ABSTRACT
Norms are a facticity and an analytical tool. They contain action instructions and vary depending on the system. As an analysis tool, the norm summarizes information about what causes a certain action or how to understand the construction of a given norm system.
Jurgen Habermas distinguishes between what he calls the lifeworld and system. The lifeworld consists of undisputed convictions that members of their society share in common. He emphasizes communicative actions as the mechanism that creates and maintains the lifeworld. Within the systems, there are what Habermas refers to as steering media. Within the economic system, money constitutes the steering media. The political and bureaucratic systems govern by power conditions. The technological system is subordinate to the naturally given conditions, which determine what is possible to achieve given the available knowledge at a given point in time.
The dividing line between systems and lifeworld runs between economy, politics and bureaucratic administration, on the one hand, and private spheres of life such as family, neighbours and voluntary organizations organized as public spheres that are not subject to steering media, on the other hand. Habermas argues that modern democracies are characterized by systems that colonize the lifeworld.
