Habermas' thesis according to which Marxism is a variant of the philosophy of consciousness is contested. Historical materialism is reconstructed on the basis of the inter-relationship between the categories work and language. Thus the possibility is opened of a recuperation of the Marxist critique of the modern institutions: the state and the capitalist firm. It is argued that Habermas' attempt to escape from the mesh of the philosophy of consciousness ends by relapsing in what the Author calls social solipsism