Why Did Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory Find So Little Resonance in the United States of America?1

Rodrigo Jokisch

To the memory of Sir Ralf Dahrendorf (May 1, 1929 – June 17, 2009)

Luhmann, Habermas und Sombart

When the sociologist, historian and economist Werner Sombart published his essay “Why is there no socialism in the United States?” in 1906, there were many who found this question shocking. It was known that there were socialist parties in the US, but none of them were strong enough to bear comparison with European socialist groups. (Dahrendorf, Konflikt und Freiheit 79) In his essay, Sombart lists two main reasons for the absence of socialism in the United States. Firstly, the early spreading of democracy had strengthened the rights of individual citizens and thus guarantied a certain basic level of participation for each individual. Such a situation was unknown in Europe at that time. Secondly, the individual mobility of citizens made it relatively unattractive to gather in solidarity groups such as socialist organizations. This peculiar development enabled US citizens to make a range of individual decisions which could improve their social position. One could supplement Sombart’s theory with a third reason: US citizens were capable of developing relatively quickly a steadily growing prosperity. Now it seems that all three of these reasons have a common cultural source: at the time of their foundation, the United States had hardly any feudal institutions, such as still played an active role in the development of most European states. We can summarize by saying: the fact that socialism had not successfully established

1 I want to thank Geraldine Groll and Barbara Hoos the Jokisch for their help in translating this essay from German to English. Unless indicated otherwise, all translations from German sources are by the author. 202 Rodrigo Jokisch itself in the United States at the beginning of the early 20th century is primarily due to the fact that the US citizen had developed into a person who, based on fundamental rights, mobility, and prosperity, was in a condition to build a more individual attitude towards his state, his culture, and his society. A question similar to the one put forward by Sombart, but situated on a different level of abstraction, could now be asked in the context of sociological theory: Why has the theory of Niklas Luhmann found so little resonance in the US? This situation is even more surprising if one considers that Luhmann, during the year he spent at Harvard, studied with the American sociologist Talcott Parsons, from whom he received many important impulses for his own theory of social systems. Furthermore, under the aspect of social differentiation, the US is perhaps one of the most “modern” societies in the world, and Luhmann’s social theory is chiefly concerned with the characteristics of modernity. So why has Niklas Luhmann received so remarkably little attention from American social scientists? Could it be that his social theory is inappropriate in order to understand a society like that of the US? By way of comparison, one could also ask the following question: Why is the social theory of Luhmann’s main rival in aspects of theory, Jürgen Habermas, so well accepted in the US? Could it possibly be that Habermas’ theoretical conception is better able to explain American society than that of Luhmann? To ask even further: Are there certain aspects under which Sombart’s position and both Luhmann’s and Habermas’s social theories can be considered together? And if so: Do those aspects contain a reason that would be able to explain, on the one hand, the lack of response to socialism and Luhmann’s theory of social systems and, on the other hand, the widespread acceptance of Habermas’ theory of society? Or does the lack of response to Luhmann’s theory only point to a linguistic problem? That is to say, does the reason lie in Luhmann’s language, which is sometimes difficult to understand? In many newcomers, Luhmann tends to create the impression that his theory is easy to grasp because he frequently relies on concepts drawn from of everyday-life. Yet he does so in such a stubbornly idiosyncratic, theoretically charged way that many readings are required in order to fully understand his writings. However, Habermas’ writings are not exactly easy to understand, either. Yet obviously, as the great popularity of his work shows, this has not hampered the reception of his theory of