Does socialism need fraternity? On Axel Honneth’s The Idea of Socialism
| Author | Eleonora Piromalli |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885117718431 |
| Published date | 01 July 2020 |
| Date | 01 July 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
Does socialism need
fraternity? On Axel
Honneth’s The Idea
of Socialism
Eleonora Piromalli
University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Italy
Abstract
In this article, after retracing the main lines of Honneth’s The Idea of Socialism, I address
two objections to it. Firstly, I question the marked substantiality of Honneth’s proposed
socialist ‘community of fraternal life’, resulting from the conjunction of the idea of social
freedom with the principle of fraternity he derives from the proto-socialists. On the
basis of my objections, I then delineate an original theoretical model, denominated
‘socialism through convergence’ (STC). While based on Honneth’s concept of social
freedom, STC can abstract from the element of fraternity. It is, by consequence,
immune to the excess of substantiality of Honneth’s perspective and potentially more
attractive for the members of modern, pluralistic societies. Finally, I criticize Honneth’s
perspective for under-determining the element of normative social conflicts in the
sphere of democracy and normalizing their expression into the forms of an orderly
democratic deliberation; consequently, I show how the STC perspective can more
effectively account for social struggles and political conflicts.
Keywords
Axel Honneth, fraternity, recognition, social freedom, socialism, struggle
In his latest book, titled The Idea of Socialism, Axel Honneth (2017) proposes a re-
actualization of socialism aimed at recovering the normative potentialities of this
theoretical and practical tradition: he wants to demonstrate that socialism, if ade-
quately reformulated, can still prove itself a valid alternative to a capitalism which
has not stopped generating social suffering and severe inequalities. In this article,
I retrace the main lines of Honneth’s proposal; after highlighting its advantages,
I raise two objections to it. Firstly, I question the advisability of theorizing
the socialist society as a ‘fraternal coexistence’ (bru
¨derliches Zusammenleben,
European Journal of Political Theory
2020, Vol. 19(3) 375–395
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885117718431
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Corresponding author:
Eleonora Piromalli, Universita
`degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Via Carlo Fea 2, Roma, RM 00161, Italia.
Email: eleonora.piromalli@yahoo.com
in Honneth, 2016: 31; 2017: 12), in which an attitude of fraternity, benevolence and
caring concern should guide everyone’s actions towards others. I then delineate a
conception that, while compatible with Honneth’s idea of ‘social freedom’, can at
the same time abstract from the overly-substantive element of fraternity, and
thereby prove itself more feasible and potentially attractive to the subjects of com-
plex, pluralistic societies. My second objection is that in his socialist society
Honneth depicts the sphere of democracy as almost devoid of conflicts and in
purely deliberative-democratic terms. By drawing on a perspective Honneth him-
self develops in an essay from 1995 and in his 2011 book Freedom’s Right,
I propose a way to integrate more deeply the image of the public and democratic
sphere delineated in The Idea of Socialism with the element of normative social
struggle, which I argue is normatively necessary and valuable. Neither of the objec-
tions I present in this article are aimed at denying the validity of Honneth’s project,
but, rather, are to be understood as possible contributions to the ‘experimental
research’ on the forms of a renewed socialism for which Honneth calls upon citi-
zens and scholars (Honneth, 2017: 69–70, 102).
Honneth’s Idea of Socialism
In order to restore the critical and normative potential of the socialist perspective,
in The Idea of Socialism Honneth gets back to the ‘original idea of socialism’
elaborated by proto-socialist authors such as Owen, Fourier, Blanc, Proudhon
and Saint Simon, and by the young Marx; his aim is to free the idea of socialism
from the ‘antiquated intellectual structure’ (Honneth, 2017: 27) that, rooted in the
18th century’s industrial society, entails a number of historically obsolete or unten-
able elements.
Honneth starts by noticing that the works of the first socialists abound with
references to the normative principles of freedom, equality and – most of all –
fraternity affirmed in the French Revolution (Honneth, 2017: 11–13): the proto-
socialists were aiming at an immanent critique (Honneth, 2017: 13) capable
of showing how these principles, though profusely enunciated in legislations and
declarations, in the capitalistic society had been realized only in a distorted and
incomplete way. The principle of freedom, in particular, had been reductively
understood as the right of individuals to pursue their own private interest.
It, moreover, was interpreted as superordinate to the principles of equality and
fraternity; for the proto-socialists, this amounted to betraying the French
Revolution, as it prevented the realization of a fraternal form of life between
equal subjects. Their normative proposals were therefore aimed at ‘overcoming
the individualism of capitalistic freedom and making it reconcilable with the
demand for fraternity’ (Honneth, 2017: 15). The proto-socialists, Honneth there-
fore maintains, pursued in the first instance a transformation of the normative
framework of society, not only redistributive aims.
In The Idea of Socialism, Honneth bases his perspective on a fairly modified
version of the concept of ‘social freedom’ that, while still advocating for a reformed
capitalism, he had introduced in Freedom’s Right. In his 2011 book, Honneth
376 European Journal of Political Theory 19(3)
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