Habermas

46 Habermas: An intellectual biography

instrumentalized arguments from natural law to defend the “free

democratic basic order” against threats from the left and the right

made him the precursor to a generation of leftist critics of postwar

German jurisprudence.^84 Habermas also absorbed Abendroth’s cri-

tique of the doctrine of “militant democracy” by which the Federal

Constitutional Court established the limits of permissible political

speech and action.^85

It was never Abendroth’s intent to describe an ideal social-

ist constitution. The constitution contained “no ultimate deci-

sion” between socialism and capitalism, he believed. Rather, he

saw Article 20 as the critical “transformer” that would “hold open”

the constitutional realm for social change.^86 This is the sense in

which his vision of the sozialer Rechtsstaat was transformist rather

than reformist. The achievements of democracy were to be guarded

and preserved, but as long as capitalism existed, democracy would

remain in danger. Because workers spent so much of their lives in the

workplace, Abendroth believed, democracy could not be restricted

to the “formal political” level; it had to extend to the inside of eco-

nomic organizations. He viewed the unions as the “natural guardian

of democracy” and believed that their strength would determine

whether the constitutional provisions describing the Federal

Republic as a “democratic and social Rechtsstaat” (Articles 20 and

28) would become meaningful.^87 The SPD should remain a work-

ing class party, emphasizing the centrality of its union members.^88

Thus, in the intraparty debates over reform in the 1950s, Abendroth

represented the positions furthest to the left on codetermination in

Antagonistische Gesellschaft und Politische Demokratie (Neuwied: Luchterhand,

1967), 139.

(^84) See in particular Ulrich K. Preuss, Legalität und Pluralismus: Beiträge zum
Verfassungsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp,
1973 ).
(^85) This theme is developed further in Chapters 2 and 4.
(^86) Jürgen Seifert, “Demokratische Republik und Arbeiterbewegung in der
Verfassungstheorie von Wolfgang Abendroth,” Kritische Justiz 1 ( 1985 ),
14 – 27.
(^87) Compare Helmut Ridder, Zur verfassungsrechtlichen Stellung der
Gewerkschaften im Sozialstaat nachdem Grundgesetz fur die Bundesrepublik
Deutschland (Stuttgart: Fischer, 1960 ).
(^88) See Wolfgang Abendroth, “Zur Funktion der Gewerkschaften in
der westdeutschen Demokratie,” 59–68, and “Staatsverfassung und
Betriebsverfassung,” 103–10, in Bürokratischer Verwaltungsstaat und
soziale Demokratie, eds. Herbert Sultan and Wolfgang Abendroth
(Hannover: Norddeutsche Verlagsanstalt Goedel, 1955).