Colonisation of the Lifeworld: The Tragic Consequences of the Bureaucratisation of Social Welfare in New Zealand

On August 2nd 2014 the Ashburton Guardian published an article about local man Russell John Tully's desperate plight to find domestic accommodation despite an overwhelming number of physical, economic, and political factors stacked against him.[1] A month later, on September 1st, he walked into Ashburton's Work and Income New Zealand branch, killed two workers with a shotgun and critically injured a third. He was apprehended later in the day and subsequently charged with the murders.[2] As of writing this essay Tully's defendants are still waiting a psychiatric assessment on his mental state while he is remanded in custody.  However, given the desperate circumstances that led to this event, it would not be implausible to hypothesise they contributed to, or exacerbated existing, psychopathologies. Tully is suffering from a skin disease which has rendered him unable to work, and had "come home to die", so was seeking assistance to live out his untimely fate.[3] In engaging with this event on a deeper level is not an apologist stance towards Tully's actions, but attempting to understand the broader social, political, and economic contexts of why such a tragedy could occur through the lens of what Jürgen Habermas refers to as the colonisation of the lifeworld. I will attempt to discern to what extent Habermas' theory is valid in this specific circumstance. Firstly, I will offer an explanation of Habermas’ work in his Theory of Communicative Action and how this relates to the concept of the lifeworld. Secondly, I will trace the concept of social evolution through to what Habermas refers to as rationalisation of the lifeworld. Thirdly, I will discuss Habermas’ adaptation of systems theory to provide an account for how the lifeworld becomes colonised. Finally, for the remainder of the essay I will provide an application of Habermas’ theory to the circumstances surrounding Tully’s actions within the context of the modernisation and rationalisation of societies.

Habermas' interpretation of critical social theory is grounded in his theory of communicative action: communication between two or more people with the intention of establishing meaningful social relationships.[4] Communicative action, Habermas argues, is a form of action that transcends other instrumental forms of social action in that "actors seek to reach an understanding about the action and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions by way of agreement".[5] Participants, through language, intersubjectively test each other's claims for validity in order to reach understanding as opposed to reaching success.[6] The process of communicative action "takes place against the background of a culturally ingrained preunderstanding".[7] This background, the lifeworld, a theory initially developed by Edmund Husserl in the phenomenological tradition, and sociologically developed by Alfred Schütz, is what Habermas draws upon for his account of how societies create and sustain themselves.[8] The lifeworld is a background of skills, knowledge, and competences that serves to maintain social relationships, and communicative action is what serves to reproduce the lifeworld "by way of the continuation of valid knowledge, stabilisation of group solidarity, and socialisation of responsible actors".[9]

Habermas has drawn upon Niklaus Luhmann's systems theory of sociology to develop a social evolutionary explanation of the rationalisation of the lifeworld (which I will discuss below). As societies evolve they become increasingly complex, however, Habermas is not claiming this is an inevitable process by way of differentiating institutional sub-systems out from the lifeworld, but that humans within societies bring about these changes themselves.[10] What Habermas is attempting to do is engage with, and form a symbiosis of, two different theoretical perspectives to form a more comprehensive analysis of modern societies: systems theory developed by Luhmann and Talcott Parsons, which discerns societies from the outside as a series of component systems, including the lifeworld; and a participant perspective that encompasses a "hermeneutic approach that picks up on members' pre-theoretical knowledge".[11] Habermas is not casting off systems theory but merely advocating it with an understanding that "what [fundametally] binds sociated individuals to one another and secures the integration of society is a web of communicative actions".[12] It becomes important to conceptualise the rationalisation, and subsequent colonisation, of the lifeworld in terms of both the social integration of societies and the systems integration of societies.[13] Social integration conceives of societies as "normatively guaranteed or communicatively achieved", whereas systematically integrated societies use "nonnormative steering of individual decisions [that are] not subjectively coordinated".[14]

Max Weber referred to rationalisation as "the pillar of both the modern State and of the economic life in the West", which has differentiated societal systems so far that they have taken on an autonomy that is no longer grounded in normative moral principles but their own inner workings.[15] These autonomous institutions, although rooted in the lifeworld, "steer a social intercourse that has been largely disconnected from norms and values".[16] This process is referred to by Habermas as the "uncoupling of the system and lifeworld".[17] Because of the increasing demands placed on language in complex societies an overburden occurs that has the effect of differentiating out various modes of exchange between systems: what Habermas refers to as "delinguistified media"—specifically money and power.[18] These institutional economic, bureaucratic, and political systems place demands on society so much so that it becomes almost impossible to avoid conforming to their dictates. This penetration of dehumanised systems, initially a product of humanity's modernisation, into the process of social integration is what Habermas argues is the colonisation of the lifeworld.

I will now turn to an application of Habermas’ theory to the surrounding circumstances of Russell John Tully’s actions on September 1st 2014. Closer inspection of modern society’s rationalistion reveals how institutions have differentiated from the lifeworld what was once the domain of charitable groups and communitarian concern.[19] This is not to say poverty or unfortunate circumstances such as Tully’s did not occur before the modernisation and industrialisation of society, but the channels to ameliorate these circumstances were less institutionalised and relied on the communicative action Harbermas suggests is integral for a socially integrated society. Because of globalisation, increase in complex technological communication, and population growth of the modern era, especially later half of the twentieth century, the role of the socially integrated community has vastly diminished and has been handed over to larger political structures. Almost every facet of modern life adheres in some way or another to larger systems that are devoid of communicative action. In a hypothetical scenario of a socially integrated society one could place Tully in, he might see his plight addressed by family members, friends, local charitable organisations, church groups, even local community political authorities (at least to some extent). With a modest amount of social resources at hand and through a process of communicative action Tully’s needs could be addressed more readily. Where appeals are dealt with through a smaller number of channels that are socially integrated, the face-to-face deliberation would yield at the very least tangible results.

While the emergence of the modern welfare state in New Zealand has meant a greater and more equitable access to social assistance—and this has waxed and waned depending on the ideological perspective of successive governments—it has passed over this to institutions whereby communication is instrumentally orientated rather than orientated toward mutual understanding. Applications for unemployment, disability, or accommodation benefits have to adhere to a strict set of criteria that has the result of very little impetus for providing assistance, empathy, or discretion. Every social welfare client’s needs are complex, yet the system treats them as a number, and fails to address pressing concerns such as health issues or need for affordable accommodation—or even the ability to discern potentially dangerous mental health issues. Social workers at the coalface such as those murdered by Tully no doubt personally share some psychological empathy towards their clients, yet they are ultimately bound by guidelines dictated to them by the machinations of the bureaucracy that stands above them. In the despondent eyes of Work and Income’s clients they are just another part of a dehumanising system that they have no other choice but to adhere to. These extraordinary pathologies may be indicative of a system so far removed from the lifeworld that it is failing to engage and address its needs in a meaningful and socially integrated manner.

The modern welfare state is just one of a myriad of systems “in which the demands of communicative action are relaxed … within legally specified limits”.[20] This characteristic of bureaucracy is also shared by capitalist monetary system, which Harbermas argues not only has the effect of regulating social environments, but also absorbs the state apparatus so that “power becomes assimilated to money”.[21] This is the delinguistified media that Habermas argues has become the new standard of exchange between systems. The state’s bureaucracies become steered by markets as does every day social systems that we interact with. Evidence of this can be seen when we analyse Tully’s circumstances in relation to the market and state bureaucracies. The market determines if his labour will be purchased by capital—which negatively affects the value of labour of those disabled such as his—as well as directing the market-accepted value of welfare assistance. Welfare policy is not determined by a mutual understanding of what is a socially accepted level of socio-economic subsistence, but by autonomously driven market forces (as well as hegemonically prevailing ideological perspectives). Tully was also forced to orientate his actions towards the autonomous real estate market in searching for accommodation; the quality and availability of this was limited by his low income as dictated by the labour market. This penetration and reification of the market system and bureaucracy so far into determining every facet of our lives—both negatively and positively—rather than communicative action is the concern Habermas shows towards the colonisation of the lifeword thesis. In this warning he argues that the rationalisation of the lifeworld “becomes so hypertrophied that it unleashes system imperatives that burst the capacity of the lifeword they instrumentalise”.[22]

Russell John Tully's story is not unfamiliar in our present society and there are numerous examples where a desperate, and often mentally unstable, individual irrationally and violently vents their anger at what they perceive is the system that is the source of their trouble. The vicissitudinous nature of modern institutions are no longer orientated to deal with these negative social pathologies in a holistically constructive manner. Modernity has pulled our social systems so far beyond our grasp we no longer recognise the humanity in them. They have become faceless and alien to our innermost and fundamental needs. It would appear because of our markets and bureaucracies, New Zealand is not exempt from the colonisation of the lifeworld.

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[1] Otago Daily Times Online News, "Interview reveals suspect's desperation," Allied Press Limited, last modified September 1, 2014, http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/314429/interview-reveals-suspects-desperation.

[2] Sophie Ryan et al., "Ashburton Work and Income shooting: Suspect arrested," APN New Zealand Limited, last modified September 1, 2014, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11317243.

[3] Otago Daily Times Online News, "Interview reveals suspect's desperation."

[4] Andrew Edgar, Habermas: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2006), 21.

[5] Jürgen Habermas, "Social Action and Rationality." In On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidman (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 143.

[6] ibid., 153-7.

[7] ibid., 154.

[8] Ian Buchanan, Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 294.

[9] Jürgen Habermas, " The Concept of the Lifeworld and Hermeneutic Idealism." In On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidman (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 173.

[10] Edgar, 139.

[11] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 184-7; Habermas, "The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld." in On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidmam (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 188; For Habermas a hermeneutical approach encompasses an interpretation of the whole social, historical, and psychological world.

[12] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 184.

[13] James Bohman, and William Regh. "Jürgen Habermas." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified 2014. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/.

[14] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 185.

[15] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons, 2nd ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1976), 16; Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 189.

[16] Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 189.

[17] ibid.

[18] ibid., 190, 205.

[19] John Scott and Gordon Marshall, Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 630-1, 803.

[20] Bohman and Regh.

[21] Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 205.

[22] ibid., 190.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.