretical, more pragmatic level) thus needs to take into consideration that this notion, as well as the non-alientated state it alludes to, are socially constructed and thus dependent on the perspective of its observer.

 

2.3. organizing and planning

And finally, this goes for one of the most momentous conclusions of the Marxian theory as well – the emanation of communism from its predecessor social formations. As is well known, Marx, and even more strikingly some of his successors, believed to be able to deduce “by pure means of logic”, i.e. “scientifically”, the “sublation”, as it was called in the plurivalent Hegelian term, of capitalism into the “higher” social organization forms of socialism and finally communism. According to this assumption, the discrepancy between productive forces and productive relations in capitalism inevitably will increase to the point where it finally destroys social cohesion and forces society to reorganize productive relations on a new level that does not foresee any private property anymore and thus bears no chance for expropriation.

With this prediction, Marx (by the way, in striking analogy with many others of his 19th century colleagues) was able to point out a distinct direction for social development, a telos of human history, so to speak, that gave rise to the believe that social development as it logically can be deduced might even be accelerated with the help of human organizing and planning. In a classical Laplace-Spenceranian determinism, Russian Marxists assumed that once a sufficient amount of social factors has been understood and systemized for processing, society in its development could be steered like a big ship into the safe haven of communism.

Today, we know that this believe did not work out at all. And from the viewpoint of the Luhmannian theory, we can now clearly see in what regard it has been erroneous from the beginning. Having in mind that every complexity reduction (every problem solution) a social system achieves necessarily entails an increase in complexity (new problems) in another regard of the system, every trial to steer or to organize the system in respect to an utopian idea or any other kind of assumed superior social theoretic conception appears doomed in the first place. Social systems, as they are conceived in the Luhmannian conception, are essentially unpredictable in the complexity of their development. Every little trial to influence them differentiates them further, and turns them into a fundamentally new system that again poses different conditions to any efforts of organization.

 

Of course, this shall not mean that social systems are thought to operate without any kind of plan, without any kind of orientative conception in regard to which they try to organize their operations. And it also shall not mean that Luhmann considers endeavors a society undertakes in order to organize its development as of no relevance for this development and thus futile. On the contrary, he is of course well aware of (and also spent considerable efforts to scrutinize) the ideational conceptions of society’s past and future development. And he is of course also aware of the impact these ideational conceptions have had and still are having on factual social development. What he points out, however, is that these conceptions are necessarily doomed to prove wrong if they are taken for more than just temporary orientations in regard to which systems arrange their immediate next operation. Modern social systems are too complex to be predicted in the long run. They are reacting in too many unforeseeable ways to their own operations to allow any kind of overall social theoretic conception of their future to stand the test of time.

In other words, modern social systems are solving their problems not sub specie aeternitas anymore. They have to react from step to step in respect to the conditions they themselves have created in the immediate preceding step. And they do so with the only aim to reduce the complexity (to solve the problems) they encounter on each of these steps anew. They might of course design fantastic far reaching ideas, conceptions or plans about where these steps might eventually lead them. But they cannot count on any guarantee anymore that these plans might prove right.

 

What is more, according to this theory, modern social systems (at least, one is tempted to add, if they study the writings of Niklas Luhmann) are able to see and to understand this circumstance as an essential precondition of their own operations. Due to the “perpetuation” of vice-versa- (second-order-) observations in their particular form of differentiation, Modern social systems in this regard are exposed to relativity up to a point at which the conceptions they make of themselves and of their future are fundamentally forced to operate “bottomless”. One might be willing to call this condition postmodern. For reasons I have explained elsewhere, I tend to call it the consequence of a fundamental sociological turn.



[1] Cf. to this also: Füllsack, M., 2003, Auf- und Abklärung. Grundlegung einer Ökonomie gesellschaftlicher Problemlösungskapazitäten. Aachen (Shaker)

[2] A far-fetched example you say? Here is another. Austria has one nuclear power station. When it was built in the early 1970s, huge expectations were raised on how much it will push Austrian economy and how important it will be for the country. In this time, everybody, from the simple construction worker to the technicians, architects, and politicians, was absolutely convinced that his work will contribute to an enormous surplus for Austrian economy. In the course of the 70s however, as in the rest of the world, the ecological movement became strong in Austria. And in 1978 a plebiscite decided that Austria shall not use any nuclear energy – just at the time when the power plant was finished and ready to use. Since then it is standing there about 25 miles from Vienna, being conserved and maintained every now and than for enormous sums and having not produced one single cent of surplus.