Axel Honneth begins his book, The Idea of Socialism, with the theoretical bases of socialism, a short history and then attempts to explain why it developed the way that it did and consider whether these bases are defensible in their present form. From here, he moves towards a re-interpretation of socialism that is divorced from what he perceives to be its theoretical faults and presents it in a very acceptable manner, even for someone like myself who does not identify as a socialist. This book not only serves as a good general introduction to socialism, but also a good revival – however, some issues appear to remain.

Honneth presents socialism through a sort of anthropological lens that in ways dates back to Aristotle. Socialists see people as fundamentally social creatures, not in the sense that they are simply drawn into social relations, but that their freedom is fundamentally social. What is meant by this is that freedom, understood as the lack of domination or restriction in achieving one’s goals, is a fundamentally social phenomenon. One’s ends are best achieved with the cooperation of others – this suggests that in order for myself to be free, I ought to support a set of social relations that allows for support from my cohorts, in exchange for my support for them as well. This anthropology is certainly interesting, but it could surely use a further defense. Such an idea surely has an intuitive pull, but a more rigorous defense of the idea that each person’s freedom is best supported through a society of fraternity, rather than one trending more towards egotism would only serve to better highlight the appeal of socialism.

Moving from this, Honneth goes on to identify three fundamental premises of classical socialism – 1) the key to creating social relationships of solidarity lies in the overcoming of capitalism, 2) workers desire to replace capitalism with a cooperative system and 3) it is historically determined that capitalism will be destroyed due to internal contradictions. The first premise can be understood as the idea that social freedom (the idea of freedom presented above) is fundamentally driven by the economic realm, with a relationship of the base to the superstructure of the economic and social realms. The second premise may be understood as a sort of engrained class struggle, and the third as classical historical materialism.

Ultimately, Honneth does not believe that these premises are defensible in their current form, and require revision to re-invigorate socialism. To some extent this will clearly be met with resistance by classical socialists of today, but to a non-socialist like myself, I found myself agreeing this idea, with perhaps a few apprehensions about totally disregarding historicism.

Honneth then begins by re-thinking historical materialism, a fundamentally deterministic (perhaps fatalistic is a better word) theory, into a more agent-based theory. Historical materialism proper is best summarized as the idea that production relations (capitalism) are driven by modes of production (how we produce things), and certain relations are only compatible with certain modes. Through capitalism’s inherent drive for innovation, modes of production will be advanced to the point that they are no longer compatible with capitalist social relations (as happened with other historic production relations such as feudalism), and will thus give way to socialism.

Honneth perhaps rightly notices that a deterministic theory such as this appears to in some sense diminish agency in lieu of the historical mechanism – capitalism is destined to fall so it does not really matter what any individual agent does to support or condemn it. While it is probably true that strict adherence to such a theory may perhaps diminish agency, I would argue this only happens if agents misunderstand the historical mechanism. The historical mechanism, or the driving force of history, seems to fundamentally be a human-agency driven thing. Modes of production do not advance without human ingenuity, nor is the incompatibility of certain modes of production with certain production relations noted without a sort of involved philosophical analysis of society. So, it does not appear altogether necessary to abandon historical materialism, but simply retain it as active historical materialism, with an entrenched understanding that human agency ultimately drives history. Honneth’s approach is not dissimilar, although he abandons historical materialism in lieu of historical experimentalism which emphasizes the need for active change in order to make changes to advance social freedom in the economic realm, rather than sitting back and waiting for change to happen. The difference appears to lie in the possibility of whether a claim like fettering (the aforementioned incompatibility of certain modes with certain relations of production) may be true. However, depending on the stance one takes on the issue of fettering, historical materialism may be retained in the way I have outlined.

Honneth’s next gripe considers the exclusionary nature of classical socialism. Honneth states that the drive for social freedom must be predicated not on the classical proletariat-bourgeoisie class struggle, but a struggle by all to have their demands highlighted, as history has shown that freedom is only advanced by previously excluded groups breaking down barriers and having their needs heard alongside the pre-existing ones, with no real reason existing to limit these marginalized groups to the proletariat. Rather, women, LGBT, children and animals, to name a few, may be some of the few historically-silenced groups that need be heard in order to better realize a culture of social freedom.

Lastly, Honneth touches on the restriction of socialism to the economic realm, primarily due to the pre-supposed base-superstructure relationship in which the economic base dictates all other things such as the political and social realms. Honneth sees this relationship as faulty and instead advances the idea that the economic, political and social realms are all ultimately individualistic, but must exist cohesively with each other in order to promote total, not simply economic, social freedom. Since this relationship is complex, Honneth believes it is only possible through a sort of democratic deliberation that transcends borders, as globalization shows us that it may not be possible for one state to make economic changes in isolation of the general global order. While the economic realm may be transnational, social and political realms are to some extent isolated. So, we must be able to democratically deliberate the conditions necessary to achieve social freedom transnationally, while retaining a strong enough coherent state at home that allows for social and political deliberation contained to the idiosyncrasies of a geographical state.

My main concern here is highlighted by Honneth himself – easier said than done. Even if we accept all of these premises and conclusions up to this point, the fact remains that an incredibly large load is placed on citizens to not only be active political citizens in deliberating and realizing the conditions necessary for social freedom, but to be able to deliberate well enough in the sense of a Roussean common will that allows for citizens to access the facts as to what it is that best advances not only their interests, but the interests of all. Even if one accepts everything up to this point, epistemic skepticism at this point, doubting whether it is possibly to conceive of a citizenry that is educated, selfless and intelligent enough to effectively do this, seems to undermine the whole. If one remains skeptical here, the whole socialist argument seems to fall unless they can find a way to either convince the skeptic of the possibility of this in the current political climate (or alter the climate to make it possible) or conceive of another way to realize social freedom. I personally fall in this skeptical camp – I am sympathetic to most of the socialist argument to this point, but remain utterly unconvinced of our collective ability to do what is necessary to realize social freedom.

Axel Honneth presents a very palatable, re-invigorated socialist argument for both classical socialists and non-socialists alike. However, I do believe I have highlighted two concerns in particular the will ultimately plague socialism until a stronger defense is arrived at (or perhaps it has been and I have yet to read it) – the idea that we require social freedom to ultimately flourish, and the idea that we are epistemically capable of realize the common will necessarily to democratically advance the common will necessary for the actualization of total social freedom. I remain hopeful that it is possible to rectify my concerns about these premises for such a society would appear to truly be utopian. But, until these premises can be presented rigorously and persuasively, perhaps we are better with the current, non-perfectionist liberal state.