Slovene Suplement, Vol. 13 - 2006, Suplement

Publicness and Social Relations of Production

Peter Sekloča, pages: 5-19

The article illuminates two different conceptions of the world and of cooperation of the people in their struggle to survive – historical materialism and idealism. These two conceptions lead the theory of the public sphere in two directions. The first direction enables explanation of the transfer of relations of production into all spheres of the society, including the public sphere. The other one looks for neutral procedures and organs of public communication in order to balance opposite interests – which stem from the economic cooperation of the people – without addressing antagonisms and contradictions of the prevailing (capitalist) mode of production. It is demonstrated that the public sphere is, due to putting mention conceptions into reality, the sphere of conflict. One pole of the conflict critically connects power and control to the processes of division of labour and property, while the other pole ascribes to these processes automatism and in this way legitimizes them as neutral bases for admittance of opposing interests into the public sphere.

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