ABSTRACT
The question of how our modern world-society can observe itself was taken up by Niklas Luhmann in his last grand wor, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (The Society of Society). As Luhmann has shown, the question leads into an insoluble epistemological paradox, since society as a whole cannot become an object to any observer. Nevertheless, society tries to reflect its unity beyond functional differentiation, which it does by creating imaginary constructions of the unity of the system (‘self-descriptions’ in Luhmann’s terms). Modern societies tend to substitute non-religious self-descriptions, such as the ideas of nation, of modernity, or of class, for religions ones; the former ones, however, cannot claim the status of scientific truth either. The epistemological dilemma, which Luhmann is pointing to, is basic for every encompassing social theory, including the Marxian one, and it can help to explain the enigmatic character of religious symbolism. However, what Luhmann neglects in his discussion of modern ‘self-descriptions’ is the liberal narrative and the disembedding of markets and money which it initiated. Contrary to Luhmann, I maintain that disembedded markets, and the capital form of money as their medium, do not represent simply one sub-system of society amongst others. In some sense, the capital form of money indeed can be interpreted as a functional equivalent for religion as is evident from the iconic qualities of money and capital: Karl Marx and Georg Simmel had been much clearer than Luhmann about this point.
