Abstract
By analyzing the interrelated approaches formulated in the late 1930s and early 1940s by Friedrich Pollock, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor Adorno, this chapter demonstrates that, in spite of the richness of their attempts to formulate a critical theory more adequate than traditional Marxism to the transformations of the twentieth century, these thinkers retained some of its political–economic presuppositions and, as a result, reached a theoretical impasse: in attempting to deal with a new configuration of capitalism, their approach lost its reflexivity; it no longer could account for itself as a historical possibility. This chapter examines the complex relation of classical critical theory to traditional understandings of capitalism in order to clarify the trajectory of the former and also illuminate the limits of the latter. In so doing, it points to a fundamentally different analysis of capitalism, one that—if integrated with the rich concerns of the Frankfurt School—could serve as the point of departure for a critical theory that could both be reflexive and elucidate the nature and dynamic of our global social universe.
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Notes
- 1.
Some interpreters of Critical Theory have argued that the Frankfurt School neglected historical analysis and replaced political economy with philosophy (see, e.g., Anderson, 1976; Therborn, 1976; Bottomore, 1984). But this overlooks Critical Theory’s attempts to deal with the far-reaching epochal transformation of capitalism in ways that were critical of the political economic assumptions of orthodox marxism.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Andrew Arato recognizes this (although his interpretation of the stakes is different than that presented in this essay) (Arato, 1978: 10–13).
- 6.
Horkheimer clearly expresses this view in a letter to Neumann, agreeing that, empirically, the situation in Germany is nowhere near that of state capitalism. Nevertheless, he maintains that society is moving toward that situation, which proves the value of Pollock’s construct in providing a basis for discussing current historical tendencies (Letter from Horkheimer to Neumann, August 2, 1941, cited in Wiggershaus, 1994: 285).
- 7.
For a critique of traditional Marxism based upon a reconceptualization of the categories of Marx’s critique of political economy and, hence, of his conception of capitalism’s most fundamental social relations, see Postone (1993). The analysis developed there provides the standpoint of the critique of Pollock and Horkheimer outlined in this chapter.
- 8.
When enclosed in quotation marks, the term “labor” refers to that conception, criticized by Marx, which transhistorically ontologizes labor’s unique role in capitalism.
- 9.
It should be noted as an aside that, whereas traditional Marxism affirms labor as the standpoint of critique, according to this reading, labor in capitalism is the object of Marx’s critique of political economy.
- 10.
“Structure” here refers to historically specific congealed social forms that are dynamic, forms that are constituted by and constitutive of practice. The term is not used here as it is within the framework of structuralism with its dualisms of langue and parole, structure and action, synchrony and diachrony.
- 11.
Opposing the reality of society to its ideals is frequently considered the central hallmark of an immanent critique, also within the tradition of Critical Theory. See, for example, Adorno (1976). Such an approach is not the same as the understanding of immanent critique presented here, which seeks to explain historically and socially both the ideals and the reality of society, rather than calling for the realization of its ideals.
- 12.
The possibility of theoretical self-reflexivity is intrinsically related to the socially generated possibility of other forms of critical distance and opposition—on the popular level as well. That is, the notion of social contradiction also allows for a theory of the historical constitution of popular forms of opposition that point beyond the bounds of the existent order.
- 13.
- 14.
In 1941, Pollock included the Soviet Union as a state-capitalist society (Pollock, 1941a: 211 n.1).
- 15.
Marx explicitly refers to property relations as well as the market as aspects of the mode of distribution (Postone, 1993: 22).
- 16.
For this rereading, see Postone 1993.
- 17.
Others have also noted the influence of Pollock’s thesis on the positions crystallized by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment. However, they tend to focus on the shift from the critique of economy to that of the political/administrative realm without, at the same time, noting the relation between the implications of Pollock’s argument for the transmutation of the notion of “labor” from a source of liberation to one of a form of domination structured by instrumental rationality. See, for example, Benhabib, 1986: 158–171; Hohendahl, 1992: 76–100.
- 18.
Horkheimer’s social theory of knowledge, which leans heavily on Marx in this essay, has been interpreted—incorrectly in my view—by Wolfgang Bonß as a functionalist account of consciousness. Relatedly, Bonß’s account of the limits reached by Horkheimer’s attempt at “interdisciplinary materialism” overlooks the centrality of the political-economic dimension to that attempt (Bonß, 1993: 122).
- 19.
This antinomial opposition of historical necessity and freedom, rooted in the state capitalism thesis, paralleled the dualism expressed by Walter Benjamin in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (Benjamin, 1969: 253–64).
- 20.
This weakness of later Critical Theory is characteristic of poststructuralist thought as well.
- 21.
In his in-depth examination of Horkheimer’s trajectory from his early writings to the Dialectic of Enlightenment, John Abromeit treats it as a movement from a “historically specific” and “socially grounded” approach to one that treats social domination transhistorically and the history of philosophy in an undifferentiated manner (Abromeit 2011: 395–415). This certainly captures an important dimension of Horkheimer’s intellectual trajectory. However, Abromeit overlooks the transhistorical conception of “labor” at the heart of Horkheimer’s earlier “historically specific” analysis and, hence, the internal logic leading to his later identification of “labor” with instrumental action.
- 22.
Horkheimer did assert that the decline of the individual and the dominance of instrumental reason should not be attributed to production as such, but to the forms of social relations in which it occurs. However, his notion of such forms remained empty; he treated technological development in a historically and socially indeterminate manner, as the domination of nature (Horkheimer, 1974: 153). In spite of his disclaimer then it could plausibly be argued that he did indeed asocial instrumental reason and “labor” (Horkheimer, 1974: 21, 50, 102).
- 23.
Letter from Adorno to Horkheimer, June 6, 1941, cited in Wiggershaus, 1994: 282.
- 24.
The analysis of Adorno’s essay presented here is intended as a contribution to the prehistory of Dialectic of Enlightenment and does not claim that his later work retained the same theoretical presuppositions and framework.
- 25.
For an elaboration of Marx’s conception of an intrinsic historical dynamic as historically specific to capitalism, see Postone 1993: Chaps. 4, 7 and 8.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Fabian Arzuaga for his valuable critical feedback and assistance.
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Postone, M. (2017). Critical Theory and the Historical Transformations of Capitalist Modernity. In: Thompson, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory. Political Philosophy and Public Purpose. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55801-5_7
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