Habermas located revolutionary agency in a revived democratic public sphere, not insurrection

Evidence

For the latter, a violent coup against the affluent society was not unthinkable, and the politicization of the public sphere was to serve the purposes of radical anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist change. For Habermas, the revolutionizing of highly developed industrial societies was only conceivable in the following scenario: a surfeit of achievable affluence would one day make even a working population that had become integrated into the system irritated by bureaucratized forms of work and existence. Those in power, in order to continue to receive the labour required from a population no longer prepared to make unnecessary sacrifices, would therefore have to consent to the repoliticization of a public sphere that had dried up. A newly political public would then reach an agreement over the goals of social action. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 664

Categorization

• DEFINE: Supplies Habermas’s specific model of social transformation in late capitalism — affluence-driven irritation, repoliticization, then democratic will-formation.
• XREF: Ties to Habermas’s later legitimation-crisis and communicative-action frameworks, and to Adorno/Horkheimer’s diagnosis of a dried-up public sphere. — connects to: Habermas conceived revolution as gradual repoliticization of a dried-up public sphere — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656; Habermas came to accept limited rule-breaking as legitimate for politicizing the public sphere — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2649; Habermas saw revolution arising from affluence-induced irritation and repoliticization, not violent coup — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Habermas conceived revolution as gradual repoliticization of a dried-up public sphere — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656; Habermas came to accept limited rule-breaking as legitimate for politicizing the public sphere — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2649; Habermas saw revolution arising from affluence-induced irritation and repoliticization, not violent coup — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Habermas conceived revolution as gradual repoliticization of a dried-up public sphere #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2656