Agency and Freedom in Neo-Functionalist Action

ACTION THEORY 789

interests and the necessity of l and politics.33 The second alter found in the scientistic and tec this standpoint, reflected in t August Comte, freedom and d realms of both means and ends. reduces the ends to the level of the means and finds the same logic applicable to both of them. Freedom is defined by the technocratic theory as the type of action which is based upon scientific knowledge and scientific principles.34 Authority becomes an authority over things and not over humans. A free act is based upon universal principles of science and consequently lacks any discretionary or arbitrary element. That is why industrial society is defined as the realm of freedom, whereas military society is identified as domination of humans over humans. Naturally, in the context of technocratic theory domination is defined as any deviation from the norm of scientism. Strangely enough, a structure of decision-making monopolized by the professional scientists and experts which excludes the rest of the society is conceived by technocratic theorists as perfectly free. As opposed to conservative romantic-functionalist, liberalist, and technocratic theories, there is an entirely different theoretical tradition which bases the concepts of freedom and agency upon the notion of autonomy. It is this approach to the question of agency and freedom which can provide the missing critical link to neofunctionalist action theory. Marxist and particularly neo-Marxist theories to a large extent follow the critical tradition of freedom as autonomy. That is another reason for the utility of a theoretical synthesis of neofunction- alist multidimensionality with the neo-Marxist concepts of ideology, fetishism, and alienation.

33 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government (New York: Dutton, 1951). 34 Auguste Comte, Positive Philosophy (London: Bell, 1853), 2: 139-194.

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