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Home , Character mask, Helmut Reichelt, Otto Kirchheimer

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Introduction: Key Texts and Contributions to a of Society

Beverley Best, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane

The designation of the as a known by sympathisers as ‘Café Marx’. It ‘critical theory’ originated in the United was the first Marxist research institute States. It goes back to two articles, one writ- attached to a German University. ten by and the other by Since the 1950s, ‘Frankfurt School’ criti- , that were both published in cal theory has become an established, inter- Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (later Studies nationally recognised ‘brand name’ in the in and Social Science) in 1937.1 social and human sciences, which derives The Zeitschrift, published from 1932 to from its institutional association in the 1920s 1941, was the publishing organ of the and again since 1951 with the Institute Institute for Social Research. It gave coher- for Social Research in Frankfurt, (West) ence to what in fact was an internally diverse . From this institutional perspec- and often disagreeing group of heterodox tive, it is the association with the Institute Marxists that hailed from a wide disciplinary that provides the basis for what is considered spectrum, including social psychology critical theory and who is considered to be a (Fromm, Marcuse, Horkheimer), political critical theorist. This Handbook works with economy and formation (Pollock and and against its branded identification, concre- Neumann), and constitutional theory tising as well as refuting it. (Kirchheimer, Neumann), political science We retain the moniker ‘Frankfurt School’ (Gurland, Neumann), philosophy and sociol- in the title to distinguish the character of its ogy (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse), culture critical theory from other seemingly non- (Löwenthal, Adorno), musicology (Adorno), traditional approaches to society, including aesthetics (Adorno, Löwenthal, Marcuse) the positivist traditions of Marxist thought, and social technology (Gurland, Marcuse). constructivist idealism, French philoso- In the , the Institute was phies of structure, events and rhizomes,

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post-colonialism, the abstract negativity of of critical thought. Critical theory is about , including the existentialist tra- the conceptuality of a historical reality. It is ditions and contemporary Anthropocene, and both a method of thought and a process of justice-orientated abstract normativism. thinking in and through the social object. It is not a method of organising concepts and of thinking about society. Rather than apply- ing thought to the social object, it argues Critical Theory: An outline2 that conceptuality holds sway within it. This insight formulates the task of critical theory In its original formulation, critical theory is as an immanent critique of society, one that characterised by thinking against the flow of sets out to uncover what is active in objects. the (reified) world. It is an attempt to brush Thus, against , it holds that in its against its grain to reveal its foundation in immediate and direct appearance the whole historically specific social relations. It was of society is untrue. the first serious Marxist attempt to confront Horkheimer’s ‘Traditional and Critical the of the orthodox Theory’ argues that in its posited appearance, Marxist tradition. According to the ortho- society presents itself in the form of petri- doxy, labour is a transhistorical objective fied relations, which perpetuate themselves necessity and the various modes of produc- as if by some independent dynamic that is tion present historically specific forms of regulated by invisible forces. This appear- labour economy. In this view, history is ance is real as necessary illusion, which is objectively unfolding towards a ‘higher’ ; the ideology of the social object : . For the ortho- is its appearance as natural. According to doxy, therefore, there can be no such thing as Horkheimer, Marx was the first critical the critique of labour. There can only be a theorist who conceived of capitalist society critique of the capitalist irrationality of labour as an objective illusion.5 That is, the fetish- organisation, leading to the endorsement of ism of commodities is real as the objective socialism as a rational form of labour organi- inversion of the social relations that vanish sation.3 Orthodox thus conceived of in their appearance as a relationship between as transition to socialism either economic quantities, which are regulated through reformist struggle for recognition of by an invisible hand that, as Adorno put it, labour rights or revolutionary struggle as takes care of ‘both the beggar and the king’.6 midwife for a centrally planned labour econ- What has vanished cannot be identified nor omy.4 In the 1920s, Frankfurt School critical conceptualised; what remains is the social theory emerged from within the constraints subject as a non-conceptuality.7 Abstract of these positions as well as the deadly hos- things neither posit themselves nor do they tility that existed amongst their respective impose and reproduce themselves according supporters and between the latter and their to some innate objectively unfolding . nationalist foes. Rather, it is the social relations, individuals Following Max Horkheimer, the oppo- in and through their social , that ren- site of a critical theory of society is not an der social objectivity valid by bestowing it uncritical theory: it is ‘traditional theory’. For with a consciousness and a will. The verac- Horkheimer, traditional theory is uncritical of ity of this insight is no way challenged by its own social and historical preconditions. the equally valid insight that the subjects act Instead of seeking to establish the social and under the compulsion of social objectivity, on historical constitution of its object, it identi- the pain of ruin and disaster. In this context, fies society as given – mere data. Against ide- critical theory is best seen as an attempt at alism, it holds that positivism is an element conceptualising capitalist social objectivity

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as a definite form of human social practice. and interpretation. The comprehension of Critical theory thus becomes a negative dia- reality is a theoretical effort and the critique lectic of the conceptualised praxis (begriffene of reality is therefore a critique of its theoris- Praxis) of capitalist social relations.8 ing. Reality neither speaks for itself nor by As argued by Horkheimer in ‘Traditional itself. Its critique is fundamentally a theoreti- and Critical Theory’, Marx’s critique of polit- cal critique, which is also a critique of episte- ical economy amounts to a devastating judg- mology and science, that includes philosophy ment on existence, not just of the economic and political economy. As a critical theory, sphere but of society as a whole, as a totality. therefore, materialism is ‘a dissolution of Totality is a negative concept of the wrong things understood as dogmatic’.11 In this state of things. For Horkheimer, Marx’s cri- context, Lukács’ notion of ‘false conscious- tique of political economy is social critique. ness’, which he developed most clearly in his It is critique of the economic categories as History and Consciousness, is unhelpful. In the valid categories of a ‘false’ society. For the ‘enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world’ Adorno, Marx’s critical theory is character- of capitalist social relations, thought too is ised by its resistance to substituting the truth enchanted, perverted and topsy-turvy. Critical content of thought for its ‘social function and theory is here characterised as an effort of its conditioning by interests’. Traditional the- critique, making thought work, which entails ory, says Adorno, ‘refrains from a critique’ of confrontation of the cogitative account of social contents, and ‘[remains] indifferent to society with its experience. Critical theory it’.9 It classifies and defines social phenom- holds that the theoretical concept of society ena but does not look into them. The purpose is fundamentally an experienced concept and of critical theory as a critique of ideology is to vice versa.12 Traditional theory might want uncover what is active in things to reveal the to analyse society on the basis of algorithmic socially constituted principle of compulsion, data. It can do this because it has no expe- that power of society as a whole, in which rience of society. What counts are numbers; the social subject, Man in her social relations, whether numbers inflate or deflate is, how- appears as a mere character- (Adorno) ever, of no concern to the numbers them- or personification (Marx) of reified relations selves. It is a concern for the social subject, between seemingly natural social things. It and the validity of inflation or deflation is is of course true, as traditional theory rec- therefore a social validity. For traditional the- ognises, that the ‘life of all men hangs’ by ory, experience is not a scientific category. It the profitable extraction of .10 therefore excludes what is vital from its ana- Time really is money and money is money lytical gaze. Nevertheless, the development, only as more money. Yet it does not ask why say, of economic theory into social statistics that might be so and does not inquire into its is not ‘false’, as opposed to the ‘right’ theory conceptuality – that is, it does not attempt to of so-called . Economics, comprehend the social that are innate to as the science of economic matter, meets this mode of human social reproduction as definite social needs, takes the direct appear- definite laws of human social practice. ance of society as immediate proof of its Furthermore, critical theory holds that veracity, analyses the economic phenomena social reality and theoretical praxis are the and articulates the economic quantities in same and not the same. There is neither the form of mathematical equations. In this an untheoretical reality nor can reality be manner, it rationalises society by scientific- reduced to thought. Reality, the real, entails mathematical method. It does all this in the theory as the condition of its comprehension, name of scientific method and accuracy meaning and practical intelligibility. Whether without once asking itself what the economic something is rational is a matter of thought categories are, what the economic quantities

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are quantities of and, indeed, why the effort which for its success depends on economic of human social reproduction appears in the growth for its own sake, on the accumulation form of economic quantities that present of abstract wealth for accumulation’s sake. themselves devoid of innate human contents. As a critical theory the critique of political For the science of economic matter, the con- economy entails the recognition of suffering sideration of such contents, and questions as the hidden truth of the relations of eco- about their human-social validity, amounts nomic objectivity. Critical theory, therefore, to a metaphysical distraction. It inserts into is a critique of a world that is ‘hostile to the economics a non-economic subject, disrupt- subject’, no matter that it is the social indi- ing the economic idea of purely economic vidual herself who endows the reified world matter.13 with a consciousness and a will, not just in the The critique of economics as a social sci- economic sphere but in society at large, body ence without social content does not entail and soul.17 In fact, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, who its rejection as a science of ‘false’ conscious- never established a close working relation- ness. It rather entails social critique – that is, ship with the Institute but who stayed in close critique of a society that expresses itself in the contact with some of its members, and whose form of economic categories and economic theoretical concerns were also close, focused matter, which economic science seeks to ren- the programme of research most clearly: it der intelligible by rationalising the economic amounts to an anamnesis of the social origin, appearance of society, without distraction. or genesis, of real .18 Traditional social theory does not see that economic forces are forces of definite social relations. Why, indeed, does this content, human social reproduction, the satisfaction History and Thought of human needs, take the form of independ- ent economic categories, upon whose power The Institute was founded in Frankfurt am ‘the life of all man hangs by’?14 The theory Main in 1923, where it was affiliated with the of society becomes no less traditional when it University of Frankfurt am Main. It was the demythologises the social object into a secu- creation of Felix Weil. Weil was born in lar ‘logic of things’ that, akin to an abstract Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the son of a system of logic, structures the actual behav- wealthy grain merchant and was able to use iour, consciousness and mentality of the money from his father’s business to finance actual individuals and their libidos, too.15 the Institute. Weil graduated with a doctoral In Adorno’s memorable formulations in degree in political science from Frankfurt Negative , reality requires thought University. His doctoral thesis was about the for its comprehension, and historical materi- practical problems of implanting socialism alism is critique of society understood dog- through central economic planning. It was matically.16 It is critique of society through published by . theoretical critique. Critical theory is charac- The immediate background to his initia- terised by its attempt to dissolve the dogmatic tive was the First Marxist Work Week, which posture of social objectivity by revealing its Weil also financed. It was a week-long sym- vanished social genesis. It holds that in order posium in 1922 attended amongst others by to grasp the world one has to be within it. György Lukács, Karl Korsch, Karl August Critical theory is critical on the condition that Wittfogel and , a close it thinks through society. What is vital about friend of Horkheimer’s and co-founder of the economic quantities is not their quantitative Institute. Wittfogel was a historian noted for expansion. What is vital is the sheer unrest his studies of ancient China and is best known of life for access to the means of subsistence, for developing the notion of an Asiatic mode

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of production. Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Institute’s funds to The Netherlands. In 1932, Philosophy (1923), which broke the ground shortly after Löwenthal had recruited him, for the development of heterodox Marxism, Marcuse was sent to Geneva in preparation was discussed at the symposium. Korsch for possible exile. The Gestapo closed down worked at the Institute in exile but never the Institute in early 1933 for ‘activities hos- joined it formally. tile to the state’.20 Lukács’ History and , The initial research at the Institute was also published in 1923, was a major inspira- close to Weil’s interests in the social history tion for the development of the Frankfurt of the workers’ movement. Its first publish- School, particularly because of its argument ing venture was the first critical edition of about and identification of the the collected works of Marx and Engels, with importance of Hegel’s philosophy for Marx’s the Institute acting as a mediator between the critique of political economy. The relation- Moscow-based Marx–Engels Institute and ship between Lukács and critical theory is the German Social-Democratic Party. It was perhaps best described with reference to this venture that reinforced existing, strongly Wiggershaus’ account of a meeting between held suspicions about the Institute as subver- Lukács and Adorno in 1925.19 Adorno, who sive and led to a police investigation into the began his association with the Institute in backgrounds of its members. The police con- 1928 and became a formal member in New cluded that Felix Weil and Friedrich Pollock York in 1938, is said to have been shocked to were undoubtedly communists. Pollock came find that, in an attempt to restore his reputa- in for special treatment on the grounds of his tion as a reliable supporter of the Bolsheviks, activities during the Munich Soviet in 1919. Lukács was retracting precisely what had During the 1920s, Löwenthal’s socio- attracted Adorno to his work in the first place – logical approach was the exception in the namely, the critique of capitalist society as Institute. Its designated first director was a (reified) totality. If, indeed, Lukács was Kurt Albert Gerlach, who died before the Adorno’s intellectual mentor, the mentoring Institute’s inauguration. He sympathised proved short-lived and unreliable. Similarly, with anarcho-syndicalism and published Neumann and Kirchheimer had started out on industrial relations and the conditions of as (socialist) students of ’s, and female factory workers in England. Gerlach’s Marcuse had started his second doctorate, his successor and founding director was Karl Habilitationsschrift, under . Gruenberg, a Marxist historian seen as the Schmitt and Heidegger promptly supported ‘Father of Austrian Socialism’. He counted the Nazi regime and joined its ranks as intel- Otto Bauer, and Karl lectual flagbearers. Renner amongst his students. Gruenberg Marcuse joined the Institute in 1932, took his journal Archive for the History of having been recruited by Leo Löwenthal. Socialism and the Labour Movement, which Löwenthal had joined the newly founded he had started in Vienna in 1910, with him Institute in 1926 and established himself as to Frankfurt. It became the house journal of its leading expert on the of litera- the Institute until 1930, when it ceased publi- ture and mass culture. He was the founding cation. The two most important publications managing editor of the Zeitschrift, which was of the Institute during this time were Henryk published from the for most of Grossmann’s The Law of Accumulation and its existence. In the face of the Nazis’ growing Breakdown of the Capitalist System and influence, including at Frankfurt University, Friedrich Pollock’s Attempts at Planned the Institute’s founders decided in September Economy in the 1917–1927, 1930 to prepare to move abroad. They estab- both published in 1929. After Gruenberg suf- lished a branch in Geneva and moved the fered from a stroke, he retired, in 1929, and

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Pollock stepped in as acting director. He was failure of revolutions, the total collapse of succeeded in 1930 by Max Horkheimer, who the German labour movement in 1933, the was not the obvious candidate, but who was conditions of ‘bare life’, the Nazi dictator- chosen despite his leanings towards council ship, Stalinist show trials and concentration . In the same year, , camps, world war, exile and disorientation, who became one of the founders of ‘social- antisemitism as political program and indus- ist humanism’, joined the Institute. Under trialised slaughter. Horkheimer’s directorship, the Institute’s With the exception of Adorno, the small research profile started to change from one band of critical theorists left Germany in focused on mainly economic developments 1933, finally settling in either New York or and labour-movement studies towards empir- Los Angeles. , the great ical social research, social theory, cultural literary critic and condemner of positivist study, philosophy and social psychology, Marxism, eventually settled in . During firming up the interdisciplinary research the 1930s, the Institute provided him with associated with critical theory. publishing opportunities and, most impor- Frankfurt School critical theory was shaped tantly, financial support. Adorno who had by profound experiences. It originated in the been introduced to Benjamin in the early aftermath of the failed Soviet revolution, 1920s by a mutual friend, , after Lenin’s death and at the beginning of the was instrumental in securing this support. new economic policy that was accompanied When Paris fell to the Nazis in 1940, he by the resolutely dictatorial direction of the fled south with the intention of escaping to Soviet state under Stalin. It originated, too, in the United States via Spain. Informed by the the aftermath of the failed German revolution chief of police at the France–Spain border of 1918 that led to the short-lived Weimar that he would be turned over to the Gestapo, Republic, which despised the revolutionaries Benjamin committed suicide. Adorno had and was rejected by the ancien régime and hoped to remain in Germany after 1933 its willing foot-soldiers. Horkheimer took and until 1934 hoped that the German army on the directorship of the Institute against would take over. He enrolled for advanced the background of the crash of 1929 and the studies at Oxford in June 1934 and during the worldwide socio-economic and political con- next four years made trips to Germany to see sequences that followed: on the one hand, his parents and, in 1937, to New York to visit hyperinflation, depression, austerity (the the Institute. He left Europe for the United German chancellor from 30 March 1930 to States in 1938. 30 May 1932, Heinrich Brüning, was called Initially the focus of study in exile was the Hungerkanzler – the famine chancel- authoritarianism, starting with the col- lor), mass , political violence lected volume Studies on Authority and and assassinations, emergency government, Family (1936), to which, amongst others, politicised labour relations and a strong but Fromm, Marcuse and Horkheimer contrib- bitterly divided labour movement and, on uted, then Horkheimer’s ‘The Authoritarian the other, Nazi storm-troopers. Against the State’ (1942) as well as particular analyses background of German and Italian of the character of the Nazi state (Neumann, Fascism, Herbert Marcuse wrote about the Pollock and also Kirchheimer and Gurland). coming to power of a new form of liberalism, Kristallnacht in 1938 was the immedi- which he conceived of as an authoritarian ate precursor of Horkheimer’s ‘The Jews liberalism.21 It entailed, he argued in 1934, of Europe’ (1939). The extermination of the ‘existentialization and totalization of the European Jewry changed the Institute’s political sphere’.22 The decisive experiences research outlook decisively. Its two bases for the formation of critical theory were the in the United States, in New York and Los

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Angeles, developed overlapping and yet catastrophe was not an aberration of an oth- distinct research programmes on antisemi- erwise civilised world; it showed what the tism and unreason. One was led by Pollock civilised world is capable of. What lies within from the east coast, leading to the publica- its concept is not the idea of a future human- tion of a four-volume work entitled Studies ity that, reconciled with itself, organises its in Anti-Semitism; and the other was led by social affairs in freedom from coercion and Horkheimer and Adorno from California on according to its needs – this great idea of an the of Enlightenment (un)reason, equality of individual human needs that con- leading to their Dialectic of Enlightenment stitutes the association of the free and equal, and to Horkheimer’s Eclipse of Reason, as Marx put it in . both published in 1947. The Authoritarian Rather, what lies within its concept is the Personality was published in 1950 and promise of barbaric violence. The catastro- Adorno’s : Reflections from phe asserted the hidden veracity of bourgeois Damaged Life in 1951. Erich Fromm’s The reason, revealing its conceptuality in domi- Fear of Freedom (1941) explored damaged nation. Adorno’s negative dialectic claimed life in social-psychological terms. that ‘Hitler had imposed a new categorical The Institute returned to Frankfurt in 1951. imperative upon humanity in the state of However, of its core members, only Pollock, their unfreedom: to arrange their think- Adorno and Horkheimer returned; Leo ing and conduct, so that Auschwitz never Löwenthal, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, repeats itself, so that nothing similar will Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer did happen again’.23 In the context of post-war not, nor did the majority of the Institute’s Germany, and beyond, Adorno’s stance was members. The designation ‘Frankfurt singular and unique. It enthused the emerg- School’, which came to the fore only in ing , with frustrating consequences. the 1950s, need not, then, be fixed on the Adorno rejected the student revolt of 1968 as Institute’s post-war location; it is much more quasi-action. fruitful, rather, to see the Institute’s decid- In 1962, Adorno had called for a ‘praxis edly heterodox Marxist social critique as that fights barbarism’24 and in his lectures originating in a specific formative experience endorsed Marx as the thinker who directed in Weimar Germany and developing through his critique ‘at the substance’ of society – that the experience of exile, loss and disorienta- is, the ‘social production and reproduction of tion. It continued to mature, against itself, the life of society as a whole’.25 He upheld in the context of Auschwitz, and later estab- the insight that ‘society remains class strug- lished itself as a dissenting voice in the Cold gle’.26 However, and distinct from a whole War silences. Later still, it became a theoreti- tradition of Marxist theory, class struggle was cal expression of the new left that emerged in not something positive or indeed desirable. the movements associated with 1968. On the contrary, class struggle is the objective Of the critical theorists who returned to necessity of the false society. It belongs to its Germany in the 1950s, Adorno is the one concept. thus argues that whose publishing took off, leading especially bourgeois society is ‘antagonistic from the out- to Negative Dialectics (1966) and Aesthetic set’ and that it ‘maintains itself only through Theory (1970), which was published post- antagonism’.27 Class struggle does not posit humously. The experience of exile and loss, an alternative to capitalist society and does authoritarianism and barbarism, tragedy not go beyond it. That is to say, class strug- and dashed hope, re-emerge in Negative gle is not a positive category of history in the Dialectics as a form of thought that turns making. It is an entirely negative category, thinking inside out by revealing its affec- and the struggle to make ends meet is no tive origin in ‘suffering’. The experienced longer an ontological privilege. Rather, it is a

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great misfortune. ‘Proletarian language is dic- probability of the rebellious subject, charting tated by hunger. The poor chew words to fill the emergence and assertion of the new left their bellies.’28 Like Benjamin, in his ‘Theses in theoretical terms and calling for liberation, on the Philosophy of History’, Adorno holds endorsing the movements associated with that ‘there is a tenderness only in the coars- 1968 in a direct manner. est demand: that no-one should go hungry Critical theory’s call for a praxis that fights any more’.29 The orthodox Marxist dictum of barbarism entails a shift from a critical theory capitalism as transition to socialism had long of the object towards one of the subject. It been shown up, since Lenin, as mere leader- articulates the need for the subject either to ship propaganda, which lived on in academic prevent the barbarism inherent in unfreedom circles and as official state ideology in the from asserting itself (Adorno) or to resist the countries of the then Eastern bloc. totally administered world and reified forms Herbert Marcuse too demanded a of experience, consciousness and rational- praxis that fights barbarism. His writings ity (Marcuse), including relations, snatched Marx from the orthodox embrace, racism, sexual repression, body and soul establishing a new Hegelian Marxism in (Fromm), to achieve liberation of the subject (1941) and Freudian from oppression and repressive personality Marxism in Eros and Civilisation (1955) in whatever form. The movements associated and denouncing eastern Marxism in Soviet with 1968 fractured the post-war consensus Marxism (1958), where he developed the irretrievably. For some, it was the soon to be notion of the communist individual as the disappointed beginning of radical and indeed subject of emancipated society. He established revolutionary change. Others saw it as an the contours of a new revolutionary subject opportunity for greater tolerance and progres- amidst the closed society of an administered sive democratic renewal. Conservative critics world in One-Dimensional Man (1964), recognised 1968 as the beginning of the end posing the conundrum of revolution: slaves, of their world. They held the Frankfurt School he argued, ‘have to be free for their liberation responsible for the turmoil and denounced it before they can become free’.30 At the height as one of the causes of terrorism.31 of the 1968 movement, he explored liberation It was against this background that the in ‘An Essay on Liberation’ (1969); he Habermasian revision of critical theory found later assessed the balances of the forces of its voice. The new direction of critical theory history in Counterrevolution and Revolt, under Habermas might best be exemplified advocating a council-communist approach to by his retort to Adorno’s insight into the ‘rad- revolution (1972); and in his final work, The ical effect [of the capitalist form of labour] Aesthetic Dimension (1978), he examined on the concept of practice’.32 For Adorno, the political character of works of art. in capitalism, ‘the needs of human beings, Contrary to Adorno’s characterisation of the satisfaction of human beings, is never the movement of 1968 as quasi-action, more than a sideshow’;33 he proclaimed that Marcuse – and also Ernst Bloch, who, ‘the abolition of hunger [requires] a change though not amongst the central figures in the ’.34 In dis- of the Frankfurt School was a figurative tinction, Habermas argued that ‘liberation intellectual influence on it – participated in from hunger and misery does not necessar- the revolt and influenced a great number of ily converge with liberation from servitude its student activists, from Hans-Jürgen Krahl and degradation, for there is no automatic and to Angela Davis. Unlike developmental relation between labor and Adorno’s post-war publications, which interaction’.35 His path-breaking work is The critiqued the commodified world of social Theory of Communicative Action (1984), relations, Marcuse’s focus on the power and which concerns the process of formation

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of public opinion and rational discussion. to Hegel to establish his theory of recogni- It is an attempt to rescue the ideas of the tion with philosophical argument. As he sees Enlightenment from the critique to which it, modernity is characterised by a welcome Horkheimer and Adorno subjected them in expansion of rights claims by actors who, as Dialectic of Enlightenment. Habermas moved a consequence of their struggle for recogni- critical theory away from Marx and back to tion, ‘have to be taken into consideration’.37 the principles of idealist reason and classical He therefore argues that because of the conceptions of political morality. Habermas dynamic of recognition, which establishes reconfigured critical theory as an extension an ‘expansive participation in rational will- of the Enlightenment project, seeking to free formation’,38 contemporary society contains reason from instrumental in sup- within itself the ‘promise of freedom’.39 port of a perfectly civil society, constitution- The poverty of conditions, which critical alism and cosmopolitan democratic forms theory originally recognised as belonging of government. Habermas’ democratic con- to the conceptuality of the capitalist social ception of reason involved what he termed relations, now appears contingent upon the ‘discourse ethics’, which posits communi- capacity and power of the forces of recogni- cation as reason’s form of social action. His tion to impose participatory demands upon revision of critical theory as a philosophy of economic processes, moralising the global reason unbound by the unsocial irrationality economy through cosmopolitan schemes. In of the relations of domination and exploita- fact, his proposals for socialism are not dis- tion positions the democratic constitutional similar to the reformist ideas at the start of state as the pinnacle of social morality. His the last century, which proposed to create communicative action derived from many of social freedom and solidarity sources and was consciously eclectic, from that realise the Enlightenment’s normative Gadamer’s conservatism via Luhmann’s sys- project for society as a whole, establishing a tem theory to pragmatic philosophy, which just and fair labour economy beyond social- in the case of Dewey the critical theory of class divisions and struggles. Honneth links Adorno and Horkheimer had regarded with critical theory with concrete practices and great suspicion. institutions, which entail the promises of ’s theory of recognition freedom through what Hirsch termed a poli- builds on Habermas’ pragmatist turn. His tics of ‘radical reformism’.40 contribution came to the fore during the The distinction between the old and the 1990s, after the collapse of the Eastern bloc new is sharp. Whereas the founding critical and at the emergence of a so-called new theorists conceived of bourgeois society as economy that was variously called neoliber- one of unfreedom, and barbarism as a poten- alism, financialisation or globalisation. His tial means of sustaining it, ‘contemporary account focuses on normative forms of social critical theory’ goes back to the philosophers interaction in the purportedly differentiated of reason, Kant and Hegel, to ascertain the economic, political and private spheres that promise of freedom in contemporary soci- are held to be independent of the dominat- ety. Instead of stopping its further progress, ing economic logic of the social reproduc- as Benjamin had demanded for the sake of tion of capitalist society.36 This also means, avoiding catastrophe, the critical theory however, that he regards such a conception associated with Habermas and Honneth now of the economic logic of social reproduction demands its further development to achieve as one that critical theory does not touch. the progress of reason beyond the pathologies Whereas Habermas returns to Kant to estab- of the present. Whereas the founding think- lish the reason of communicative action on ers understood social pathologies as innate rational and moral bases, Honneth goes back to the existing relations of social objectivity,

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it now seems that social pathology is contin- developed amongst others by Nancy Fraser in gent upon the power of the social forces that the United States and Regina Becker-Schmidt, act upon social situations. The judgment on Axeli-Gudrun Knapp and Roswitha Scholz existence that Horkheimer brought to atten- in Germany. Furthermore, John Holloway tion in his 1937 critique of traditional theory emerged as the voice of the subject in resist- appears no longer as a judgment about the ance, negating power. Since the 1970s, the early character of definite social relations. Instead, critical theory of the state, from Horkheimer’s it appears as a contingent social situation that authoritarian state to Pollock’s and Neumann’s can be rectified depending upon the power of analyses of the character of the Nazi state, has those left behind to demand recognition of provided the background to the emergence of their needs through democratic assembly. a heterodox Marxist state theory that devel- Therefore, the idea of a linear trajec- oped in the context of the political challenge tory, however fractured, from the founding of 1968, the crisis of the welfare state and critical theorists – Horkheimer, Adorno and so-called globalisation. In the German case, Marcuse in particular – to the contemporary Johannes Agnoli pioneered a critique of polit- critical theory of Habermas and Honneth is ical form and also legal form, which devel- more apparent than real. It is pure ideology to oped further as the German state-derivation claim that a first generation was replaced by a debate and as the Conference of Socialist second generation, and now by a third gener- Economists state debate in the UK.41 ation, etc., which shaped critical theory in its Considered as a concept, critical theory has own specific ways according to the demands its own conceptuality. The persistence of crit- of its day. Discontinuities and drastic shifts ical theory, its continued resistance against notwithstanding, it is also the case that, traditional theory and its own ‘traditionalisa- mostly under the radar of academic official- tion’, and its expansion into new areas, includ- dom and on the margins of academic respect- ing urbanity and space and post-colonialism, ability, an Adorno-inspired critical social show first of all that its original concerns with theory of the object and also of the subject social praxis and the critique of social total- continues both within and outside the uni- ity remain unbroken. Furthermore, they also versity and both within Europe and outside show that the development of critical theory Europe, including the Americas. On the one is not linear. Critical theory is not some hand, there is the social critique of the object abstract metatheory. Rather, it belongs to and that led to a reconstruction of Marx’s cri- develops in and through the social constella- tique of political economy as a critical social tions that it seeks to render intelligible, with theory, including Wertkritik, practical political intent. Lastly, critical the- and the Neue Marx Lektüre, associated with ory is not bound by disciplinary borders and Hans-Georg Backhaus and Helmut Reichelt, never was. On the contrary, it is characterised both students of Adorno’s. In the United by its refusal to comply with academic disci- States, the development of critical theory as pline and disciplinary requirements. It thinks a critique of the economic object belongs to against the order of the world to understand Moishe Postone, as well as Patrick Murray, it better. Interdisciplinarity does not mean Christian Lotz and Tony Smith. On the other lumping disciplines together; rather, it entails hand, a critical theory of the subject – experi- thinking in and through social relations, ence, history and praxis – was developed by becoming aware of totality through the par- Negt, Kluge, Schmidt and Krahl, all students ticular traits of the manifold manifestations of Adorno’s, and Adolfo Sánchez Vásquez, that constitute society as a definite praxis Roberto Schwarz and Paulo Arantes, as well of human social reproduction. The concep- as Jameson, in his critique of tuality of critical theory defies definition. It and aesthetics. Feminist critical theory was is critique of society for the sake of society.

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At its best, and with reference to Marx, it disposable time’ (Adorno) – ‘time for enjoy- makes the petrified relations dance by uncov- ment’ (Marx) – is the very content of an ering the sheer unrest of life that endows emancipated humanity.42 It posits a form of society as a real with a dynamic, a human wealth that is entirely at odds with consciousness and a will, however perverted, the existing form of wealth, in which time is in the form of the social object and the social money and in which money is more money. actions that it entails. Negative Dialectics brushes the categories of social objectivity against their grain with practical intent so that the reason of human emancipation does not become ‘a piece of the Scope and Purpose politics it was supposed to lead out of’.43

The Handbook expounds the development of critical theory from its founding thinkers to its contemporary formulations in an interdis- Volumes and Structure ciplinary and global setting. The Handbook showcases the scholarly rigor, intellectual The Handbook is published in three volumes. acuteness and negative force of critical social Volume 1 is entitled Key Texts and Contri­ theory in all its theoretical manifestations, butions to a Critical Theory of Society. It past and present, and sketches its potential maps the terrain of critical social theory in future trajectories in a world that remains terms of key contributors and key contribu- fundamentally hostile to the needs of human tions, subject matters and critical theoretical beings and to the survival, as opposed to the developments. Volume 2, Key Themes in the disintegration, of human society itself. Context of the Twentieth Century, introduces Our contributors are not academic gate- the key themes of a critical theory of society keepers and disciplinarians, nor do they and explores critical theory as a critique of understand critical theory in institutional the social object and the social subject. terms. We asked them to think freely and to Volume 3, Contexts, expounds the develop- disregard the security of academic borders. ment of critical theory in the context of alter- The Handbook maps the terrain of a criti- native theoretical approaches and in a cal social theory expounding its distinctive contemporary context of social crises, move- character vis-à-vis alternative theoretical ments and theories. perspectives, exploring its theoretical foun- Volume 1 contains chapters on key contrib- dations and developments, conceptualising utors to the development of a critical theory of its subject matters both past and present and society beyond the confines of the Frankfurt signalling its possible future in a time of war School. With the exception of Chapter 9, and terror, climate change, mass migration, which explores Dialectic of Enlightenment, economic hardship, nativism, nationalism the chapters provide biographical introduc- and populism. tions to key thinkers and develop a critical Critical theory, at least in its founding textual and contextual analysis of key notions tradition, did not look on the bright side. and texts.44 Especially in a time of great uncertainty and Volume 1 comprises three parts. Part I, social mischief it is important to look into ‘The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory’, the eye of the storm and ascertain what is contains chapters that introduce the key active in things. With Adorno, the Handbook founding figures of a critical theory of soci- holds that the time of human emancipation ety, including John Abromeit on Horkheimer, from social compulsion by real abstrac- Christoph Hesse on Löwenthal, Kieran Durkin tions is the time of human purposes. ‘Freely on Fromm, Paul Mattick Jr on Grossmann,

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Karsten Olson on Neumann, Frank Schale, Gurland is a largely forgotten member of Lisa Klingsporn and Hubertus Buchstein on the Institute. In exile he worked closely with Kirchheimer, David Kaufmann on Benjamin, Neumann and Kirchheimer on the political Charles Reitz on Marcuse, Nico Bobka and character of bourgeois society and Nazism. Dirk Braunstein on Adorno, plus Marcel Compared with Gurland, Alfred Seidel is Stoetzler on Dialectic of Enlightenment as a entirely unknown. He was, however, a deci- single publication. Dialectic of Enlightenment sive figure in the heterodox theoretical milieu was co-authored by Horkheimer and Adorno of Frankfurt in the early 1920s, and the emer- and includes an important contribution from gent critical theorists were familiar with him Löwenthal. It is a core text of critical theory, as a thinker of unconditional negativity. in which they scrutinised the demise of the Frank Engster and Oliver Schlaudt’s chap- age of reason into barbarism. Distinct from ter about Alfred Sohn-Rethel introduces traditional Marxism, it argued that the capi- a thinker who appears on the margins of talist relations do not contain a developmental the official history of critical theory. In the logic towards human emancipation. Instead, 1920s, he was in close contact with Bloch, they manifest and continue to manifest barba- Benjamin, Kracauer and Adorno. Especially rism as prospective destiny. Jürgen Habermas for Adorno’s exposition of critical theory held that Dialectic of Enlightenment con- as negative dialectic, Sohn-Rethel’s under- ceived of bourgeois society as a mode of irra- standing of historical materialist critique as tional rationality beyond reconciliation – that anamnesis of the genesis of social objectiv- is, it left ‘nothing in reserve to which it might ity and of bourgeois society as real abstrac- appeal’ for it lacked ‘any dynamism upon tion were of decisive importance. With one which critique could base its hope’.45 This exception – Johannes Agnoli, whom Stephan led to Habermas’ revision of critical theory Grigat discusses – the remaining chapters in as a discourse ethics intended to assure the this part introduce theoretical elaborations further progress of enlightenment reason in and challenges by students of Horkheimer contemporary society. and Adorno, including Hermann Kocyba Part II, ‘Theoretical Elaborations of a on Alfred Schmidt, Richard Langston on Critical Social Theory’, contains chapters and Oskar Negt, Jodi Maiso that introduce the development of critical on Hans-Jürgen Krahl, Ingo Elbe on Helmut social theory by figures that were closely Reichelt, Riccardo Bellofiore and Tommaso associated with the founding thinkers either Redolfi Riva on Hans-Georg Backhaus and as colleagues, friends or students. Its chap- Christoph Henning on Jürgen Habermas. ters include Cat Moir on Ernst Bloch and his Schmidt’s work focused on praxis as a cat- philosophy of hope and Eric-John Russell egory of critical social theory. He conceived on Georg Lukács, whose work was not only of it with nature as a category of the human of immense importance for the development metabolism, explored the capitalist conceptu- of critical theory but also subject to robust ality of nature and human praxis and rejected critique by Adorno in particular.46 Ansgar the structuralist view of history and society, Martins focuses on Siegfried Kracauer, also Althusser’s in particular, as an exemplar of a close friend and critic of Adorno’s. He was traditional theory. For Schmidt, the eco- an early critic of mass culture, who, like nomic critique of Marx is a critique of the Habermas some decades later, challenged entire system of social reproduction. With Adorno’s critical theory for its negativity – the exception of Habermas, this understand- nothing remains on which to fall back and ing of Marx’s critique of political economy build something new. Two further chapters, as a critical social theory is key also to the by Christian Voller and Hubertus Buchstein, theoretical exploration of the subsequent introduce Alfred Seidel and A.L.R. Gurland. contributors to the theoretical elaborations of

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critical theory. Alexander Kluge and Oskar uncovering a dynamic of social compulsion Negt introduced the notion of obstinacy as a through the movement of fundamentally eco- category of the critique of history as univer- nomic things. The two exceptions to these sal, linear and unfolding. Experienced history elaborations of critical theory are Johannes is cognisant of violence as the midwife of the Agnoli and Jürgen Habermas. Agnoli’s criti- constituted forms of civility. Social objectiv- cal theory focused on the state as the politi- ity hides suffering. Turning to the chapter on cal form of bourgeois society. His critique of Hans-Jürgen Krahl, who was at the forefront politics examined the political character of of 1968 in Germany, we see his exposition the critique of political economy against the of critical theory as critique of political econ- background of earlier critical theory about omy as practical. Given the conditions of the authoritarian state and its enduring signif- (economic) objectivity and, as Marcuse had icance in the post-war liberal democracies. In argued, integration of the into context of these further elaborations of criti- the capitalist system, Krahl asked about the cal theory, Jürgen Habermas’ critical theory agent and the means of human emancipation. is distinct. It offers neither a critique of the He developed the idea of a praxis of social economic object and its political character struggle as revolutionary process – an idea nor a critique of the socially specific forms of that, partly in critique of Habermas, Negt and human praxis and its relationship to nature. Kluge later explored with greater depth when His critical theory is characterised by its ethi- writing about proletarian experience and cal commitments towards reason. He estab- the proletarian . Krahl’s work lished a critical theory of social civility and on economic objectivity opened the door of ethical conduct through moral government. critical theory to autonomist Marxism (see Habermas is the outstanding German public Volume 3), Holloway’s account (see below) intellectual of the last century, and his critical and to the so-called Neue Marx Lektüre, theory provides philosophical underpinning associated in particular with the work of to his commitments. Reichelt and Backhaus. One of its ‘begin- Part III, ‘Critical Reception and Further nings’ is a paper on the value form, prepared Developments’, contains chapters that intro- by Backhaus for a seminar led by Adorno, duce the further development of a critical but which never materialised due to Adorno’s theory of society by figures that were influ- untimely death. Backhaus’ value-form analy- enced by, took up and elaborated key themes sis emphasised the social character of - of Frankfurt School critical theory. In particu- ist wealth that in the form of money presents lar, it contains a chapter by Andrew Brower itself in the form of seemingly independent Latz on Gillian Rose, her critique of neo- economic categories. He explored these cate- Kantianism and her notion of ‘the broken gories as inverted social categories. The Neue middle’ in post-fascist modernity. The scheme Marx Lektüre put Adorno’s critical theory of the Neue Marx Lektüre is developed fur- to work on Marx’s Capital. For Reichelt in ther with a chapter by Elena Louisa Lange particular, the new reading entailed a nega- on Moishe Postone and his exploration of tive dialectic which he unfolded in the form the critique of political economy as a critique of a dialectical presentation of economic cat- of labour. Postone’s work rejects the tradi- egories, uncovering a process of economic tion of labourism and Marxian economics in inversion of definite social relations. In their a direct manner, arguing that Marx’s critique specific ways, the contributions by Backhaus, of political economy amounts to a critique Reichelt and Krahl, as well as those of of labour. This theme is further developed Schmidt, Negt and Kluge, developed critical in Ana Cecilia Dinerstein’s chapter on John theory as a critique of society, of social praxis Holloway’s critique of the state and political in the form of inverted economic categories, reading of Adorno. The expansion of critical

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theory as the dialectical critique of reifica- Marcel Stoetzler was instrumental in con- tion and utopia in postmodernity is taken up ceiving of the Handbook project in its initial in Carolyn Lesjak’s chapter on the work of phase. In addition, we are indebted to our . Claudia Leeb and Michael advisory board for its most welcome support J. Thompson’s chapters on Nancy Fraser and through all phases of the Handbook. Special Axel Honneth’s notions of redistribution and thanks are due to Nadia Rakowitz, Lars recognition critically expound the principal Fischer, Christian Lotz, Patrick Murray, development of post-Habermasian thought in Frank Engster and Elena Louisa Lange for critical theory. The part also contains chapters helping us with timely advice and encourage- by Andrés Sáenz De Sicilia, Stefan Gandler, ment. ‘Thank you’ also to Amy Allen for her Nicholas Brown and Pedro Rocha de Oliveira help in pointing us in the right direction on Latin American thinkers who developed when all seemed lost. Finally, we are grateful the tradition of critical theory from within to the SAGE production team and its always their own historical contexts, socio-economic helpful and unstinting support. Particular conditions and cultural settings. These think- thanks are due to Matt Oldfield, Serena ers – BolÍvar EcheverrÍa, Adolfo Sánchez Ugolini, Colette Wilson and especially to Vásquez, Roberto Schwarz and Paulo Arantes Robert Rojek, who got the ball rolling. – developed their own reading of Marx’s cri- A final and most heartfelt ‘thank you’ is tique of political economy as a critical social due to our Volume 1 translators: to Cat Moir theory. The chapter on BolÍvar EcheverrÍa for Nico Bobka and Dirk Braunstein’s chapter explores his critique of capitalist social repro- on Theodor Adorno; Lars Fischer for Ansgar duction through the notion of ‘ethe’, by which Martins’ chapter on Siegfried Kracauer; he understood historically specific cultural Adrian Wilding for Stephan Grigat’s chapter configurations of modes of life. The chapter on Johannes Agnoli; and Jacob Blumenfeld on Adolfo Sánchez Vásquez introduces his for Christian Voller’s chapter on Alfred philosophy of praxis as critique of everyday Seidel, Hermann Kocyba’s on Alfred Schmidt, consciousness. This topic is further developed Frank Engster and Oliver Schlaudt’s chap- in the chapter on Roberto Schwarz, whose cri- ter on Sohn-Rethel; Ingo Elbe’s on Helmut tique of modern Brazilian culture developed Reichelt; and to Max Henninger for Christoph the critical-theory notion of ‘social form’ as Henning’s chapter on Jürgen Habermas. critique of realism as social process in the then periphery of capitalist society. Finally, the chapter on Paulo Arantes introduces a thinker Notes of the dialectics of Brazilian modernity and its historical temporality. Arantes reads the 1 Max Horkheimer, ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’ [1937], in Critical Theory (New York: Continuum, ‘North’ by the ‘South’, and in this manner 1972), 188–243. Herbert Marcuse, ‘Philosophy he joins Schwarz, Vásquez and EcheverrÍa in and Critical Theory’ [1937], in Negations. Essays in making an unrivalled contribution to a critical Critical Theory (London: Free Association Books, theory of the so-called periphery and its rela- 1968), 134–58. tionship to global capitalism. 2 The outline emphasises critical theory as a cri- tique of economic objectivity, which according to Martin Jay and Jürgen Habermas was not some- thing that Adorno especially concerned himself with. Habermas, Philosophisch-politische Profile ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987). Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 We are indebted to Neil Larsen for his guid- (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). ance and advice on the tradition of critical According to this view critical theory is funda- theory in Latin America and Wertkritik. mentally a critique of instrumental reason and of

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culture, not of political economy. This is a widely 12 On the importance of the concept of experience held view. See, for example, Moishe Postone and in critical theory, see especially the work of Oskar Barbara Brick, who argue that Friedrich Pollock’s Negt and Alexander Kluge, in particular their work on political economy spoke for the whole History and Obstinacy (New York: Zone Books, Frankfurt School, which allowed Adorno and 2014). others to develop more philosophical and cultural 13 On human contents as distraction in economic critiques. Postone and Brick, ‘Critical Pessimism argument, see Joseph Schumpeter, Geschichte and the Limits of Traditional Marxism’, Theory der oekonomischen Analyse (Göttingen: Vander- and Society 11(5): 617–58, 1982. hoek & Rubrecht, 1965). See also ’s 3 On this see the ground-breaking account of Moishe metaphysics of economic structure and being – he Postone, Time, Labour, and Social Domination defines the social science as a discourse without (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). a subject and argues that one can recognise Man 4 Most decisive are Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on only on the condition that the ‘philosophical myth the Philosophy of History’, which he wrote in of Man is reduced to ashes’. Althusser, Lenin and 1940 and were first published in 1942. According Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, to Benjamin in a letter to Gretel Adorno, the The- 1971), 160, and For Marx (London: Verso, 1996), ses focused ‘some thoughts about which I may 229. Althusser’s theory is entirely traditional in its say that I have kept them about myself for some rejection of the subject, Man in her social rela- twenty years’, and they were to establish a break tions, as scientific distraction to social theory. between what he calls ‘our’ way of thinking and 14 Negative Dialectics, 320. the ‘survival of positivism’, especially in the Marx- 15 Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilisation (Boston, ism of his time. Yet, they were not meant for MA: Beacon Press, 1955). See also Erich Fromm, publication, which, he said, ‘would throw wide The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge, 2001). open the doors to enthusiastic incomprehen- 16 See, for example, Negative Dialectics, 11, 196. sion’ (Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1.3 For recent elaborations, see Matthias Benzer, The (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1991), 1226–7). Accord- Sociology of Theodor Adorno (Cambridge: Cam- ing to Benjamin, history is not on the side of the bridge University Press, 2011) and Bonefeld, Criti- oppressed. He therefore argued for its progress cal Theory and the Critique of Political Economy, to be stopped – here and now. Benjamin, ‘The- esp. chapter 3. ses on the Philosophy of History’, Illuminations, 17 Negative Dialectics, 167. edited with an introduction by Hannah Arendt 18 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Warenform und Denkform (London: Pimlico, 1999), 245–55. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1978), 139. 5 For further argument about this term and its 19 Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its His- standing in critical theory, see Hans-Georg Back- tory, Theories and Political Significance (London: haus, ‘Between Philosophy and Science: Marxian Polity, 1994), 75–6. Social Economy as Critical Theory’, in Open Marx- 20 The notice by the Gestapo can be found in Hork- ism: Dialectics and History, edited by W. Bone- heimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 15 (Frankfurt: feld, R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (London: Pluto, Fischer, 1985), 111–12. 1992), 54–92. Helmut Reichelt, ‘Marx’s Critique 21 As did Hermann Heller in 1933. Heller, ‘Authori- of Economic Categories: Reflections on the Prob- tarian Liberalism’, reprinted in translation, Euro- lem of Validity in the Dialectical Method of Pre- pean Law Journal 21(3): 295–301, 2015. sentation in Capital’, Historical Materialism 15(4): 22 Herbert Marcuse. ‘The Struggle against Liberal- 3–52, 2007. Werner Bonefeld, Critical Theory ism in the Totalitarian View of the State’, in Nega- and the Critique of Political Economy (London: tions, 3–42, here 36. Bloomsbury, 2016). 23 Negative Dialectics, 365. 6 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (London: 24 Theodor Adorno, Einleitung zur Musiksoziologie Routledge, 1990), 251. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1962), 30. 7 Ibid., 11: ‘all concepts, even the philosophical 25 Theodor Adorno, Introduction to Sociology ones, refer to non-conceptualities’. (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), 83, 141. 8 The term ‘conceptualized praxis’ is Alfred 26 Theodor Adorno, ‘Society’, in Critical Theory and Schmidt’s. Schmidt, ‘Praxis’, in Gesellschaft: Society, edited by E. Bronner and D. Kellner (Lon- Beiträge zur Marxschen Theorie 2 (Frankfurt: don: Routledge, 1989), 267–75, here 272. Suhrkamp, 1974), 264–306. 27 Negative Dialectics, 304, 311. 9 Negative Dialectics, 197. 28 Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections 10 Ibid., 320. from Damaged Life (London: Verso, 2005), 102. 11 Ibid., 196. See also , Capital, vol. 1 29 Ibid., 156. Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1990), 494, n. 4. of History’, 252–3.

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30 Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston, 40 Joachim Hirsch, ‘Globalization and the State’, MA: Beacon Press, 2012), 41. Studies in Political Economy 54: 39–58, 1997. 31 Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 656. 41 On these debates see the volumes edited by John 32 Negative Dialectics, 244. Holloway and Sol Picciotto, Capital and State 33 Adorno, Lectures on History and Freedom (Cam- (London: Arnold, 1978), and Simon Clarke, The bridge: Polity, 2008), 51. State Debate (London: Macmillan, 1991). 34 Theodor Adorno, ‘Introduction’, in T. Adorno, 42 Theodor Adorno, Gesellschaftstheorie und Kul- H. Albert, R. Darendorf, J. Habermas, J. Pilot and turkritik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975), 43. Marx, K. Popper, The Positivist Dispute in German Sociol- Theories of Surplus Value, vol. 3 (London: Law- ogy (London: Heinemann, 1976), 1–67, here 62. rence & Wishart, 1975), 252. 35 Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice (London: 43 Negative Dialectics, 143. Heinemann, 1973), 207. 44 Pollock’s key contribution to the development of 36 See Axel Honneth, The Fragmented World of the critical theory – his theory of state capitalism – is Social (Albany, NY: State University of New York discussed in depth in Volume 2: Key Themes in the Press, 1995). Context of the Twentieth Century by Alexander 37 Axel Honneth, Struggle for Recognition. The Neupert-Doppler in his chapter on political form. Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: 45 Jürgen Habermas, ‘The Entwinement of Myth Polity, 1996), 114–15. and Enlightenment’, New German Critique 26: 38 Ibid. 13–30, here 21, 1982. 39 Axel Honneth. Pathologies of Reason: On the 46 See in particular Adorno’s ‘Reconciliation under Legacy of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia Duress’, in Aesthetics and Politics, edited by University Press, 2009), 10. T.W. Adorno (London: Verso, 1977), 160–76.

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