The article deals with Niklas Luhmann's treatise Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, exposing it to a critique in terms of Luhmann's own criterion: plausibility. It is argued that both Parsons' general sociology and Marxism render more plausible accounts of modern society than does Luhmann's theory of autopoietic systems. It is asserted that the fundamental mistake in Luhmann's theory is his conflation of the concepts of differentiated social systems and autonomous social systems, a conflation that confers a ring of the imaginary to Luhmann's treatise.