Paper's abstract

Niklas Luhmann, Capitalism and utopia
The union of the two heterogeneous themes “capitalism” and “utopia” stems from a description of the consequences of a functional differentiation of the societal system. If by “capitalism” one means the description of a society owning an economical system, differentiated and autonomous concerning its operations, the issue is to understand how the political system may exist besides it. Through utopia. The political utopia, which allows the coexistence of both systems, is named “social market economy”. But this utopia is not anymore defined as an ideal model allowing a critic of the contemporary society, it is rather a component of the system autodescription, some kind of replica, in the political system itself of the non controllable nature of society.

Key Words : capitalism, utopia
t. 41, 1997, p. 483-492

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