Refeudalization in Capitalism
For Habermas, the public sphere of the early 19th century was a rejection of a feudal model in which everything is controlled by the state, originally in the form of the king. But by the beginning of the 20th century, a kind of feudalism had returned, because now the state was entangled with the public sphere once more. The public sphere became not an autonomous space for discussing and critiquing the state, but rather a space in which citizens come to either approve or disapprove of what the state is selling them. Just like feudal peasants had to rely on the monarchy to meet their needs, now citizens rely on their government to give them services to which they are entitled as customers. The irony is that the 19th century looks very different from the Middle Ages. It is industrial and urban and full of new technological and social developments, so we expect it to have very different institutions. But politically, Habermas argues, it is very similar to the Middle Ages.
The Regression of History
Related to the refeudalization of society, Habermas’s history of the public sphere ironically reverses assumptions of progress. Many people think that society today is more progressive or enlightened than, for instance, the Renaissance, when societies were ruled by a monarch rather than by democracy. Habermas would agree there are major differences between the quality of life and the nature of politics between today and the past. But that doesn’t necessarily mean today is “better” than the past. In fact, he thinks the 20th century is a period of political crisis because of the complete loss of a critical public sphere and the mass media’s monopoly over meaningful communication. Instead of believing in progress, Habermas invites us to understand how the problems we face today have a special character that requires new interventions.
Marx’s Ironic Relation to the Public Sphere
In his intellectual history of the concept of “opinion,” Habermas gives some special attention to Marx, who provided a socialist critique of the public sphere:
Marx treated the political public sphere ironically—the "independence in principle" of a public opinion of property-owning private people engaged in rational-critical debate who viewed themselves as nothing but autonomous human beings. But in order to grasp the ideological aspect of this, he took the idea of the bourgeois public sphere as seriously as was required by the self-image of the politically advanced conditions in Great Britain and France. (123)
Marx’s “ironic” relation is that he satirizes the public sphere’s presumption of being free of coercion. The public sphere, because it really belongs to the bourgeoisie rather than being open to all, is a space of domination. Precisely by claiming to be universal but really being identified with the bourgeoisie, the public sphere is actually exclusive, because it makes it seem like bourgeois people are the only humans that matter. But Marx treats this irony “seriously.” He analyzes it closely in order to learn how to change the state of affairs.
