110 Habermas: An intellectual biography
inveighed against the technocratic model and the notion that “tech-
nical necessities”(Sachzwänge) could obviate the need for discussion
of the standards by which decisions are made. “Sachzwang” is the key
word Habermas borrowed from the technocratic conservative dis-
course represented by Schelsky. Habermas argued that the Education
Ministry’s reforms would reinforce social elitism; merely establish-
ing committees of students, professors, and assistants with equal
representation was not an adequate substitute for more substantial
“democratization.”^95 Moreover, Habermas named the^ ministry’s
proposal a “decisionist” model, in which the decision-making powers
of the university president remained “extraordinarily strong” and
the role of the Senate merely advisory: “As long as the President can
secure cover from the Kuratorium [Board of Trustees], his position
reminds us of a constitutional monarch, whose real power is based
on the army, nobility and state bureaucracy.”^96 As late as 1969, there-
fore, Habermas employed the categories of technocracy and deci-
sionism to frame his understanding, analysis, and polemic against
the state-led proposals for university reform.
But Habermas had to share the category of “technocratic univer-
sity reform” with radical student groups who had long since parted
company with him. Contemporary articles in the German Socialist
Students’ League (SDS) journal Neue Kritik and SDS leaflets make
this clear. In a January 1969 leaflet, for example, the SDS argued
that “... the technocrats around Löffler, Stein, [and] Korber” hoped
to meet the demands of students seeking university reform with a
“technocratic reform program” and thereby isolate the SDS from
the mass of “reform-willing” students.^97 The SDS believed that
Drittelparität – the addition of student and administrative rep-
resentatives to faculty governance – served the same function as
codetermination (Mitbestimmung) in the workplace, merely dis-
tracting from the real struggle for a socialist society. Technocratic
university reform thus inhibited the development of revolutionary
consciousness.^98 The leaflet also stated that the technocratic reforms(^95) Ibid., 237–8.
(^96) Ibid., 240.
(^97) “Flugblatt einer Berliner SDS-Gruppe” ( January 1969), in PuH, 260.
See also Antonia Grunenberg and Monika Steffen,“Technokratisches
Hochschulreform und organisierter Widerstand,” Neue Kritik (April 1969);
reprinted in Krausharr, Frankfurter Schule 2:311.
(^98) “Flugblatt,” in PuH, 264–5.