Page 219 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

196 Communication and Evolution of Society

control 1s the answer to the dilemma, and the limits to the effec-
tiveness of indirect control signal the persistence of this di-
lemma.*"
The legitimation problem of the state today is not how to
conceal the functional relations between state activity and the
capitalist economy in favor of ideological definitions of the public
welfare. This is no longer possible—at least not in times of eco-
nomic crisis—and exposure by Marxism is no longer necessary.
The problem consists rather in representing the accomplishments
of the capitalist economy as, comparatively speaking, the best
possible satisfaction of generalizable interests—or at least insin-
uating that this is so. The state thereby programmatically obligates
itself to keep dysfunctional side effects within acceptable limits.
In this assignment of roles, the state provides legitimating sup-
port to a social order claiming legitimacy.
b. The state can prove itself as an aid to legitimation only if it
successfully manages the tasks it has programmatically taken on;
and to a considerable extent this can be checked. The legitimation
theme that is today in the foreground can thus be located on the
line between technocracy theories and participation models. I
shall not go into this now.** But I would like to mention a series
of restrictive conditions under which the state today must deal
with those of its tasks effective for legitimation.*?

1. The complementarity relationship between state and economy
results in a goal conflict, of which there is a broadly effective aware-
ness, especially in downward phases of the business cycle; the con-
flict is between a policy of stability that has to adjust its measures to
the independent, cyclical dynamic of the economic process and, on the
other hand, a policy of reform meant to compensate for the social
costs of capitalist growth, which policy requires investments irrespec-
tive of the business situation and of profit considerations.‘
2. The development of the world market, the internationalization
of capital and labor,*! has also placed external limits on the national
state’s latitude for action. The problems that arise for developing
countries from international stratification can, it is true, be segmented
to the point where they do not react back upon the legitimation process
in developed countries. But the consequences of interlacing national
economies with one another (e.g., the influence of multinational corpo-