The Theory of Structuration & the Politics of the Third Way
While Giddens fundamentally challenged the 1970s orthodoxy, reinstating Marx, Weber and Durkheim as central thinkers of modern society, he is also highly critical of their conceptual universes. Classical (nineteenth century) social theory is located in the context of the transformation of pre-modern societies by the processes of modernity. All identify an emancipatory dynamic in modernity, while criticising the problematic or partial character of this liberation through the categories of alienation (Marx), the iron cage of bureaucratic rationality (Weber) and anomie (Durkheim).
Criticising historical materialism, Giddens engages with both the Marxian texts and major twentieth century interpretations (Lukács, Marcuse, Althusser, Habermas, G. A. Cohen). In Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), Giddens investigates the continuities between the young and the mature Marx, so as to reconstruct a coherent account of historical materialism. Giddens accepts that capitalism is a class society and that class conflict is a central axis of modern social dynamics, but he rejects the proposition that class struggle is the motor of history, in capitalist or pre-capitalist societies. For Giddens, the emphasis on economic production as the source of both social progress and social conflict is the main problem with Marxism. Marx’s “Promethean” theory of the expansion of the productive forces as unproblematically tied to social progress is criticised, as is the one-dimensional theory of labour as the mediation between humanity and nature. Marx, according to Giddens, has no theory of environmental degradation as the result of industrialisation.[3] Marxism reduces labour and industry to instrumental concepts, ignoring the dimension of symbolic interaction in production and the autonomous logic of industrialisation, with the result that the Marxian account of culture is lop-sided and reductive.
Weber’s social theory proposed that the rise of instrumental rationality - as exemplified in bureaucracy but also in the increasing division of labour in the factory system - rather than class struggle was the key to modern society. The emergence of capitalism and democracy progressively disenchants and rationalises everyday life, which loses its magical and mysterious qualities in the face of science and instrumental reason. From the Protestant ethic to the dominance of modern bureaucracy and the prestige of the natural sciences, rationality is the critical factor in the transformation of spontaneity into managed behaviour. Weber argues that the complexity of modern society - the intertwinement of an increasing diversity of rational systems and social environments - ultimately exceeds the capacity of social science to map the social. This extends to culture also, where sociology is powerless to resolve questions of values and beliefs. Consequently, social theory is the servant of a pluralist politics, incapable of completely mastering society and merely a tool at the disposal of a multiplicity of interests and programmes. Yet for all Weber’s insights into the importance of politics, the theory of rationalisation cannot grasp the moral dimension of social cohesion and the centrality of bourgeois individuality and liberal democracy as emancipatory as well as manipulated.
For Durkheim, the complete dispersion of society into a myriad independent sub-systems is prevented by social solidarity arising from sacred, shared beliefs - that is, a core framework of “absolute truth” beyond any scientific rationality. Society is conceptualised as a quasi-natural organism whose various systems represent organic functions essential for social equilibrium - that is, for stable social reproduction. Social reproduction happens because people consent to follow social rules which are linked to absolute beliefs. These absolute beliefs are revitalised and sanctified through social rituals: in modern organic solidarity, these ritual ceremonies are anchored in the division of labour and the formalities of various professional and occupational groups. Organic solidarity only springs from democratic and rational participation in the formation of their social groups. Without the bonds of solidarity and the meaningfulness of ritual, individuals lapse into the state of “anomie,” a rootless condition of nihilistic rejection or egotistic aggression characteristic of those denied access to the moral benefits of social life. Durkheim’s moral sociology is an important supplement to Weber’s theory of rationalisation, but the Durkheimian theory of politics is inadequate: he cannot - according to Giddens - analyse social conflict and the genesis of political power.[4]
Giddens argues that Weber’s theory begins to grasp the radical break between modernity (from approximately the 17th century onwards in Europe) and pre-modern society and that Durkheim tries to differentiate between modern and traditional societies. While Durkheim is a “functionalist” - social roles are functional for the reproduction of the society and the society can therefore be conceptualised as a quasi-natural organism - his theory is a defence of moral individualism. The automatic solidarity of traditional societies is impossible in modernity, which is characterised by individual autonomy and reflexive moral choices.[5] This is crucial for Giddens, who interprets Durkheim and Weber as developing new concepts of liberal individualism in opposition to a socialist movement whose positions reproduced Engels’ Anti-Duhring. Nevertheless, proposes Giddens, Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is not an idealist refutation of Marxian social theory — since Weber agrees with the centrality of material forces and social classes - so much as a supplement to it, which modifies its political direction. Likewise, Durkheimian functionalism is not hostile to social change so much as preoccupied with the difference between tradition and modernity.
Indeed, the contingencies of the historical transformations occurring in England, France and Germany account for many of the differences between Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Marxism in inflected by its development in England during the industrial revolution. Weberian social theory develops in the context of Bismarkian Germany, with consequent emphasis on the decisive role of politics in social evolution. Durkheimian sociology is a theory of the Third Republic in France and therefore tied to the special relation between social integration and the ritualised invocation of the French Revolution peculiar to nineteenth century French republicanism. Yet none of these theories is thereby rendered false - rather, their characteristic emphases are contextualised and their blind-spots thereby explained. All three present a theory of the transition to modernity, but each one is incomplete and no grand synthesis is possible.[6] Instead, their insights have to be incorporated into a new synthesis, namely, the theory of structuration.