Can we think of a democracy of work without thinking about the very conditions of its existence ? Any social criticism that ignores the ecological crisis is likely to strengthen a productivist model already out of breath.
Critical labor paradigms: from alienation to democracy
Since his theory of social recognition, Axel Honneth has continued his ambition to articulate critical theory and social normativity from a central object of our modern societies, and yet forgotten by the theory of political democracy according to him: wage work. Far from being confined to a criticism of capitalism or a sociology of the organization, A. Honneth offers in this last work a normative genealogy of the ways of interpreting and contesting the historical forms of employee work. To do this, he distinguishes three major critical traditions which structure the normative imagination of contemporary work as to the right way, or the suitable way, to organize social work: alienation, autonomy and democracy (p. 19-40).
Criticism by alienation, of a socialist tradition of Marxist inspiration, denounces the subjective dispossession induced by capitalist work. Indeed, according to this paradigm, “ Work has an intrinsic social value which distinguishes it from all other forms of human activities (P. 23). Private property of the means of production, motivated by the sole search for profit, thus dispossessed the worker of this intrinsic value of his work. Criticism by autonomy, of republican tradition, seeks to restore the conditions for free work, flourishing professionally and socially valued. This normative paradigm, unlike the previous one, does not mobilize presupposition of an intrinsic value of work, and hardly takes care of whether or not the work will be done, and thus if it can be the bearer of a meaning. Indeed, “ He wonders what to do to release the work of all guardianship and all arbitrary domination (P. 25) Because the salaried worker does not have the same freedom in the work of work as in the political sphere. These two different paradigms, however, have a common line in that they “ focus on a single moral principle, to consider from there all the modifications it seems necessary to make to existing working conditions. (P. 35). In the first case, it is thus a question of freeing the individual work process from all alienation and any insignificance, while in the second case, the moral principle consists in suppressing in work all forms of domination and guardianship cannot claim a democratic legitimation. Finally, the last criticism arrives, that by democracy, which, unlike the republican paradigm which sees in work neither ethical value nor intrinsic quality, “ sees work as a good of great social importance (P. 29). However, unlike the socialist paradigm, the property in question here is not considered an end in itself even if it is endowed with intrinsic value. Only this value of work is “ reported to obtaining a higher property »(P. 29): that of the formation of the political will of workers as members of a collective, here the company. Thus, a democratically organized work is only legitimate as it allows each individual to “ Participate in public deliberations in the way that the normative promise of democratic participation suggests (P. 197). This is, according to A. Honneth, the ultimate norm to which any social criticism of work should be complained.
Democratic damage as well as obstacles to citizenship
This rereading of work in terms of democracy is not just a vow. Indeed, after having identified the five dimensions which show how much work can have a strong influence on “ the chances of participating in public training practices of the will “(P. 55) of workers, A. Honneth offers a pragmatic analysis of the conditions preventing this democratic achievement, which he conceptualizes in the form of five damages (p. 196), which could be described as democratics: economic, temporal, psychic, social and moral. These are not simply suffering from suffering at work, but constitute real structural attacks on the conditions of possibility of effective citizenship. Economic damage thus prevents any material independence necessary for free political expression ; temporal damage leads to suffocation of the worker’s commitment for lack of time available ; Psychic damage undermines political confidence by the lack of recognition ; Social damage prevents workers from exercising deliberative cooperation ; And finally, moral damage results from the very nature of tasks, when they are so devoid of meaning or creativity that they disqualify any claim to participate in public life with confidence.
This typology constitutes a precious contribution to contemporary critical theory, in that it links pathologies of work and democratic disintegible, without giving in to simplisms or to a nostalgia of Fordism. However, this normative framework, as powerful and abundant as it is, remains marked by a form of political anthropocentrism. It is precisely on this point that a discussion seems to have to open.
Towards an ecological democracy of work ?
If we can subscribe to the ambition of the democratization of the work of A. Honneth, a major shadow area should be noted in its argument: the absence of ecological issues. This gap is not marginal since it affects both the purpose of the work and the very conditions of its sustainability in the anthropocene. In this sense, the work seems to be exposed to two criticisms in particular.
On the one hand, we can regret the absence of a sixth damage alongside the five identified, which could be described as ecological, affecting the capacity of workers to project themselves as citizens of a habitable world. Indeed, how to consider full participation in democratic life when the productive activity in which one is involved, as a worker and resident of a circumscribed territory, contributes to the destruction of the ecosystems on which life itself depends ? This ecological prejudice does not only weigh on subjectivity or time, it affects the very possibility of the common future of terrestrials, human and non -human.
As seen previously, according to A. Honneth, “ The democratic paradigm of transformation of working conditions “(P. 37) is only a means for a” superior »: That of workers’ training in political will. This project, as legitimate and commendable as it is, raises two critical extensions. First, this formative function of the company cannot be thought of traditional socialization institutions, namely family, public school, civil society, which Honneth itself identifies as the founding of the acquisition of democratic skills (see The struggle for recognition or the review of Claire Pagès). The company can then, at best, appear as a complementary link in a politicization course spread over time.
But above all, and this is precisely an unexploited angle by Honneth, this “ superior »Device blind to ecological constraint, which today affects the very conditions of active citizenship and a common future. Democratizing the company without questioning the productive purposes it pursues finally amounts to perfecting only the procedure while leaving the content intact: very often that of an ecologically unbearable productivism. Criticism should therefore not only relate to the democratic conditions of work, but also to the ecological destination for social work. In other words, it is not only a question of involving workers in collective deliberation (essential), but of reclassifying this deliberation so that it integrates sustainability as a normative central criterion.