Page 146 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

123 The Development of Normative Structures

ganized around a state), we can see that the objections mentioned
above are pointless. The analysis of developmental dynamics is
“materialist” insofar as it makes reference to crisis-producing
systems problems in the domain of production and reproduction;
and it remains “historically” oriented insofar as it has to seek the
causes of evolutionary changes in the whole range of those con-
tingent circumstances under which (a) new structures ate acquired
in the individual consciousness and transposed into structures of
world views; (b) system problems arise, which overload the
steering capacity of a society; (c) the institutional embodiment of
new rationality structures can be tried and stabilized; and (d) the
new latitude for the mobilization of resources can be utilized.
Only after rationalization processes (which require explanations
that are both historical and materialist) have been historically
completed can we specify the patterns of development for the
normative structures of society. These developmental logics be-
token the independence—and to this extent the internal history—
of the spirit.

Vv
Finally I would like to take up two objections that might
be directed against my declared intention to take historical
materialism as my starting point. In the first place, the investiga-
tion of the capitalist accumulation process, on which Marx con-
centrated above all, hardly plays a role in the reformulation of
the basic assumptions regarding social evolution. Instead there
are unmistakable borrowings from structuralism and functional-
ism. Why then insist any longer on the Marxist theoretical tradi-
tion? Furthermore, why should one pursue historical materialism
at all, if the intention of orienting action would be better served
by an analysis of the contemporary formation of society?
In reference to the first question, the anatomy of bourgeois
society is a key to the anatomy of premodern societies; to this
extent the analysis of capitalism provides an excellent entry into
the theory of social evolution. The general concept of a prin-
ciple of social organization can be discerned in capitalist societies
because there, with the relation of wage labor and capital, the