Habermas saw revolution arising from affluence-induced irritation and repoliticization, not violent coup

Evidence

This indicates the ultimately crucial difference between Habermas and the most active students. 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, 2656

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Habermas’s gradualist repoliticization model from the students’ revolutionary rupture — a core distinction in his theory of the public sphere.
• XREF: Connects to Habermas’s ‘refeudalization’ thesis in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and to his idea that a dried-up public sphere must be repoliticized. — connects to: Habermas conceived revolution as gradual repoliticization of a dried-up public sphere — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656; Revolutions erupt when conditions improve, not when they worsen — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4337; Unled spontaneous revolts invite reactionary counter-movements and coups — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 808

Broader Connections

• Revolutions erupt when conditions improve, not when they worsen #expands (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4337
• Unled spontaneous revolts invite reactionary counter-movements and coups #complicates (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 808