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Critical Pessimism and the Limits of Traditional MarxismAuthor(s): Moishe Postone and Barbara BrickReviewed work(s):Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 11, No. 5 (Sep., 1982), pp. 617-658Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657342 .

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618

sideration.Yet, giventhe intense desire or changeandthe difficulty of neatly

orderingthat movement within traditional

explanatory schemes,a form of

activism predominatedthat either denigratedtheory or reduced it from a

dialectical critique with which the political actors could attempt reflexivelyto locate themselves, to a tool by which the revolutionarysubject could be

located and obtained. Because theory had been so dogmaticallyand instru-

mentally reduced, the subsequentcollapse of such revolutionary llusions

has resulted in a situation of perplexity and helplessness,markedby a still

heightenedmistrustandrejectionof theory. Thesettlingof accountswith the

dogmatism of the recent past, convergingwith the currently popular one-

sided rejection of reasonas an instrument of domination,has become a con-

tributing actor to the latestversionof the (by now chronic)crisisof Marxism.

The new waveof Gallicdecapitation n the purportedserviceof emancipation

cannot, however, hide the absence of and need for an adequate critiqueof

contemporarycapitalism,a need that has been underlinedby the reemergenceof classical manifestationsof industrialcapitalismsuch as economic crises

and global intercapitalistrivalry,withina context conditionedby suchnewer

problems as ecology, minority emancipation, and mass disaffection with

existing forms of labor,traditionalvalues,andinstitutions.(A criticalanalysisof postliberal capitalism can neither afford to ignore its significant new

dimensionsnor,however,that it remainscapitalist.)

CriticalTheory representsthe attempt at such an analysis.We shall seek to

indicate that the pessimismof the theory was rooted in, and indicates the

limits of, its point of departure.That is, althoughthat pessimism s certainlyunderstandablewith reference o its historicalcontext - the failureof revolu-

tion in the West,the emergenceof Stalinism,the victory of NationalSocial-

ism, and the characterof postwar capitalism- it is not fully explainable n

those terms. That pessimismbecame immanent to the theory itself, to the

fundamental theoretical assumptions constituting the framework within

which those majorhistorical developmentswere reflected. The significanceof the changed morphology of postliberalcapitalismwas, on the one hand,

recognizedvery early and analyzedincisively. On the other hand, as a result

of those changes, the social totality was no longer consideredto possess an

intrinsic contradiction out of which the possibility of a new social forma-tion could immanently emerge.1 The pessimismbecame one regarding he

immanenthistorical possibility of socialism, rather than merely the proba-

bility of its realization.2

We intend to approachthe problemof the pessimismof CriticalTheory by

examining Friedrich Pollock's analysis of the transformationof capitalismassociatedwith the rise and developmentof the interventionist tate that he,



619

together with GerhardMeyerand Kurt Mandelbaum, eveloped n the 1930s

andearly

1940s. Thatanalysis played

an important, if sometimes only

implicit, role in the critique of advancedcapitalismfurther developed by

Horkheimer,Marcuse,and Adorno.3Its epistemological mplicationswill be

examined by an investigation of the changes in Horkheimer'snotion of

critical theory that occurred between 1937 and 1941. In uncoveringthe

limits of its underlying assumptions, we hope to illuminate an important

dimension of the pessimistic turn of CriticalTheoryas an expressionof an

earliercrisis of Marxist heory in the attempt to formulatea critiqueof post-

liberalcapitalism.The GreatDepression, he resultant ncreasinglyactiverole

played by the state in the socioeconomic sphere, as well as the Soviet expe-

rience with planning,led Pollock to conclude that the political spherehad

supersededthe economic as the locus of both economic regulationand the

articulationof social problems.He characterized his shift as the primacyof

the political over the economic.4As we shallindicate,this position was based

on a set of presuppositionsthat enabled Pollock to analyze the transition

from laissez-fairecapitalismto a stage characterizedby the interventionist

state, but that didnot enable him to locate a historicaldynamic mmanentto

that latter stage. We do not intend to question Pollock's basic position that

the developmentof the interventionist state entailed changesof far-reaching

economic, social, and political consequences. Our concern is to examine the

theoretical framework within which he analyzedthose changes;that is, the

implications of Pollock's understandingof the economic and of the basic

contradictionbetween the forces and relationsof production.5

Pollock's point of departure n analyzingboth the fundamentalcausesof the

Great Depression and its possible historical results was that of traditional

Marxism.Wearenot usingthis term to delineate a specifichistoricaltendencyin Marxism utas a generalcharacterization eferring o all analysesof capital-ism that interpret its essential relations of production in terms of private

ownershipof the means of productionand a marketeconomy. According o

this general interpretation, the developed forces of production come into

increasingcontradiction with those relations,whichgivesriseto the historical

possibility of socialism - collective ownership of the means of production

and economic planning.6

In two essays written in 1932-33,7 Pollock characterizedthe course of

capitalistdevelopmentas havingbeen markedby an increasingcontradiction

between the forces of production (interpretedas the industrialmode of pro-

duction) and private appropriationmediated socially by the automatismof

the self-regulatory market.8Thisgrowingcontradictionunderlayeconomic

crises that, by violently diminishingthe forces of production (the under-



620

utilization of machinery, he destructionof rawmaterials,and the unemploy-ment of thousands of workers),were the meansby which capitalismsought

automatically o resolve the contradiction.9In this sensethe world depres-sion representednothing new. Yet the intensity of the depressionand the

crassnessof the gap between the social wealth produced,which potentially

could have served the satisfactionof humanneeds, and the impoverishment

of large segmentsof the population, marked the end of an era.10 t indicated

that the present economic form is incapable of using the forces which it

itself developed for the benefit of all members of society. 'l Becausethis

developmentwas not a function of historicalcontingency but resultedfrom

the dynamicof liberalcapitalism tself, it wouldbe a wastedeffort to attempt

to reestablish he technical, economic and social-psychological onditions for

a free marketeconomy. 12

What then were the contours of the new order that was to succeed liberal

capitalism?Pollack saw that the possibility of a new form that could resolve

the difficulties of the older one had developedwithinthe latter;the develop-

ment of free marketcapitalismhad givenrise to the possibility of its super-

session:a centrallyplannedeconomy.l3 Yet - andhereis the decisiveturning

point - that need not be socialism.Pollock maintainedthat laissez-faireand

capitalism were not necessarily identical and that the economic situation

could be stabilizedwithin the frameworkof capitalism tself, throughmassive

and ongoing intervention of the state in the economy.14Ratherthan identi-

fying socialism with planning, Pollock distinguished two main types of

planned economic systems: a capitalist planned economy on the basis of

private ownershipof the means of production and hence within the social

frameworkof class society, and a socialist planned economy characterized

by social ownershipof the means of productionwithinthe social framework

of a classlesssociety. '5 Pollackrejectedany theory of the automaticbreak-

down of capitalismandemphasized hat socialismdoes not necessarily ollow

capitalism:its realizationdepends not only on economic and technical fac-

tors, but also on the power of resistanceof those who carrythe burdenof

the existing order. And, for Pollock, massive resistanceon the part of the

proletariatappearedunlikely in the near future as a result of the changed

weight of the working class in the economic process, changes in weapons

technology, and the newly developed means for the psychic and spiritual

dominationof the masses.'6

Ratherthan socialism,Pollock considereda capitalistplannedeconomy to be

the most likely result of the GreatDepression: What s comingto an end is

not capitalism,but its liberalphase. 7The differencebetween capitalismand

socialism in an age of planninghas become reducedto that between private



621

and social ownershipof the meansof production.In both cases,the freemar-

keteconomy

has beenreplaced by

stateregulation.

Even thisdistinction,however,wasto becomeproblematic. nspeakingof the reactionof capitalism

to the crisis, Pollock posited a double process of adaptation: the violent

diminishingof the forces of production and a looseningof the fetters -

a modification of the relationsof production(i.e., propertyrelations)throughstate intervention.18Pollock claimed, on the one hand, that it mightbe pos-sible for both to occur without touching the basis of the capitalist system:

private property and its valorization.19On the other hand, he noted that

continuous state interventioninvolves a more or less drastic imitation of the

individualowner'spowerof disposaloverhis capital,andassociatedthat with

the tendency, alreadypresentbefore WorldWarI, for ownershipandeffective

management o become separated.20The determinationof capitalism n terms

of privatepropertyhad begunto be ambiguous,andwas effectively dispensedwith in Pollock's essaysof 1941, in which the theory of the primacyof the

politicalwas fully developed.

Intheseessays- StateCapitalism nd IsNationalSocialisma New Order?

- which both appeared n Studies in Philosophy andSocial Science in 1941,Pollock describedand analyzedthe newly emergentsocialorderas state capi-talism. His method was to proceed ideal typically. Whereas n 1932 Pollock

had opposed a socialist to a capitalistplannedeconomy, in 1941 he opposedtotalitarianand democraticstate-capitalismas the two primary dealtypes of

the new order.21 In 1941 Pollock included the Soviet Union as a state capi-talist society.22) Within the totalitarianform the state is in the hands of anew rulingstratum,an amalgamation f leadingbureaucratsn business,state,

and party.23In the democraticform the state is controlledby the people. In

both, the state has replacedthe marketas the institution that has the func-tion of balancingproductionand distribution.24Pollock'sideal-typicalanaly-sis concentrated on the totalitarianstate capitalist form. Whenstrippedofthose aspects specific to totalitarianism,his examinationof the fundamental

changein the relation of state to civil society can be seen as constitutingthe

political-economicdimension of a generalcriticaltheory of postliberalcapi-talism,whichwasdevelopedmore fully by Horkheimer,Marcuse,and Adorno.

For Pollock, the central characteristicof the state capitalist order was, asalready ndicated, he replacementof marketregulationby the state. Althougha market, a price system, and wages may remain, they no longer serve the

general function of regulating he economic process.25Furthermore,even ifthe legal institution of privateproperty s retained, ts economic functionhasbeen effectively abolished, inasmuchas the right of disposalover individual

capitalhas been transferred n largemeasurefrom the individualcapitalisttothe state.26 The capitalist has been transformed nto a mere rentier.27The



622

state formulatesa generalplanand compelsits fulfillment. As a result,private

property,the law of the

market,or other economic aws such as the

equal-ization of the rate of profit or its tendency to fall do not retain their previ-

ously essential functions.28In Pollock'sunderstanding, roduction s then no

longer commodity productionbut is for use - albeit not, as he emphasized,for the needs of free humans in an harmonioussociety. 29Problems of

administration avereplaced hose of the processof exchange.30

The importanceof this transitionfor Pollock was not restrictedto the tech-

nical problem of how goods are distributed.Proceedingfrom the notion of

the market as a determination of social totality, he outlined the broader

implicationsof its supersessionby the state. In his interpretation,all social

relations underliberalcapitalismare determinedby the market;people con-

front one another in the public sphereas free buyers and sellers.This rela-

tion also implies a relationof classesin which freedom of classdevelopmentis possible. Moreover, t implies that the rulesgoverning he public sphereare

mutual;law is the doubled rationality,applyingto rulers,aswell as to ruled.

The existence of an impersonal egal realmis constitutive for the separation

of the public and private spheresand, by implication, for the formationof

the bourgeois individual.Social position is a function of the market and of

income; employees are impelledto work by fear of hungerand the wish for

a better life.31Under state capitalism,the state becomes the determinantof

all spheres of social life.32The hierarchyof bureaucraticpolitical structures

occupies the centerof socialexistence. Marketrelationsarereplacedby those

of a commandhierarchy n which a one-sidedtechnical rationalityreignsin

the place of law. The majority of the population becomes, in effect, paid

employees of the political apparatus, acking political rights, powers of self-

organization, and the right to strike. Individualsand groups are no longer

autonomous, but are subordinatedto the whole. The impetus to work is

effected by political terroron the one hand andby psychicmanipulationon

the other. Individualsare treated as means, because of their productivity,

rather than as ends in themselves. This is veiled insofaras they are compen-

sated for their loss of independenceby the socially sanctionedtransgressionof some earlier sexualtaboos, for example,which,by breakingdown the wall

separating he intimate sphere from society and the state, allows for furthersocialmanipulation.33

Pollock, then, by no means consideredthe effective abolition of the market

and private property with its related social and culturalconsequencesto be

unequivocallypositive, althoughhe clearlyunderstoodthat a return o liberal

capitalism was impossible. The problem then became one of the possible

transitorycharacterof state capitalism, hatis, its supersessionby socialism.34



623

That possibility, accordingto Pollock, could not be rooted economically.As

opposedto free market

capitalism,the command

economyhas at its

disposalthe means to check the economic causesof depressions, he periodicdestruc-

tion of the forces of production, and the underutilizationof capital and

labor.35 For Pollock, the primacy of the political meant that the economyhad become totally manageable.He repeatedlyemphasized hat no economic

laws of functions exist that could hinder or set a limit to the functioningsof

state capitalism.36 f this is the case,is there no possibilitythat state capitalismcan be overcome?In his tentativeanswer,Pollock sketchedthe beginningsof

a theory of political crises- crises in political legitimation.The primacyof

the political arose historicallyas the solution to the economic ills of liberal

capitalism.In light of the GreatDepression,Pollock asserted hat the primarytasks of the new social orderwould be to maintain full employment and to

enable the forcesof productionto developunhindered,while maintaining he

basis of the old social structure.37The replacementof the marketby the state

means that mass unemploymentwould immediatelyinvolve a political crisis,one which would call the system into question. The state capitalist form

necessarilyrequires ull employmentto legitimate tself.

Totalitarian state capitalism is confronted with additional problems. That

orderrepresents he worst form of antagonisticsociety in which the powerinterests of the rulingclasspreventsthe people from fully usingthe productiveforces for their own welfare and fromhavingcontrol of the organizationand

activitiesof society. 38Becauseof the intensityof this antagonism, otalitarian

state capitalismcannot allow an appreciablerise in the generalstandardof

living for, as Pollock argued, such a rise would free people to reflect their

situationand therebyto developcriticalthought, out of which a revolutionary

spirit, with its demands for freedom andjustice, could emerge.39Totalitarian

state capitalism s therefore faced with the problemof how to maintain full

employment, promote furthertechnical progress,and yet not allow the stan-

dardof livingto riseappreciably.Accordingto Pollock, only a permanentwar

economy could achive these tasks simultaneously.The greatestthreat to the

totalitarian ormis peace. In a peace economy, the system could not maintain

itself, despite mass psychological manipulation and terror.40It could not

tolerate a high standardof living and could not survivemassunemployment.A high standardof livingcould be maintainedby democraticstate capitalism,which Pollock seemed to view as an unstable, transitory form: either classdifferences would assertthemselves,in which case developmentwould be in

the direction of totalitarianstate capitalism, or democratic control of the

state would result in the abolition of the last remnants of class society,

thereby leading to socialism.41 The latter's prospects, however, appeareddim, given Pollock's thesis of the absence of economic limits and his aware-



624

ness that a policy of military preparedness s a hallmarkof the state capi-talist era.42Although Pollock hoped that democraticstate capitalismcould

be establishedand developed furtherin the direction of socialism,that hopewas not rooted in an analysisthat indicatedthe possibility of its realization.

His position was fundamentallypessimistic.The overcomingof the new order

could not be derivedimmanentlyfrom the system itself but became depen-dent on an unlikely extrinsic circumstance:worldpeace.

Several aspects of Pollock's analysis are problematic. His examination of

liberalcapitalism ndicated tsdynamicdevelopmentandhistoricity; t showed

how the immanentcontradictionbetween its forces and relationsof produc-tion gave rise to the possibility of its historical negation: an economically

planned society. Pollock's analysisof state capitalism,however,was static;it

merely describedvarious ideal types. No immanent historical dynamicwas

indicatedfromwhich the possibilityof anothersocialformationcould emerge.His initial formulation of a political crisis theory did, to be sure, seek to

uncovermoments of instability and conflict. Yet that theory was an analysis

of the possibility that totalitarian state capitalismbe transformed nto the

democratic variant.Whereas iberalcapitalismand state capitalismexist in ahistoricalrelationto one another,totalitariananddemocraticstate capitalismdo not. They representpolitical alternativeswithin the same historicalframe

- two different modes of the political administrationof the same economic

organization planning)and social structure class society). Moreover, n deal-

ingwith the possibletransition rom(democratic) tatecapitalism o socialism

(classless society), Pollock did not do so by elucidatinga dynamicwithin the

former that renders the latter a growingpossibility.We must thus consider

why, for Pollock, the state of capitalismcharacterizedby the primacyof theeconomic is contradictory and dynamic, while that characterizedby the

primacyof the political is not.

What did Pollock mean by the economic? In postulating the primacy of

politics over economics, he determinedthe latter in terms of the quasi-auto-

matic market-mediated oordination of needs and resources,whereby pricemechanisms direct production and distribution.43Profits and wages under

liberalcapitalismdirectthe flow of capitalandthe distributionof laborpowerwithin the economic process.44This implies an understandingof value as a

category that accounts for the automatic regulationof the market, as the

expressionof a society in which economic regulationdoes not proceed con-

sciously, and occurs within the frameworkof a class society. The centrality

of the marketin Pollock's notion of the economic was also indicatedby his

interpretationof the commodity:agoodis a commodity only when circulated

by the market;in its absence, the product is a use-value.Furthermore, hat



625

economic laws, in Pollock's view, are rooted in the market form of social

regulationis indicated by his assertion, noted above, that, with the super-session of the marketby the state, such lawslose their essential function and

do not basically influence the workings of state capitalism.The economic

sphere and, hence implicitly, the Marxiancategories, in other words, are

understoodonly in termsof the mode of distribution.Pollock'snotion of the

primacyof the economic can thusbe translatedas the primacyof the market-

mediated mode of distribution. The contradiction between the forces and

relations of productionwas interpreted accordingly.The growingconcentra-

tion and centralizationof production rendersprivate ownership ncreasingly

dysfunctional and anachronistic;45 he periodic crises indicate that the

automatic mode of regulation is not harmonious and that the anarchic

operations of economic laws have become increasinglydestructive.46The

existenceof crises mplicitlydemandsa plannedmode of economic regulation,which becomes increasinglypossible with the centralization,concentration,and socializationof production. The contradiction mmanentto liberalcapi-

talism, then, is one between the mode of production and that of distribu-

tion.47

When the state supplantsthe marketas the agency of distribution,the eco-

nomic sphereis essentiallysuspendedandeconomics, as a social science, loses

the object of its investigation: Whereas he economist formerlyrackedhis

brain to solve the puzzle of the exchangeprocess,he meets, understate capi-

talism,with mereproblemsof administration. 48Withstate planning, n other

words,consciousregulationhas takenthe placeof the nonconscious,economic

mode. UnderlyingPollock's notion of the primacyof the politicalis an under-

standingof the economic based on the presuppositionof the primacyof themode of distribution. At this point it shouldbe clearwhy, according o such

an interpretation,state capitalismpossessesno immanentdynamic.The latter

implies a logic of development,above andbeyond consciouscontrol,which is

based on a contradiction intrinsic to the system. If, on the one hand, the

market is the source of all nonconscious social structures of necessity and

regulation, it constitutes the basis of the so-called laws of motion of the

capitalistsocial formation; f, on the other hand, planningalone implies full

conscious control andis thereforenot limitedby any economic laws, then thesupersession of the market by state planningmust signify the end of anyblind logic of development.Historicaldevelopmentis now consciously regu-lated. Moreover,an understandingof the contradiction between the forcesand relations of productionas one based on the growinginadequacyof themarket and private property to conditions of developed industrialproduc-tion, implies that a mode based on planningand the effective abolition of

private property is adequateto those conditions. A contradiction no longer



626

exists between those new relationsof production and the industrialmode

of production. The primacy of the political thus refers to anantagonisticsociety possessingno immanentdevelopment leadingto the increasedpossi-

bility of socialism.The socialtotality has become a noncontradictorywhole.

Pollock's examination of state capitalismindicates the problemswith, and

limitations of, the attempt to grasp the social formation by means of a

theory of the primacyof the mode of distribution.In the firstplace, it high-

lights the limitations of the Marxiancategories,when understoodas deter-

minations of the mode of distributionalone. In Pollock's ideal-typicalanal-

ysis, value (that is, the market, accordingto this interpretation)had been

supersededand private property had effectively been abolished.The result,as Pollock indicated, did not necessarilyconstitute the foundations of the

good society. On the contrary, that supersessioncould and did lead to

forms of greateroppressionand tyranny that no longer could be adequatelycriticizedby means of the category of value. Furthermore,accordingto this

interpretation, the overcoming of the market meant that the system of

commodity production had been replacedby one of use-valueproduction.

Yet that was shown to be an insufficient determinationof emancipation.Itdid not, in and of itself, indicate whether use-orientedproductionservesthe

needs of free humansin a harmonioussociety. Pollock's analysisthus impli-

citly indicates that the Marxiancategories,when understoodonly in terms

of the mode of distribution,do not adequately graspthe groundsof unfree-

dom in capitalism.Overcomingthat mode does not necessarilyentail over-

coming class society and the realizationof emancipation.Pollock, however,

did not proceed o reconsider he sourceof those limitations of the categories:

the one-sidedemphasison the mode of distribution.Insteadhe retained hat

emphasiswhile implicitly limitingthe validity of Marx'scategoriesto liberal

capitalism.The retention of the assumptionof the primacyof distribution,

however, gave rise to serious theoretical difficulties in Pollock'streatmentof

state capitalism.As we have seen, capitalismas state capitalismcould

exist, according o Pollock, in the absenceof the market andprivateproperty.

These, however,are its two essentialcharacteristics, s definedby traditional

Marxist theory. What, in the absence of those relations of production,

characterizes he new phaseas capitalist?Pollock listed the followinggroundsfor his characterization: State capitalism s the successorof privatecapital-

ism, ... the state assumes important functions of the private capitalist, . . .

profit interests still play a significant role and ... it is not socialism. 49 It

appears,at first glance, that the key to Pollock's specification of postliberalclass society as capitalist s his statement that profit interestscontinue to playan importantrole.He says, to be sure,that such interests become subordinate

to a general plan, but maintains that no state capitalistgovernmentcan or



627

will dispense with the profit motive. 5 Its abolition would destroy the

characterof the entiresystem.

It seems that thespecific

characterof the

entiresystem could be clarifiedby a considerationof profit.

This clarification s not offered by Pollock. Insteadof undertakingan analysis

of profit that would help determinethe capitalistcharacterof the new social

form, Pollock treatsthat categoryin an indeterminate ashion,as a subspeciesof power.

Another aspect of the changedsituationunder state capitalism s that the profitmotive is supersededby the powermotive. Obviously he profit motive is a specificform of the powermotive .... Thedifference,however, s ... that the latter s essen-

tially boundup with the power positionof the rulinggroupwhile the formerpertainsto the individual nly.51

Leavingaside a consideration of the weakness of a position that implicitlyderives relationsof power from a motive for power, it is clearthat the above

approachmerely underlines he political characterof state capitalismwithout

furtherelucidating ts capitalistdimension.That the economic, accordingto

Pollock, no longer plays an essentialrole is reflected in his basically emptytreatmentof profit. Economic categories(profit) have become subspeciesof

political categories (power). Pollock's strategic intention seems clear: to

emphasize that the abolition of the market and private property does not

suffice for the transformationof capitalisminto socialism. He could not,

however, adequately ground his characterizationof postliberal antagonistic

society as capitalist.A notion of state capitalismnecessarily mpliesthat what

is being politically regulated s capitalism;t demands, herefore,a concept of

capital.Such considerationsare not to be found in Pollock's treatment.The

essential difference between the two formations is simply that capitalismremains antagonistic, that is, a class society.52The term capitalism, how-

ever, requiresa morespecificdetermination han that of classantagonism, or

all developedhistorical forms of society have been antagonistic.The conceptof contradiction goes beyond the simple notion of an antagonismbetween

rulersand ruled, whereby social production is not utilized for the benefit of

all. Whereas an antagonistic form is usually static, a contradictory form

necessarilyimplies a dialecticaldynamic that points to the possibility of itsovercoming.In Pollock's treatment, class antagonism n state capitalism s no

longerrooted in a contradictorysocial form.

Pollock's position rendersopaque the materialconditionsunderlying he dif-

ference between an antagonistic and a classless society. In the traditional

Marxistanalysis,the system based on the marketandprivatepropertyneces-

sarily implies a specific class system. Overcoming hose relationsof produc-



tion is taken to constitute the economic presuppositionof a classlesssociety.

A fundamentallydifferent social organization s bound to a fundamentally

different economic organization.WhereasPollock proceededfrom the same

assumptionsregarding he structureof liberal capitalism,the intrinsic con-

nectednessof the economic organizationand the social structurewas severed

in his treatmentof postliberalsocieties.Althoughstate capitalism,as opposedto socialism,is characterizedas a class system, the basic economic organiza-

tion (in the broadersense)of both is the same:centralplanningand the effec-

tive abolition of private property under conditions of developed industrial

production.This, however, impliesthat the differencebetween a classsystem

and a classlesssociety is not relatedto fundamentaldifferencesin theireco-

nomic organizations,but is simply a function of the mode and goal of its

administration.The basic structureof society had thus presumablybecome

independent of its economic form; a non-relation s impliedbetween social

structure and economic organization.This paradoxicalresult is implicit in

Pollock's theoretical point of departure. If one understandsthe Marxian

categoriesand the notion of the relationsof production n termsof the mode

of distribution, the conclusion is inescapablethat the dialectic of economic

developmenthas run its coursewith the overcomingof the marketandprivate

property. The politically mediated economic organization hat emergesthus

representsthe historical endpoint of the mode of distribution. The further

existence of class society in sucha situationcan thereforenot be grounded n

thatmode, which presumablywould alsounderliea classlesssociety.

Moreover,class antagonismalso could not be rooted in the sphereof pro-

duction. We have seen that, given the above interpretationof the Marxian

categories, the transformationof the relations of production does notentail a transformationof the industrialmode of productionbut represents

an adjustment adequate to that mode, which presumablyhad already

acquiredits historicallyfinal form. The continued existence of class society

could thus be grounded n neither the mode of productionnor of distribution.

The economic organization, in Pollock's analysis, had become a historical

invariablethat underlies various possible political forms and is no longer

related to social structure.Pollock was compelledto posit a political sphere

that not only maintainsand reinforces class differences,but groundsthem.Class relations became reduced to power relations, the source of which

remainobscure.Givenhis point of departure,however,it seemsthat Pollock

had little choice in so reductivelyanalyzingthe repoliticizationof social life

that he perceived.Finally, the limits of that point of departure n adequately

grasping he changed morphologyof postliberalcapitalismclearly emerged n

Pollock's treatment of the capitalist relations of production. The notion

itself, as must be emphasized,refersto what characterizes apitalismas capi-



629

talism, that is, the essenceof the social formationas such, and not simplyone

of its phases.The logic of Pollock'sinterpretation hould haveinduced a fun-

damentalreconsideration: f capitalistrelationsof productionare, indeed,to

be considered as the marketand privateproperty,the ideal-typicalpostliberalform should not be consideredcapitalist.On the other hand, characterizingthe new form as capitalist, in spite of the (presumed)abolitionof those rela-

tional structures, mplicitly demands a different determinationof those rela-

tions of productionessentialto capitalism.Such an approach, n otherwords,should call into questionthe identificationof the marketandprivatepropertywith the essential relationsof production- even for the liberalphaseof capi-

talism.

Pollock, however, did not undertakesucha reconsideration. nsteadhe modi-

fied the traditionaldeterminationof the relationsof production by limitingits validity to the liberalphase of capitalism,and postulated its supersession

by a politicalmode of distribution.The result is a new set of theoreticalprob-lems and weaknesses hat point to the necessity for a more radicalreexamina-

tion of the traditionaltheory. If one maintains,as Pollockdid, that the capi-

talist social formation possesses successivelydifferent sets of relations of

production, one necessarilyposits a core of that formationthat is not fully

graspedby any of those sets of relations.Thisseparationof the essenceof the

formation from all determinate relations of production indicates,however,that the latterhave been inadequatelydetermined.Moreover,what inPollock's

analysisremainedthe essence- classantagonism is too historically ndeter-

minate to be of usein the specificationof the capitalistsocial formation. Both

weaknesses ndicate the inadequacyandlimitsof Pollock'spoint of departure:

locating the relations of production only in the sphereof distribution.We donot wish to imply that what Pollock analyzed as constituting a significanttransformation n social life and the structureof domination in postliberal

capitalism should be discounted or considered superficial. That analysis,

however, must be placed on a firmer theoretical basis. Such a basis, as we

shall attempt to indicate,would also call into questionthe necessarymoment

of Pollock'spessimism.

It shouldnow be clear we do not regardas adequatea critiqueof Pollock thatproceeds from the presuppositionsof traditionalMarxism.Such an approachcould reintroducea dynamicto the analysisby pointingout that marketcom-

petition andprivatepropertyhaveby no meansdisappeared r lost theirfunc-

tions under state-interventionist apitalism. This, of course,would not applyto the so-called realexistingsocialist variantsof state capitalism.One weak-

ness of traditionalMarxism s that it cannotprovidethe basis for an adequate

critique of such societies.) Indeed, on a less immediatelyempirical evel, the



630

question could be raised whether it would at all be possible for bourgeois

capitalism to reach a stage in which all elements of market capitalismare

overcome. Nevertheless, n our opinion, the historical dynamicthat can be

recovered n this fashiondoes not get at the roots of Pollock'spessimism.It is

insufficient merely to oppose a dynamic to his static analysis;the sort of

dynamic, its basis, and its resultsmust be examined.An approachthat suc-

cessfully reintroducesa dynamic to the analysisof state-interventionist api-talism on the basis of the continued significanceof the marketand private

property simply avoids the fundamentalproblemsraised when that develop-

ment is thought throughto its endpoint: the abolitionof those relationsof

production. Thequestionmust thenbe facedwhether that abolitionis indeed

a sufficient condition for socialism. The Marxiancategory of value, for

example,canbe considereda criticalcategoryadequate o the capitalistsocial

formation, if it not only groundsan immanentdynamicof that social form

leadingto the possibilityof its historicalnegation,but also sufficientlygraspsthe core of that contradictory,alienatedform, so the abolitionof valuesimul-

taneously implies the social basis of freedom.As we haveattemptedto show,

Pollock's approach, in spite of its frozen characterand shaky theoretical

foundation, indicates that an interpretationof the relations of production

and, hence, value in terms of the sphereof distribution s inadequate o that

task. To criticize him on the basis of that interpretationwould, therefore,

representa step behind the level of the problemas it has emerged n the con-

siderationof Pollock'sanalysis.53

In spite of the difficulties associatedwith Pollock's ideal-typicalapproach,

it has the unintended heuristic value of allowing a perceptionof the prob-

lematic characterof the assumptionsof traditionalMarxism.Wehavecharac-terized that theory in verygeneral ermsas one basedon the assumption hat

the capitalistrelationsof productionare to be identifiedessentiallywith the

modeof distribution. n this generalview, the courseof capitalistdevelopment

can be summarizedas follows: The structureof free-marketcapitalismwas

such that it gave rise to industrialproduction - a mode that increasingly

comes into contradictionwith the existing relationsof production and that

createsthe conditionsof possibilityof a historicallynew,just, andconsciously

regulatedmode of distributionof a degreeof wealthpreviouslyunthinkable.In the process of accumulation,accompaniedby competition and crises,the

marketandprivatepropertybecome increasinglynadequate o andinhibiting

for developedindustrialproduction.Yet the historicaldynamic gives rise to

the technical possibilities of centralized planning and the overcoming of

privateproperty,as well as to theirsocio-organizational resuppositions: en-

tralizationand concentrationof the means of production, the tendency of

ownership and managementto become separated from one another, and



631

the constitution and concentrationof an industrialproletariat.Socialism,in

other words, is considered as a social form of the regulationand organiza-

tion of distribution more adequate to the industrial mode of production.

The ultimate concern of this version of the theory, then, is the historical

critiqueof the mode of distribution.

This, at first glance, may appearparadoxical.All Marxistsclaim that theirs

is a theory of social production. The role of production within the tradi-

tional critiquemust, therefore,be more closely considered.The development

of large-scale ndustrialproduction, in that theory, is consideredessentially

as the historical mediation from the capitalist mode of distribution to

the possibility of another. Because the forces of production that stand in

contradiction to capitalist relations of production are identified with the

industrial mode of production, the transition to socialism is consideredin

terms of a transformation of the mode of distribution, not, however, of

that mode of production itself. The industrialmode of production is thus

viewed as being intrinsically independent of capitalism hat, in turn, is

introduced as a set of extrinsic factors: private ownershipand exogenous

conditions of the valorizationof capitalwithin a marketeconomy. Industrial

production is thus understood only as a technical process, a labor processthat is not intrinsicallysocially determined, that is, is not molded by the

valorizationprocess. It necessarilyfollows that industrial abor, once histori-

cally constituted, is considered to be independent of, and nonspecific to,

capitalism,and class domination is consideredto be rooted in the mode of

distribution alone, rather than as being intrinsic to the mode of productionitself. Within his basicframework, the industrialmode of production - that

based on proletarian abor- is seen as historically inal. This leadsto a notionof socialism as the linearcontinuation of the industrialmode of productionto which capitalismgave rise, as a new mode of political administrationand

economic regulationof the same mode of production.TraditionalMarxism,

asatheoryof production,does not entail a critqueof production.On the con-

trary, production serves as the historical standardof the adequacy of the

mode of distribution,as the point of departure or its critique.

This approach is tied to a particular understandingof the basic Marxiancategories. The interpretationof the category of value generallyassociated

with this view, for example, is that of a categoryof marketdistribution as

the nonconscious, automatic regulatorof the social distributionof goodsand services, capital, and labor.54Value is thus consideredto be a category

graspinga historically specific mode of the distributionof wealth, rather

than as a historicallyspecific form of wealth. The crucialMarxiandistinction

between material wealth and value is blurred.Consequently,the specificity



632

of the form of laborthat constitutesvalue can no longerbe analyzed.Instead

a transhistoricalnotion of labor isposited

as the source of wealth that in

capitalismis distributedby means of the market(value) and nonmanifestly

appropriatedby the capitalists(surplus value). The basis of such an inter-

pretation is closer to the assumptionsof classicalpolitical economy than it

is to those of Marx. It is thus no surprise hat Marx's labortheory of value

is frequently considered to be a more consistent and rigorousversion of

Ricardo'stheory rather than its critique.55It is taken to be a theory that

demystifies capitalist society by revealing labor to be the true source of

social wealth. Overcomingvalue is not understood as overcomingthe form

of labor that constitutes it. Instead, form and content become separated.

Overcomingvalue is taken to be overcominga mediate, mystifying form of

distribution that thereby allows its content - labor to emergeopenly

behind the veils of capitalist mystification as the regulatingprinciple of

society.56 The specificity, analyzed by Marx, of a historically determinate

form of labor that servesas a medium of social relationsis swept away in

favor of a transhistoricalconcept of labor that is the basis for a critique

of the mode of distribution.

When socialismis consideredin terms of a transformationof the mode of

distributionadequateto the industrialmode of production,that adequacy s

implicitly consideredto be the conditionof generalhuman freedom.General

human freedomis thus groundedin the industrialmode of production,once

freed from the fetters of value (the market)andprivateproperty.Emanci-

pation, in other words, is grounded n labor and is realized n a social form

in which it has openly emergedandcome to itself as the socialprinciple.This

notion, of course, is inseparablytied to that of socialist revolution as the

comingto itself' of the proletariat.TheMarxiancritiqueof productionand

distribution, bound to the notion of the self-abolitionof the proletariat s,

in traditionalMarxism,replacedby both a critiqueof distributionalone and

the notion of the self-realizationof the proletariat.The form of laborandof

productionis thus excluded from the purviewof sucha historicalcritiqueof

capitalism.Whatin Marx'sanalysiswas the centralobject of critiquebecomes

the locus of freedom in Marxism.57This frameworkremainsunproblematic

only for the strainof traditionalMarxism hat considers realexistingsocial-ism to be an emancipatory orm. Its limitations,however,become particu-

larly evident in those positions that, sharing he sametheoreticalpresupposi-

tions as to the essenceanddynamicof capitalism,attempt to providea Marxist

critiqueof those societies. In all cases, understandinghe economic sphere n

terms of the mode of distributionalone does not allow for the location of an

immanentdynamicof developmentand the unfolding of an intrinsiccontra-

diction, once centralplanningand the abolitionof privatepropertyhavebeen



633

realized.58Thus, for example, in The UnfinishedRevolution IsaacDeutscher

argued that the economic base of Soviet society is socialist and that a

second, political revolution is requiredto abolishexisting repressivebureau-

craticinstitutionsandsocialantagonisms.For all of theirdifferences, t should

be clearthat Deutscher'sview of Soviet society is similar o Pollock's notion

of state capitalism.Planningand the abolition of privatepropertyhavingbeen

realized,the economic has reached its historicalend-point.The only locus

of changeis a political spherethat stands n no intrinsicrelationto the mode

of distributionor of production.

Within the framework of such a one-sidedcritiqueof the mode of distribu-

tion, the Marxiancategories cannot critically grasp the social totality -

although this only becomes historically manifest when the marketloses its

central role as the agency of distribution. Once that occurs, however, the

inadequacy of the categories so interpreted for an analysisof the resultant

politically regulatedsocial form becomes clear. This rendersindeterminate

any attempt that proceeds from that interpretationto characterize he form

as capitalist. Moreover, t becomes evident that the abolition of the market

andprivatepropertyalone and,hence, the coming nto its own of industrial

production is an insufficient condition for human emancipation.The tradi-

tional Marxistcategoriesare thus shown to be inadequateto graspthe capi-talist social totality in such a manner that the abolition of what they expressconstitutes the condition of general reedom.

Pollock's position highlights precisely those limitations of the traditional

Marxist nterpretation.Moreover,his refusalto consider the new form, in its

most abstract contours, merely as one that is not-yet-fully-socialist,enabledhim to uncoverits new, morenegativemodes of political, social,andcultural

domination. Pollock's analysis, however, remained too bound to some fun-

damental propositions of traditionalMarxism o constitute its adequatecri-

tique. By retaining a one-sided emphasis on the mode of distribution, it

remained a metamorphosed form of that theory - one that highlightsits

limits but ultimately does not get beyond them. In one respect,Pollock and

the other membersof the FrankfurtSchool brokedecisivelywith traditional

Marxism.The insight that centralplanning n the effective absenceof privateproperty is not emancipation,althoughthat form of distribution s adequateto industrialproduction, mplicitlycallsinto questionthe notion that labor,in the form of the industrialmode of production, constitutes the basis of

generalhuman freedom.59Yet preciselybecausePollock retainedthe notion

that the immanentcontradictionis between distributionand production,he

could not reconsiderwhether that form of production tself is contradictory.The result is a notion of an antagonistic,but noncontradictory, ocial totality



634

possessingno immanentdynamic,which callsinto questionthe emancipatoryrole of labor.

An adequate critiqueof that pessimisticanalysis,then, mustbe grounded n a

critique of traditionalMarxism.The point of departurefor such an under-

takingwould entail a critiqueof Pollock'sinitialassumption that the struc-

turesof capitalistsociety expressedby the Marxian ategoriesare those of the

sphereof distributionalone.Capitalismwas characterized y Marxasasystemof abstract, mediate domination based on relations of objective depen-

dence, which supersededearlier social forms based on relationsof personal

dependence.60In postulating the primacy of the political, Pollock had in

effect maintained that that system of abstractdomination had in turn been

supersededby a new form of direct domination. Such a position proceeds

from the assumptionthat all formsof abstractdependence,as well as of non-

conscious structuresof social compulsion analyzedby Marx,are identicalto

or rooted in the market.To call that into question would call into question

the assumptionthat, with the supersessionof the marketby the state, con-

scious control has not merely replacednonconsciousstructures n particular

spheresbut that all such alienated structuresof historicalcompulsion and,

with them, the historicaldialectic, have been overcome.It would necessitate

a critical reexaminationof whether the relations of production are to be

identified completely with the market andprivateproperty,and whetherthe

intrinsic contradictionof capitalism s only to be located between the sphere

of distributionand that of production.Aspectsof Marx'scritiqueof Ricardo

andof Hegelprovide he basisfor sucha reexamination.61Marxdid not merely

criticize the bourgeois mode of distributionas inadequateto industrialpro-

duction;he formulated a critiqueof labor and productionin capitalism.Farfrom having taken over and refined Ricardo's labor theory of value, Marx

criticizedRicardofor havingposited labor as the source of value,without

having further examinedthe historicalspecificity of commodity-determined

laborand of the valueform of wealth.62Whatcharacterizeshat labor,accord-

ing to Marx,is preciselythat it is not only social laboras it exists in all social

formations- a cooperativeproductiveactivity that transformsmaterial n a

determinate ashion(concrete abor)- but is also social in a supplementary

sense: it serves as the medium of social relationsthat, in other formations,exist openly as such. The productsof laborin commodity-determined ociety

are not socially mediated by traditionalties, norms, or overt relations of

power and domination; i.e., manifest social relations. Instead, labor itself

replacesthose relationsby servingas the quasi-objectivemeansby which the

productsof others areacquired.



635

Value is the objectification of that supplementary abstract)dimensionof

labor in capitalism.As such, it is not only a form of wealth but at the same

time a form of social mediation. The measureof that form of wealth cannot,

therefore, be a function of the amount of goods produced(materialwealth),for a material measureimplies a manifestly social mode of production and

distribution.The goods in such a situation are evaluated n termsof need,

social ties, and relations of power. When, however, labor itself acts as the

quasi-objectivemeans of acquiringgoods, a standardof evaluationemerges

that is apparentlyinherent to the mediating activity and its products.The

two-sidednessof laborrequires hat the measure tself be of a socialmediating

character.This function is served by the socially necessaryexpenditure of

human labor time as a quasi-objectivemeasure. Not only the form (value),but also its measure (abstract time), are constituted as objective social

mediations.Asa formof socialmediation,the temporally-determinedategoryof value graspsa quasi-independent objective social structurethat exerts a

form of compulsionon the producers:one is not only compelledto exchangeone's labor (products) to survive,but must produce at a rate determinedby

the norm of socially-necessary abor time to receive the full value of one's

individual labor time.63 This form of abstract social compulsionis an initial

determinationof alienation.It is rooted in the double-character f labor in

capitalism,that is, in its simultaneousdetermination as productiveactivityandas a socialmediation.

In capitalism,therefore, the sphereof labor cannot be conceived of only in

termsof the material nteractionsof humanswith nature,as a form of instru-

mental action, embedded in a matrix of social relations. Becauselaboracts

as a mediationin lieu of overt social ties, the relationsthat essentiallycharac-terize that social formation exist only in the medium of labor. Labornot only

objectifies itself in products, as is the case in all social formations,but also in

objectified social relations. In the process of materialobjectification, labor

in capitalismalso constitutes an objective, quasinatural ocietal spherethat

cannot be reduced to the sum of direct social relations, and which stands

opposed to the aggregateof individualsas an abstract other. Put in different

terms: the double characterof commodity-determinedaborsignifiesthat, in

capitalism,aspects of the sphere of interactionare fused with that of labor,thereby imparting o labor a historicallyunique synthetic character.64 hose

social relations constituted by commodity determined abor in the form of

an abstract other cannot be sufficiently graspedin terms of the sphere of

distribution. Value does not express the market-mediatedregulation of

materialwealth. It is a different orm of wealth, constitutedby abstract abor

(not labor ),whose measure s a function of labor time expenditurerather

than the mass of goods produced. The commodity is characterizedby the



636

simultaneityof both moments- value andmaterialwealth- which is rooted

in the double characterof labor in capitalism.This simultaneityof a social

and a materialdimension in the form of labor and its productsunderlies he

dialecticalandultimatelycontradictorycharacterof capitalism.

In a society in which materialwealth is the form of social wealth, increased

productivityresults either in a greateramount of wealthor in the possibilityof a corresponding eduction in labor time. This is not the casewhenvalueis

the form of wealth. Becausethe magnitudeof valueis solely a function of the

socially-averageabor time expended, the introduction of a new method of

increasingproductivity only results in a short-term ncrease n value yielded

per unit time - that is, only as long as socially-averageabor time remains

determinedby the older method of production.As soon as the newer level of

productivity becomes socially general, the value yielded per unit time falls

back to its originallevel.65Thus, because the form of wealth is temporally

determined, ncreasedproductivity only effects a new normof socially-neces-

sarylabor time. The amount of valueyielded perunit time remains he same.

The necessity for the expenditureof labortime is consequentlynot diminished,

but is retained. That time, moreover,becomes intensified. The productivityof concrete labor thus interacts with the abstract emporalform in a manner

that drives the latter forward while reinforcing he compulsionit exerts on

the producers.The value-formof wealth is constituted by and, hence, neces-

sitates, the expenditureof human abor time regardless f the degreeto which

productivity is developed. The treadmilleffect just outlined is immanent to

the temporal determinationof value. It implies a historicaldynamic of pro-

duction that cannot be graspedwhen Marx's law of value is understood

as an equilibriumtheory of the market and when the differences betweenvalue and materialwealth, abstractand concrete labor, are overlooked. That

treadmill dynamic is the initial determination of what Marx developed as

central to capitalism:capitalism necessarilymust constantly accumulateto

stand still. The dynamic becomes somewhat more complicated when one

considerscapital - self-valorizing alue. 66The goal of capitalistproduction

is not value, but the constant expansion of surplusvalue - the amount of

valueproducedperunit time above andbeyond that required or the workers'

reproduction.The category of surplusvalue not only revealsthat the socialsurplus s indeed createdby the workers,but also that the temporaldetermi-

nation of the surplus mplies a particularogic of growth,as well as a particu-larform of the processof production.

Given a limited working day, surplusvaluecan only be increasedby reducingthe necessary abor time spent by workers n creatingthe value necessaryfor their reproduction.Although increasedproductivityonly results n short-



638

In the Grundrisse71Marxexplicitly discussedthe fundamentalcontradiction

ofcapitalism

as onewithinthe mode of production tself, rather han between

industrial production and the bourgeois mode of distribution.72Capitalist

productionis gearedto and molded by a form of wealth determinedby the

expenditure of direct labor time. Nevertheless, although that value-basis

remainsnecessary to capitalism,it is rendered ncreasinglyanachronisticby

the potential of the forcesof productionto which it gaverise.A greatdeal of

one-sided labor becomes superfluousin terms of that potential, yet, as the

source of value, remains necessary for capital. The social and economic

expressionsof that contradiction cannot be dealt with here.73It should be

clear, however, that its overcomingdoes not involve freeing that same,

value-determined orm of production from the fetters of the marketand

private property. It entails the abolition of the value-basisof production,

become anachronistic,and the reemergenceof materialwealth as the social

form of wealth. Economic growth could then take on a different character,

inasmuchas increases n social wealth would directly correspond o increases

in materialoutput. More fundamentally,the structureof production itself

could be transformed. n capitalism otal socialproductionremainsstructured

by the goal of labor time objectification, regardlessof the degree of tech-

nological development.Overcomingvaluedispenseswith that necessity, which

has become anachronistic,and allows for a transformationof social produc-

tion and individual abor. The potential of the forcesof productioncould be

used reflexively to transform he material ormof production,freeinghuman

laborfrom the fragmentedandempty character t increasinglyacquiredas the

source of value. The social surpluswould then no longerbe a productof the

direct labor of a class of humans subsumedunder the process of production

as its components.Classantagonism n capitalism,according o this interpreta-

tion, is ultimately rooted in the form of wealth and production, and not

merelyin the sphereof distribution.

The materialmode of production n capitalism s thusnot to be equatedwith

Marx's notion of the forces of production. It is, rather, the materialized

expressionof the interactionof those forceswith the relationsof production

(of which value is the basic category). In traditional Marxism,however,

industrialproduction is identified with the forces of production.As notedabove, emancipation s thus grounded n that form of labor andproduction,

which we have analyzedas value-determined, nce freedfromthe constraints

of the market and privateproperty.Emancipation, n otherwords, is realized

when a structure of labor that has alreadycome into existence is no longer

held back and misused by capitalist relations, but is subject to conscious

control in the interests of all. In Marx'smature critique,however, labor is

centralnot becauseproduction s the locus of freedom,but becausethe social



639

relationsthat determinecapitalismexist in the medium of labor. The critique

based on ananalysis

of the double characterofcommodity-determined

abor

does not, therefore, lead to a notion of the realization of that labor with

overcoming the market and private property. Rather, the abolition of the

relationsof productioninvolves the abolition of that labor and of its peculiar

socially-syntheticcharacter, hereby freeinghumansfrom the alienatedsway

of their own labor, while allowing labor, freed from the yoke of its sup-

plementary synthetic social role, to be so transformed that it could be

enrichingfor each individual.Generalemancipationis not grounded n the

possible full realizationof the alreadyextant form of production,but in the

possibility of its overcoming.That possibility is rooted in the contradiction

of production, n the potential of the forcesof productionthat is not realized

by their materialized orm. Hence the realizationof freedom is not guaran-

teed by any existingstructure,whichhad been held backby the relationsof

production. It requires he creation of new structures which to be surehave

become historicallypossible)with the abolitionof those relations.

By rooting the dialectic in the double character of commodity-determinedlabor (that is, in a historicallydeterminateform), Marxnot only uncovered

the basis underlyingthe historicallogic of capitalism,but implicitly rejected

any notion of an immanent ogic to, or dialecticof, humanhistory in general.

As is well known, MarxcriticizedHegelforequatingalienationandobjectifica-

tion. In RicardianMarxism,however, because labor s posited as a trans-

historical source of social wealth, the distinction between alienation and

objectificationmust necessarilybe extrinsic to labor itself: labor is alienated

when the power of disposition over its use and over its objectifications s in

the hands of the capitalist. Overcomingprivate ownershipandappropriationis thus consideredto be the condition for overcomingalienation. In Marx's

mature critique, however, alienation is intrinsicto the peculiarcharacterof

commodity-determined labor. This, among others, distinguishes surplusvalue from earlier forms of the social surplus. That a medieval manorial

lord, for example, expropriateda portion of that producedby peasantswas

not an intrinsicconsequenceof the form of their labor. Domination in such

a situation, therefore, had to be direct. In capitalism,however, the surplus

is one of value, that is, a form which in and of itself implies alienation. Its

private expropriation s thus only a manifestation,not a cause,of that aliena-

tion. Abstractdominationexists even in the absenceof a privateexpropriator,so long as social wealth has the formof the abstract emporalexpenditureof

human abor.74

Whenlabor is viewed only as concrete labor, the notion that it constitutes

society is necessarilyreductionist. In Marx'smaturecritique,however, com-



640

modity-determinedlabor constitutes capitalist society because, in addition

to being conctrete labor, it is an objectifying medium of social relations.

Alienationtherefore takes on a differentmeaning han in Marx'searlyworks.

It no longer refersto the estrangementof a preexistentessencebut is a two-

sided historicalprocess of social constitutionin whichhumanknowledgeand

poweraregreatly ncreased in an abstract orm that opposes, oppresses,and

emptiesthe individual.75Because he alienatedsocialtotality is not constituted

by labor, but by the interactions of the two dimensionsof commodity-

determined abor, it is not a unitarywhole, but has a contradictorycharacter.

This gives rise to the possibility that humans reappropriate or themselves

and, hence, transformthe richness and power that came into being as attri-

butes of the Other in the process of nonconscious social constitution. The

abolition of private property, then, is not a sufficient condition for over-

coming alienation. The necessity of accumulation,being ultimately rooted

in the dialectic of the value dimension with that of use-value,remains in

effect even in the absence of the market and privateproperty. This blind

compulsionis a function of the temporal form of wealth and not merely of

the market mode of distribution. Giventhe continuedexistence of wealth in

the formof the objectifiedexpenditureof labortime, economic growthwould

have to retain the form of capitalaccumulation,and the structureof produc-tion and of laborwould remaindeterminedby the valueform.

The supersessionof the marketby the state does not thereforemeanthat the

basic contradictionof capitalism,as well as all forms of nonconscious social

regulationand compulsion, have been overcome. It signifiesrather that the

mode of distributionhas become consciously regulated- subject, however,

to the limits imposed by the continued blind necessities, such as that ofaccumulation,which are inherent to the temporalform of social wealth and

mediation. The transformationof the contours of the social formation is

significant - in terms, however, of a changed relation of the relations of

distributionto those of production;not in terms of the supersessionof the

latter. The term statecapitalism, which Pollock used but could not ground,

can be justified to describea social form in which capitalistrelationsof pro-duction continue to exist, but where bourgeoisrelationsof distributionhave

been replacedby a bureaucratic,political mode of mediation,with all of theassociatedpolitical, social, and culturalimplications.76This,however,is very

different from Pollock's thesis of the primacyof the political,which restson

the assumptionthat the mode of distribution- whether in the form of the

automatic marketor as mediatedpolitically- constitutes the essential core

of the social formation.



641

Marx'sanalysisof the specificity of labor in capitalismand, consequently,his

critique of the notion of labor is, on another level, reflected in a major

difference between his notion of the totality and that of Hegel. For Hegel,

the Geist, that is, the identical subject-object,unfolds dialectically by a pro-

cess of self-objectification.The endpointof development s the realizationby

the Geist of itself as totality. Objectificationand alienationare identical and

the contradictionsimmanent to the totality serve as the drivingforce of its

unfoldingand, ultimately, realization.In his maturecritique,Marxprovided

the social groundingof Hegel's Geist - not, however, as the proletariat.In

Capital, the self-movingsubstance that is subject is located as that complex

set of alienated social relationsexpressedby the categoryof capital.77Marx,

in other words, did not treat labor as the substanceof a Subjectprevented

by capitalist relations from realizingitself. Instead, he analyzedthose rela-

tions themselves as constituting the Subject (capital) whose substance is

abstract labor, that is, the specific characterof labor as a medium of social

interactionin capitalism.Whatperhapsat first glance appears o be a theory

that denies the history-makingpracticeof humans is one consistentwith the

notion of alienation,and possesses an emancipatorymomentnot available o

those interpretationsthat, explicitly or implicitly, identify the Subject with

the laboringclass. The notion that capital is the total Subjectindicatesthat,

for Marx, the endpoint of its development is not the realization, but the

abolition of the totality. The characterof its basiccontradiction s therefore

different than is the case with Hegel;it does not simply drivethe unfoldingof the totality forward,but points beyond it.

The Marxiancritique, in other words, was one of the total Subject. It was

neither an affirmativeanalysis of how that totality could be fully unfoldedand realized, nor did it abstractlyreject or deny totality - a position that,

given the existence of capital,could only be mystifying.Capitaldid not entail

the materialist anthropological nversion of Hegel's dealistdialecticbut its

materialist ustification. That is, the Geist was indeed analyzed by Marxas a

blind, automatic Subject. It was, however, materialisticallyexplained and

historicallydeterminedascapital.78Thus,whereas n Hegeltotality is unfolded

as the realizationof the Subject, in Marxit is unfolded in a manner that

points to the possibility of its abolition. (Not as the realizationof theproletariatas the concrete subject. Overcomingcapitalismfor Marx entailed

the abolition of proletarian abor, not its recognition and realization.)The

historical explanation and relativization of the Subject - as capital and

not as a social class - provides the groundingof Hegel's dialectic and, at

the same time, its critique.79Capitalin that sense is the critiqueof Hegel,as

well as of Ricardo- the two thinkerswho, in Marx'sopinion, represented he

furthest imitsof thought that remainsbound within the existent social forma-

tion. Marx did not simply radicalizeRicardoand materializeHegel. His cri-



642

tique - proceedingfrom the historicallyspecific doublecharacter of labor

in capitalism(i.e., its social synthetic character) is essentiallyhistorical. It

showed that Ricardo,as well as Hegel,posited in a transhistoricalashionand

therefore could not uncover the historically specific characterof the objectsof their investigations: labor and the Geist.80Marx'sown analysiscould,

paradoxically, get beyond the limits of the existence of the present totality

only by limitingitself historically.The indication of the ultimate historicity

of the object of thought implies the historicity of the thought itself that

grasps he object.

TraditionalMarxism s ultimately, then, a materialist,critical,Ricardo-Hegel

synthesis: labor is the source of social wealth and constitutes the sub-

stance of the proletariatas the identical subject-object,which develops to

that point where it can realize tself. Any theory that posits the proletariatas

Subject implies the activity constitutingthe Subject is to be fulfilled, rather

than overcome. The difference between alienationand objectification must

then rest on factors extrinsic to labor. Alienation is not, as with Marx,

rooted inahistoricallyspecific formof objectification(abstract abor),which,

as the substance of the Subject (capital), entails its constitution as theabstract Other. Instead it is rooted in the control overobjectification,under-

stood in a transhistorical ashion, as concrete labor,by a concreteother (the

capitalistclass).The dialecticalcontradictionbetween the forcesandrelations

of productionis then interpretedas between productionand distribution, n

terms of those moments (the market and private property) that prevent

labor from directly and openly constitutingthe totality. When,however,

that totality is understoodas capital,suchan interpretation s revealedas one

that, behind its own back, points to the full realizationof capitalas a quasi-concrete totality rather than to its abolition. That dialectic had, in Pollock's

view, runits course: labor had come to itself. The result,however,was any-

thing but emancipatory.Becauseof its traditionalMarxistpoint of departure,

however, his critique now proceeded from the assumptionthat the social

totality, although antagonisticand repressive,had become essentially non-

contradictory.

The presumed transformationof the object of critique necessarily impliesthe transformationof the critique tself. Critical heoryhas been characterized

as the supersessionof the critique of political economy by the critiqueof

politics, the critique of ideology, and the critiqueof instrumentalreason.81

The difference between the critique of political economy and the others,

however, is not simply a matter of the relative importance attributed to

particular pheresof social life. What characterizesMarx'scritique s that, by

meansof an analysisof the doublecharacter of the historicallydeterminate



643

social forms examined (labor, commodity, process of production), it shows

its object to be a totality that is intrinsicallycontradictoryand, hence, imma-

nently dynamic. The unfolding of that contradictory totality entails the

emergence of the possibility of its determinate negation. The critique is

immanent inasmuch as it does not judge what is with referenceto a trans-

cendent ought, that is, a conceptual position outside of its object, but

locates that ought as a possibility immanentto the unfoldingof the total-

ity. The critique, in other words, is dialectical because it shows its object to

be so. This adequacyof the concept to its object implicitlyentailsthe rejec-tion of any notion of the dialecticas a method that canbe appliedto various

objects. By uncoveringthe historicallyspecific contradictionintrinsic to its

object, and, hence, explaining the dialectic, the Marxiancritique implicitly

rejects any form of transhistoricaldialectic, whether inclusive of nature or

restricted to history. In both cases the dialectic must be grounded ontolog-

ically, either in Being in general (Engels) or in social Being (Lukaics).That

reality or social relations in general are essentially contradictory,however,

can only be metaphysicallyassumed,not explained.82

By uncovering he contradictorycharacterof his own social universe,more-

over,Marxwas able to get beyondthat dilemmaof earlier ormsof materialism

he outlined in the third thesis on Feuerbach:83A theory, criticalof society,which assumesthat humans, and therefore their modes of consciousness,are

socially formed, must be able to account for itself. The Marxiancritiqueis

thus immanent in another sense. Its categories simultaneouslygrasp forms

of social being and of consciousness andrevealtheir contradictorycharacter.

Showing the non-unitarycharacterof its own context allows the critiqueto

account for itself as a possibility immanentto what it analyzes. One of themost powerful aspects of the critiqueof political economy is that it locates

itself as a historicallydeterminateaspectof what it examines,rather han as a

positivescience that constitutes a historicallyunique exception inasmuchas it

stands above the interaction of social forms and forms of consciousness t

analyzes. In both senses,the critiquetakesno standpointoutside of its objectand, hence, is epistemologicallyconsistent. A critiqueof political institutions

or of instrumental eason could only be consideredan equivalentreplacement,

rather hanextension, of the critiqueof political economy, if it could indicatea contradiction and dynamic immanent to its object of investigation.Not

only, in our opinion, is that an exceedingly unlikelyproposition,but the shift

in the focus of critiquewas relatedpreciselyto the assumption hat the social

totality had become noncontradictory. The theory consequently became

marked by a fundamentalpessimismand, as critique, lost a dimension of

epistemologicalself-reflection.



644

This transformationof the natureof critiqueassociatedwith an analysisof

state capitalismas a noncontradictory otality canbe examined n two essayswritten by Horkheimer in 1937 and 1940. In Traditional and Critical

Theory, Horkheimer till groundedcriticaltheory in the contradictorychar-

acter of capitalist society. He proceeded from the assumptionthat the rela-

tion of subjectand object is to be understood n terms of the social constitu-

tion of both:

In fact, socialpracticealwayscontainsexistingandappliedknowledge.Theperceivedfact is thereforeco-determined y human ideas and conceptsevenpriorto its con-

sciousassimilation y the perceivingndividual.... At thehigher tagesof civilization,conscious human praxis not only unconsciouslydeterminethe subjectiveside of

perceptionbut, to an increasing egree, he objectaswell.84

Such an approach implies the historical determinatenessof thought and

demands, herefore, hat both traditionalandcritical heorybe grounded ocio-

historically.Traditional heory, accordingto Horkheimer,s an expressionof

the fact that, in capitalism,the intrinsicrelationof subjectandobjectwithin

a historicallyconstituted totality is not manifest. Becausethe form of social

synthesis is mediate andabstract, he constituted result of cooperativehuman

activity is alienated and thus appearsas quasinatural acticity.85This finds

theoretical expression, for example, in the Cartesian assumption of the

essential immutability of the relation of subject, object, and theory.86 The

hypostatizeddualismof thoughtandbeingdoes not, according o Horkheimer,allowtraditional heoryto think the unity of theory andpractice.87Moreover,the various areasof productiveactivity do not appearrelated, constitutinga

whole, but are fragmentedandexist in a mediate,apparentlycontingentrela-

tion to one another. The illusion of the independenceof each sphereof pro-ductive activity is thus elicited, similarto that appearanceof the freedomof

theindividualas economic subject n bourgeoissociety.88Hence, in traditional

theory, scientific and theoreticaldevelopments appearto be immanent func-

tions of thought or the disciplines,and are not understoodwith reference o

real social processes.89

Even Kant, who attempted to deal with the problem of the adequacy of

thought and being in terms of constitution, did so in an idealistfashion:sen-suous appearanceshave alreadybeen formed by the transcendentalSubject,that is, by rationalactivity, when they are perceivedand consciously evalu-

ated.90According to Horkheimer,the double characterof Kant's concepts,which indicate unity and goal directednesson the one hand, and an opaqueand unconscious dimension on the other, corresponds to the contradictory

form of human activity in the modern era :



645

Thecooperationf people n society s the modeof existence f theirreason...At the sameime,however,hisprocess, longwith tsresults,salienatedrom hem

andappears, ithall tswasteof laborpower ndhumanife,to be... anunalterablenaturalorce.91

Horkheimergrounded this contradiction in the contradictionbetween the

forces and relationsof production.The market-mediatedorm of social inter-

connectedness and class domination based on privateproperty mparta frag-

mented, torn, and irrationalform to the social whole that is constituted bycollective human production.92Society is therefore characterizedby blind

mechanicaldevelopmentalnecessity and by the utilization of the developedhuman powers of controllingnaturefor particular, onflictinginterestsrather

than for the general nterest.93The commodity-determined conomic system

began with the notion of the congruenceof individualand social happiness

and, during the period of its emergence and consolidation, entailed the

unfoldingof humanpowers,the emancipationof the individual,andincreasingcontrol over nature. Its dynamic,however,has givenrise to a society that no

longer furthers human development, but increasinglychecks it and drives

humanityin the direction of a new barbarism.94

roduction,n other

words,as socially total, is alienated, fragmented,and increasinglyarrestedby the

market and private property. This contradiction, accordingto Horkheimer,constitutes the condition of possibilityof criticaltheory, aswell as the objectof its investigation.Criticaltheory does not accept the fragmentedaspectsof

reality as necessary givens, but attempts to graspsociety as a whole, which

necessarilyentails a perception of what fragmentsthe totality and hinders

its realization, that is, its internal contradictions.Graspingthe whole thus

implies an interest in the supersessionof its presentformby a rationalhuman

condition, and not its mere modification.95Critical theory thus rejects the

acceptanceof the given, as well as its utopiancritique.96 t involves an imma-

nent analysisof capitalism n its own terms that, on the basis of its intrinsic

contradictions,critically uncovers the growingdiscrepancybetween what is

andwhat could be.97

Social production, reason, and human emancipation are intertwined, and

provide the standpoint of a historical critique in this essay. The idea of a

rational social organizationadequate to all of its members- a communityof free persons- is, accordingto Horkheimer, mmanent to human labor.98

Whereas n the past, the misery of largesegmentsof the producingpopula-tion may have been in partconditionedby the low level of technicaldevelop-ment and, hence, in a sense, rational, that is no longer the case. Negativesocial conditions such as hunger, unemployment, crises, and militarization

are based only on relations,no longeradequateto the present,underwhich

production occurs. 99Those relations now hinder the utilization of the



646

entire rangeof intellectualandphysicalmeansof controllingnature. General

social misery, caused by anachronisticparticularistrelations, has become

irrational ntermsof the potentialof the forcesof production.That potential,

moreover, allows for the possibility that rationallyplannedsocial regulation

and development supplantthe blind, market-mediated orm characteristic f

capitalism,thus revealing he latter to be irrationalaswell.?00Finally,on the

level of perception anda theory of knowledge,the hypostatizationof subject

and object, as well as of theirrelation, s shownto be irrational n the light of

a possiblefuture:

The mysteriouscorrespondenceof thoughtandbeing,understandingnd sensuous-

ness, humanneedsand their satisfaction n the present,chaoticeconomy - a corre-

spondencewhich appears o be accidental n the bourgeoisepoch - shall, in the

futureepoch,becomethe relationof rational ntentionand realization.101

The immanentdialecticalcritiqueoutlined by Horkheimers an epistemolog-

ically sophisticatedversionof traditionalMarxism.The forces of production

are identifiedwith the social labor process,which is hinderedfrom realizing

itspotential by

the market andprivate property.

The wholeness and con-

nectedness of the constituted universe is fragmentedand hidden by those

relations. Laboris simply identifiedby Horkheimerwith control over nature.

The mode of its organizationand application is called into question; not,

however, its form. Thus, whereas for Marx, constitution in capitalismis a

function of the social relations mediated by labor in interactionwith con-

crete labor, for Horkheimer t is a function of concrete labor itself. Emanci-

pation and the realizationof reason are bound to labor coming to itself

and openly emergingas what constitutesthe social totality. This positiveview

of labor atergaveway, in Horkheimer'shought, to a morenegativeevalua-

tion of the effects of the domination of nature, once he considered he rela-

tions of productionto have become adequateto the forces of production.In

both cases, the labor processwas consideredonly in terms of the relationof

humanity to nature; social relationswere conceived to be extrinsic to that

process.

The later pessimisticturnin Horkheimer'shought shouldnot be too directly

and exclusively relatedto the failure of proletarian evolutionandthe defeat

of working-classorganizationsby Fascism.Horkheimerwrote this essay long

after the victory of National Socialism.He neverthelesscontinuedto analyzethe social formation as essentially contradictory; that is, he continued to

develop an immanentcritique. Althoughhis evaluationof the politicalsitua-

tion was certainlypessimistic, hat pessimismhad not yet become a necessarymoment of his theory. The possibility of critical theory, according to

Horkheimer,remainedrooted in the contradictionsof the present.As a result



647

of the setbacks,ideological narrowness,and corruptionsof the workingclass,

however,that

theorywas

momentarilycarried

bya small

groupof

persons.102The integration or defeat of the working class does not, in other words,

signify that the social formation is no longercontradictory.As an elementof

social change, critical theory exists as part of a dynamic unity, but is not

immediately identical with the dominated class.103 f it were to formulate

passively the current feelingsand visions of the class, criticaltheory would,

accordingto Horkheimer,be structurallyno different than the disciplinary

sciences. Because criticaltheory deals with the present in terms of its imma-

nent potential, it cannot be based on the given alone.14 Thus Horkheimer's

pessimismat this point was in terms of the probability that a socialisttrans-

formationoccur in the foreseeablefuture; the possibility of such a transfor-

mation remained,in his analysis, immanent to the contradictory capitalist

present. He did argue that the changed character of capitalism demands

changes in the elements of critical theory - and proceeded to outline the

newly acquired possibilitiesfor conscious social domination available o the

small circle of the very powerfulthat resultfromthe vastlyincreasedconcen-

tration and centralizationof capital,and relatedthat changeto the tendential

reduction of the sphereof culture from a previousposition of relativeauton-

omy.105Horkheimerlaid the ground here for a critical focus on political

domination, ideological manipulation, and the culture industry. Yet he

insisted that the basis of the theory remainsunchanged nasmuchas the basic

economic structureof society is unchanged.'06At this stage,Horkheimerdid

not propose the society had changed so fundamentallythat the economic

sphere had been replaced by the political. On the contrary,he arguedthat

private propertyand profit still play their decisive roles and that people are

now even more immediatelydeterminedby the economic, whose unchained

dynamic brings forth new forms and misfortunes at an ever-increasing

tempo.107

The shift in the object of investigation of critical theory proposed by

Horkheimer, he increasedemphasison conscious domination andmanipula-

tion, was tied to the notion that the marketno longer played the role it did

in liberal capitalism.It was not yet, however, bound to the view that the

immanentcontradictionsof the forces and relationsof productionhad beenovercome. The critique remained immanent. Its character then changed

following the outbreak of World War II with that change in theoretical

evaluation expressed by Pollock's notion of the primacyof the political. In

his essay The AuthoritarianState, written in 1940, Horkheimercharac-

terized the new social form as state capitalism,... the authoritarian tate

of the present. '08 Although the position developed here was basicallysimilar to Pollock's, Horkheimermore explicitly introducedthe Soviet Union



648

as the most consistent form of state capitalism,andconsidered ascismto be

a mixed form inasmuchas the surplusvalue won anddistributedunder state

control is transmittedto industrialmagnatesandlarge andowners underthe

old title of profit.109All formsof state capitalismarerepressive, xploitative,and antagonistic. Although Horkheimerpredicted that, because the market

had been overcome, state capitalismwould not be subjectto economic crises,

he claimed that the form was ultimately transitoryrather than stable.11 In

discussingthe possible transitory characterof state capitalism,Horkheimer

expressed a new, deeply ambiguous attitude towards the emancipatory

potential of the forces of production. On the one hand, the essay contains

passages n which the forces of productionare still described as potentially

emancipatory.Thus Horkheimerarguedthat they are consciously held back

as a condition of domination.11 Because increasedrationalizationand sim-

plification of production, distribution, and administrationhave rendered

political domination increasingly rrational,the state must become authori-

tarian: to maintain its anachronisticself, the system must rely to a greater

degreeon force and the permanentthreat of war.1l2The possiblecollapseof

the systemis grounded n the restrictionof productivityby the bureaucracies,

inasmuchas the use of productionin the interestsof dominationrather han

to satisfyhumanneeds results n a crisis.The crisis s not, to be sure,economic

(as was the case in marketcapitalism)but an internationalpolitical crisistied

to the constantthreatof war.

AlthoughHorkheimermentionedthe fettersimposedon the forces of produc-

tion, the gap between what is and what could be, in the absence of those

fetters, highlightsthe antagonisticand repressivenatureof the system, but no

longer has the form of an intrinsiccontradiction.Even the war crisis is notbound to the emergenceof the possible determinatenegation of the system,

but represents dangerous esultthatdemands ts negation.Horkheimer poke

of collapse but did not indicate its preconditions.His emphasis,rather,was

on the elucidation of democratic, emancipatorymoments that are crushed

or not realized in state capitalism,and on the hope that, out of theirmisery

and the threat to theirexistence, people would oppose the system.The domi-

nant tendency in the article, moreover, maintainsthat there is, indeed, no

contradiction or even necessary disjuncturebetween the developed forcesof production(traditionallyunderstood)and authoritarianpolitical domina-

tion. On the contrary,Horkheimernow scepticallywrote that, althoughthe

developmentof productivitymay have increased he possibilityof emancipa-

tion, it certainlyhas led to greaterrepression.13The forces of production,freed from the constraints of the market and private property, have not

proved to be the source of freedomand a rational social order: Witheach

bit of realizedplanning,a bit of repressionwasoriginallysupposedto become



649

unnecessary.Insteadmore repressionhas emerged hroughthe administration

of theplans. 114

Theadequacy

of a new mode of distribution o the developed

forces of production had proved to be negative.Horkheimer's tatement that

statecapitalismat times appearsalmost as a parody of classlesssociety 's

impliesthat repressive tate capitalismandemancipatory ocialismpossessthe

same material basis, thus indicating the dilemma of traditional Marxist

theory on reaching ts limits. Facedwith this dilemma,however,Horkheimer

did not reconsiderthe basic determinationsof that theory, and continued

to equate the forces of productionwith the industrialmode of production.

He was consequently compelled to change his attitude towardsproduction

and to reconsiderthe relationshipof history and emancipation.Horkheimer

now radicallycalled into question any social uprisingbased on the develop-

ment of the forcesof production:

The bourgeoisupheavalsdepended n fact on the ripenessof the situation; heirsuc-

cesses, from the Reformation to the legal revolutionof fascism,were tied to the

technicaland economicachievements hatmark he progress f capitalism. 6

The developmentof productionnow becamenegativelyevaluatedas one thatonly takes place within, and remains bound to, capitalistcivilization.At this

point, Horkheimerbeganto turn to a pessimistictheory of history. Because

the laws of historicaldevelopment,driven on by the contradiction between

the forces and relations of production, have only led to state capitalism,a

revolutionary heorybasedon thathistoricaldevelopment- one that demands

the first attempts at planningshould be reinforced,and distributionmade

morerational couldonlyhastenthe transitionto that form.17 Horkheimer

thereforereconceptualized he relationof emancipationandhistory by accord-ing social revolutiontwo moments:

Revolutionbringsabout what would also happenwithoutspontaneity: he socializa-tion of the means of production,the planned managementof productionand the

unlimited control of nature. And it also bringsabout what would never happenwithout resistanceand constantlyrenewedeffortsto strengthenreedom: he endofexploitation.118

Thesetwo momentsaccorded orevolution,however, ndicatethat Horkheimerhad fallen back to a position characterizedby an antinomy of necessity and

freedom. The view of history is completely determinist; t is now presentedas

a fully automatic development in which labor comes to itself - but not as the

source of emancipation.Freedomis grounded n a purelyvoluntarist ashion,as an act of will against history.l19 Horkheimernow assumed,as is indicated

by the passagejust cited, that the materialconditions of life in which free-

dom for all could be fully achievedareidenticalto those in whichunfreedom



650

for all is realized;that those conditions automaticallyemerge;and that theyare essentially irrelevantto the

questionof freedom. One does not have to

disagreewith Horkheimer'sproposition that freedom is neverachievedauto-

matically to question those assumptions. Bound by a traditional Marxist

vision of the material conditions, Horkheimerneither questioned the pre-

supposition that a publically planned mode of industrialproduction in the

absence of private property is a sufficient condition for socialism,nor con-

sidered whetherindustrialproductionitself is determinedby the social form

of capital.If the latter were the case, the achievementof another form of pro-duction would beno more automatic than that of freedom. Not havingunder-

taken such a reconsideration,Horkheimerno longerconsidered reedom to be

a determinatehistoricalpossibility but one that is historicallyand therefore

sociallyindeterminate:

CriticalTheory ... confrontshistory with that possibilitywhich is alwaysvisiblewithinit.... The improvement f the meansof productionmay haveimprovednot

only the chancesof oppressionbut also of its elimination.Butthe consequence hatfollows fromhistoricalmaterialismoday as it did then fromRousseauor the Bible,that is, the insightthat nowor in a hundredyears he horrorwill come to an end,wasalways imely.'20

Whereas his position emphasizesthat a greaterdegreeof freedomhas alwaysbeenpossible,itshistorically ndeterminate haracterdoes not allow for a con-

siderationof the relation among various socio-historicalcontexts, different

conceptions of freedom, and the sort (ratherthan degree)of emancipationthat can be achieved within a particularcontext. It does not question, for

example, whether the sort of freedom that might have been obtained had

Miinzer and not Luther been successful is comparableto that conceivable

today. Horkheimer's notion of history had become indeterminate; it is

unclear whether he was referring o the history of capitalism n the passage

just quoted, or to history as such. This lack of specificity is relatedto the

indeterminatenotionof laborasthemasteryof natureunderlyingHorkheimer's

earlier one-sided positive attitude towards the development of production,as well as its later negative complement. In conceptualizingstate capitalismas a form in which the contradiction of capitalism had been overcome,

Horkheimercame to realize the inadequacyof traditionalMarxismas a his-torical theory of emancipation.At the same time, he remainedtoo bound

to its presuppositions o undertakea reconsiderationof the Marxian ritiqueof capitalismthat would allow for a more adequatehistoricaltheory. This

dichotomous theoreticalposition was expressed by the antinomicoppositionof emancipationand history and by Horkheimer's eparture rom his earlier,

dialectically elf-reflective pistemology: f emancipations no longer groundedin determinatehistorical contradiction, its critical theory must also take a

step outside of history.



651

We have seen that, earlier, Horkheimer'sepistemology was based on the

assumptionthat social constitution is a function of

labor,which in

capital-ism is fragmentedand hinderedfrom fully unfolding. That he now beganto

consider the contradictions of capitalismas having been no more than the

motor of arepressive evelopment oundcategorial xpression n Horkheimer's

statement that the self-movementof the concept of the commodity leads to

the concept of state capitalism ust as for Hegel the certainty of sense data

leads to absolute knowledge. '21Horkheimerhad thus come to realize that a

Hegeliandialectic, in which the contradictionsof the categories ead to the

self-unfolded realizationof the Subject as totality, could only result in the

affirmationof the existent. Yet he did not do so from a position that would

go beyond those limits, that is, in terms of Marx'scritiqueof Hegel and of

Ricardo.The result was a series of ruptures:not only did Horkheimerocate

emancipationoutside of history but, to save its possibility, now felt com-

pelled to introducea disjuncturebetween concept andobject: Theidentityof the ideal and reality is universal exploitation.... The difference between

concept and reality - not the concept itself - is the foundationfor the pos-

sibility of revolutionarypraxis. 122This step was renderednecessaryby the

conjunction of Horkheimer's ontinued passionfor generalhumanemancipa-tion with his analysis of state capitalismas an order in which the intrinsic

contradictionof capitalismhad been overcome. (Although, as we have seen,

this analysiswas tendentially, but not unambiguously, he case in 1940.) The

overcomingof the contradiction had renderedthe social object and, hence,

the concept that grasps it one-dimensional.The result of an analysis that

graspswhat is would necessarilybe affirmative, nasmuch as the ought no

longer is an immanentaspectof a contradictory is. Horkheimerposited the

difference between concept and actuality to allow room for the potential,now that he consideredthe whole to be no longer intrinsicallycontradictory.This position converged n some respectswith Adorno'snotion of the totalityas necessarilyaffirmative ratherthancontradictoryandpointingbeyonditself

even when fully unfolded). The concept of totality is deemed necessaryto

understand ociety; yet because t is understood n a Hegelian ashion, otality

cannotbe fullyaccepted,for that would imply the affirmationof the existent.

In takingthis step, Horkheimerweakenedthe epistemologicalconsistencyof

his own argument.

The concept that presumablyno longerfully corresponds o its object cannot

be consideredas an exhaustivedeterminationof the concept. To do so would

be to ignore the conceiving,critical observerwho posits that noncorrespon-dence - for the posited disjunctionbetween concept and actualityis itself a

concept. A statement of such a disjunction, n other words, implies another

concept that graspsthat disjunction.But then that noncorrespondencetself



652

is revealedas an actuality to which the concept that posits it corresponds. n

an epistemologicallyreflexive social critique, this implies another, more

abstract level of correspondencethat shows the disjunction of conceptand actuality to be only a manifestation,and thus revealsthe essential one-

sidedness, and hence superficiality of both that concept and the grasped

actuality that apparentlydo not correspond.Horkheimer,however, did not

proceedwith sucha reconsideration hat,on another evel,wouldhave entailed

a critiqueof the concepts of traditionalMarxismon the basisof a more essen-

tial, abstract et of concepts. Sucha reconsideration,n otherwords,would

have requiredthe postulation of adequate concepts of value and capital as

underlyingthe moremanifest level of production,profit, and distribution.By

positing the nonidentity of the concept and actuality in the interests of pre-

servingthe possibility of freedom within a presumedone-dimensional ocial

universe, nstead of positing another,moreadequateconcept that grasps hat

nonidentity, Horkheimerundercut the self-reflexiveexplanationof his own

critique. Lackingthe reconsiderationoutlined above, the posited disjunctionof concept and actuality renderedHorkheimer'sown position similar o that

of traditionaltheory, which he criticized in 1937: Theory is not understood

as a part of the social universe n which it exists, but is accorded a spurious

independent position. Horkheimer'sconcept of the disjunction of conceptandrealityhoversmysteriouslyabove its object. It cannot explainitself.

The epistemologicaldilemmaentailed in this pessimisticturn retrospectively

highlightsa weakness n Horkheimer's arlier,apparently onsistentepistemol-

ogy. In Traditionaland CriticalTheory, the possibility of an all-encom-

passing ocialcritique,aswell asof the overcomingof the capitalistformation,

were groundedin the contradictorycharacterof that society. Yet that con-tradiction was interpretedas one between social labor and those relations

that fragment ts totalistic existence and inhibit its full development.Within

such an interpretation,the Marxiancategories graspthose inhibiting social

relations - the mode of distribution- andareultimatelyextrinsic to labor

itself. Thisindicates,however,that within such an interpretation he concepts

of commodity, money, andcapitaldonot reallygrasp he social totality while

expressing ts contradictorycharacter. nstead,they grasponly one dimension

of that totality, which eventuallycomes to oppose its other dimension:sociallabor. In other words, when theMarxiancategoriesare understoodonly in

termsof the marketandprivateproperty, they areessentiallyone-dimensional

from the very beginning.They do not graspthe contradiction but only one

of its terms. Thisimpliesthat, evenin Horkheimer's arlieressay, the critiqueis external to, rather than grounded n, the categories.It is a critique of the

social forms which are expressed by the categories,from the standpointof

labor.



653

In a sophisticated version of the traditionalMarxistcritique - one that

treats the Marxiancategories as simultaneous determinationsof forms of

social Being and social consciousness - the implicit understandingof those

categories as one-sided is reflected by the use of the term reification. It

would go beyond the bounds of this article to elaboratethis point. Never-

theless, it can be saidthat the termrepresentsa convergenceof the traditional

Marxist interpretation and Weber'snotion of rationalization. Both strands

have one-dimensionality in common. The ambiguous legacy of Weber in

strainsof WesternMarxism,as mediatedby Lukaics,nvolvedthe horizontal

broadeningof the scope of the Marxiancategoriesto include dimensionsof

sociallife ignored n more narrowlyorthodox interpretationsand,at the same

time, their vertical lattening.In Capitalthe categories,asexpressionsof a

contradictory social totality, are two-dimensional;as opposed to Marx's

early writings,alienationis treated as a double-sidedprocessof social consti-

tution, ratherthan as the estrangementof a preexistent essence. The notion

of reification, however, implies one-sidedness; he possibledeterminatenega-tion of the existent cannot then be rooted in the categories hat purportedly

grasp t.

In spite of its apparentlydialecticalcharacter, hen, the traditionalMarxist

epistemology does not succeed in grounding tself as critique n the concept.That would requirean appropriationof the contradictory characterof the

Marxiancategoriesthat would necessarilyrequirethe inclusion of the his-

torically determinate form of labor as one of their dimensions,and would

undercutany view that treats labor n a transhistorical ashion as a quasi-natural social process, as simply a matter of the technical domination of

naturebymeansof the cooperativeefforts of humans.Withoutsuch an appro-priation, the materialistepistemology can only be criticalif it grounds tself

in the contradictionbetween the categoricalforms and labor, ratherthan

in the categorial forms of commodity and capital themselves.Horkheimer's

traditionalMarxistpoint of departuremeant from the very beginning,then,that the adequacy of concept to actuality was implicitly affirmative. That

affirmationwas, nevertheless,of only one dimensionof the totality. Critiquewas groundedoutside of the concept, in labor. Once, given the repressive

results of the abolition of the market andprivateproperty, labor no longerappearedto be the principleof emancipation,the previousweaknessof the

theory emergedmanifestly as a dilemma.The dilemma,however, lluminatesthe inadequacyof the point of departure. n dealingwith Pollock,we arguedthat the weaknessof hisattemptto determine he new form as state capitalismin the absenceof the market and privatepropertyreveals hat their determi-

nation as the essential capitalist relations of production had always been

inadequate. By the same token, the weakness of Horkheimer'sdialectical



654

epistemology in terms of the claims of a materialistcritique indicates the

inadequacyof a criticaltheory based on a notion of labor hat is not con-

sidered o be intrinsicallymoldedby the social forms.Theweaknessesof each

indicates the intrinsic relationshipof Ricardianand HegelianMarxism.The

determinationof the relations of-production only in terms of those of dis-

tribution is based on the Ricardian abor theory of value.The overcomingof

those relations alone does not signify the overcomingof capital but a more

concrete mode of its total existence, mediated by gigantic bureaucratic

organizations,rather than by liberal forms. Similarly,a materialistdialectical

theory is ultimately affirmativewith regard o the unfolded totality when it

is based on such an understandingof the forms. WhereasMarxattemptedto

uncover the social relations that exist in the medium of labor in capitalismand that, in turn, mold its concreteform,the concept of labor, which is at

the heart of Ricardian-HegelianMarxism,mpliesthat the manifestmediation

is taken at face value. That concept thus representsa form of the fetish. The

result is a critiquethat is adequateonly to liberalcapitalism,and that onlyfrom the standpointof its non-transcending egation:state-capitalism.

Horkheimerbecame aware of the inadequacyof that theory without, how-

ever, reconsidering ts assumptions.The result was a reversal,ratherthan a

going beyond, of an earlier traditional Marxistposition. Whereas n 1937,

labor was positively informed and, in its contradictionto the social rela-

tions of capitalism,was considered to constitute the groundfor the possibil-

ity of critical thought, as well as of emancipation, n 1940 the developmentof productionbecame seen, if not unequivocally,as the progressof domina-

tion. The possibilityof critique,as well as of emancipation,becamegrounded

in aposited ndeterminateness; istoricaldeterminationhad become negativelyinformed. The resulting critical pessimism, so strongly then expressed in

Dialectic of Enlightenment,must be understood not only with referenceto

the historical backgroundof Nazism and Stalinism,and to the incisiveness

with which the negativecharacterof advanced-capitalismnd state-capitalismwas perceived. It must also be understood in terms of an awarenessof the

limits of traditionalMarxism n the absenceof a fundamentalreconstitution

of the dialecticalcritiqueof what, in spite of its significanttransformation,

remainsa dialecticalsocialtotality.

NOTES

1. In focusingon the problemof contradiction,we shallbe dealingwith the questionof the form and dynamicof capitalismas a totality, rather han moredirectlywith that of classstruggle ndthe problemof the proletariat srevolutionaryub-ject. The historicaldialectic of capitalism n Marx'sanalysisencompasses,but



655

cannot be reducedto, classstruggle.A positionthat maintainshe socialtotalityno longer possessesan intrinsiccontradictionhusgoesbeyondthe claimthat the

workingclasshas becomeintegrated.2. Marcuse epresentsa partialexceptionin this regard.He continued o attempttolocate an immanentpossibilityof emancipation ven when he viewedpostliberalcapitalismas a one-dimensionalotality. Thus,for example,in Erosand Civiliza-tion, he sought to locate that possibilityby transposinghe locus of contradic-tion to the level of psychicformation.He argued hatpreciselya socialsituationof total alienationundermines he equilibrium f thatpsychicstructure,analyzedby Freud,whichconstitutes hedeeperevelof subjectivity dequate o capitalism.On the one hand,needsreemergehat, in the olderstructure,hadbeenrigorouslychecked;on the other hand,the still strongerdegreeof controlrequired o damthose needsresults in anincreasen destructive endencies. SeeErosand Civiliza-tion (NewYork,1962), 85-95,137-143).

3. Cf. A. Arato, Introduction, n A. Aratoand E. Gebhardt, ds., TheEssential

FrankfurtSchool Reader

(New York, 1978), 3;Helmut

Dubiel, Introduction,in FreidrichPollock: Stadien des Kapitalismus Miinchen,1975), 7, 17, 18;GiacomoMarramao,PoliticalEconomyandCriticalTheory, Telos,24 (Summer1975), 74-80.

4. F. Pollock, Is National Socialisma New Order?, Studies in PhilosophyandSocialScience,IX (1941), 453.

5. Weshall, therefore,not concernourselveswith the details of Pollock'seconomiccrisistheory, nor with the more empiricalquestionof the extent to which theoperationsof the marketand the interestsof privatepropertyhaveactuallybeensuspended n the politicalsphere.(Consequentlywe shallnot, for example, reatthe diverging nterpretationsof NationalSocialismformulatedby Pollock andFranzNeumann.)

6. 'TraditionalMarxism hus is a broadercharacterizationhan OrthodoxMarxism(i.e., mainstream nd and 3rdInternationalMarxism).tsfundamental resupposi-tions are,however- as shallbe indicatedbelow - to be distinguishedromthoseof Marx'smaturecritique.

7. F. Pollock, Die gegenwiartige age des Kapitalismusund die Aussichten einerplanwirtschaftlichenNeuordnung, Zeitschrift far Sozialforschung,I (1932);

BemerkungenurWirtschaftskrise,bid., II(1933).8. Pollock, Diegegenwartige, 1. 9. Ibid., 15.

10. Ibid., 10. 11. Pollock, Bemerkungen, 37. 12. Ibid., 332.13. Diegegenwartige, 9-20.14. Ibid., 16. 15. Ibid., 18.16. Bemerkungen, 50. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 338.19. Ibid., 349. 20.Ibid., 345-6.21. Pollock, StateCapitalism, tudies nPhilosophyandSocialScience,IX (1941),

200.22. Ibid., 211, n. 1. 23. Ibid.,201. 24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 204; IsNationalSocialism, 44.26. IsNationalSocialism, 42. 27. StateCapitalism, 08-9.28. Ibid. 29. IsNationalSocialism, 446.30. StateCapitalism, 17. 31. Ibid.,207; IsNationalSocialism, 43, 447.32. StateCapitalism, 06.33. IsNationalSocialism, 448-9;. In manyrespects,Pollock'sbrief commentson

this matter foreshadowwhat Marcusewas later to developmore fully with hisconceptof repressive esublimation.

34. IsNationalSocialism, 52-5. 35. Ibid.,454.36. StateCapitalism, 17. 37. Ibid., 203. 38. Ibid.,223.39. Ibid., 220. Pollockseemed o considermassconsciousnessn an era of the primacy

of the politicalonly in terms of externalmanipulationandavaguenotionof thepossiblerevolutionary ffects of a risein the standard f living.It appears hat,in

dealingwith state-determinedociety, he had no conceptof socialconsciousnessas an immanentaspectof that form (although hat was perhapsnot the casein hisconsiderationof market-determinedociety). It could be argued hat Pollock didnot have an adequatelyworked-outnotion of the relationbetweensocialsubjec-tivity and objectivity.He thereforeonly located the most external material on-ditions that would allow for criticalthought,but could not indicatewhy thatthoughtmightbe critical n a particular irection.

40. StateCapitalism, 20. 41.Ibid., 219, 225.42. Ibid.,220. 43. Ibid., 203.44. IsNationalSocialism, 45ff. 45. Bemerkungen, 45ff.46. Diegegenwartige, 5.



656

47. In the Grundrisse,Marxcharacterized property relations - the worker's property-lessness and ... the appropriation of alien labour by capital - to be modes ofdistribution that, although representing an aspect of the relations of production,do so sub specie distributionis (832). This implies that the concept of the rela-tions of production is not exhausted by a consideration of the mode of distribu-

tion, but entails an aspect sub specie productionis.48. State Capitalism, 217. 49. Ibid., 201.50. Ibid., 205. 51.Ibid., 207. 52. Ibid., 219.53. Cf., for example, Marramao. We agree with Marramao's general thesis relating

Pollock's work to that of Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Adorno, as well as with his

general conclusion that Pollock had not been able to locate the dialecticalelements within the new stage of capitalism. However, although Marramao

approvingly presents aspects of H. Grossmann's analysis as an interpretation ofMarx very different from that dominant in the Marxist tradition (59ff), he doesnot follow through its implications. Instead he then identifies Pollock's interpre-tation of the conflict between the forces and relations of production with that

of Marx, thus implicitly accepting it (67). This does not allow him to supporthis charge that Pollock mistook as essence the illusory level of appearance (74)on the basis of a standpoint that would get beyond the limits of traditionalMarxism.

54. Cf. Paul Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (New York and London,

1968), 52-3; Maurice Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism (London, 1940),70, 71; Ronald Meek, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value (London, 1956),303.

55. Cf. Dobb, 58; Martin Nicolaus, Grundrisse (London, 1973), 46; Paul Walton andAndrew Gamble, From Alienation to Surplus Value (London, 1972), 179.

56. Hilferding, for example, wrote: The economic analysis is restricted to that

particular epoch of social development where the good becomes a commodity,that is, where labor and the power of disposition over it have not been consciously

raised to the level of the regulating principle of social metabolism and socialpredominance but, rather, where this principle prevails unconsciously and auto-matically as a material attribute of things. ( Bohm-Bawer's Marx Kritik, inH. Meixner and M. Turban, eds., Die Marx-Kritik derosterreichischen Schule derNationalokonomie (Giessen, 1974), 143. More recently, Helmut Reichelt wrote:

where, however, the content of value and of the magnitude of value is con-

sciously raised to the principle of economy, the Marxian theory will have lost its

object of investigation, which can only be presented and grasped as a historicalobject when that content is conceived as the content of other forms and there-fore can be described separate from its historical form of appearance. (Zur

logischenStrukturdesKapitalbegriffsei KarlMarx(Frankfurt,1970), 145).57. This reversal, of course, cannot be explained exegetically, i.e., that Marx's writings

were not properly interpreted in the Marxist tradition. It must be explained

historically. In our opinion, such an explanation must be sought in a considera-tion of the transformation of the theory as a result of its appropriation by work-

ing-class movements in their struggle to constitute themselves, achieve social

recognition, and effect social and political changes. The historical question on

the agenda was of the formation and consolidation of the class and could hardlyhave been that of its self-abolition and the labor it does. The notion of the self-realization of the proletariat, based on a positive attitude towards labor asthe source of social wealth was an image adequate to that historical context,which was projected forward in the future as a determination of socialism. Thatnotion, however, necessarily implies the developed existence of capital, not itsabolition.

58. An example of the limitations of an analysis that interprets the categories ofvalue and use-value only in terms of the market, is afforded by Antonio Carlo's

attempt critically to analyzethe Soviet Union

( The SocioeconomicNature of

the USSR, Telos, 21 (Summer 1974), While denying that the Soviet Union issocialist, Carlo rejects all attempts to analyze it as a state capitalist form on thegrounds that, in the absence of a market, production is of use-value. He claims,therefore, that, although production in the USSR has the same form as in capitalism,the working class there does not constitute a proletariat. This is an extremeexample of the social emptiness of the Marxian categories when interpreted asbeing those of political economy.

59. This, in our opinion, constitutes the theoretical context within which JiirgenHabermas' attempt to call into question the socially synthetic and constitutiverole attributed to labor should be understood. His strategic intent, apparently, isto save the possibility of emancipation by rolling back the centrality of labor in



657

the theory, once it had been shown to be an insufficientbasis for freedom.Habermas' ritique,however,while applicable o traditionalMarxism,s not, as

shallbe indicatedbelow,adequate o Marx.60. Marx,GrundrisseLondon, 1973), 157-8.61. The reinterpretationf the Marxian ritiqueoutlinedbelowis based on Postone's

currentwork.62. Marx,Theories f SurplusValue, I (Moscow,1968), 164.63. Marx,Capital, (London, 1976), 129.64. The analysisof the double characterof commodity-producingabor indicates

that both positionsin the recentdebate,initiatedby Habermas'ErkenntnisundInteresse,on whetheror not labor is a socialcategory sufficiently synthetictofulfill all that Marx demandedof it, dealwith labor as labor n anundifferen-tiated transhistoricalashion,rather han with the specificandhistoricallyuniquesyntheticstructureof laborin capitalism, s uncovered n the critiqueof politicaleconomy.

65.Capital,

137. 66.Ibid.,

255. 67.Ibid.,

432.68. Ibid.,658. 69. Ibid.,491. 70. Ibid.,638. 71. Grundrisse, 04ff.72. For a more extensivediscussionof those passagesn the Grundrisse, s well asan

attempt to outline the possiblesubjectivedimension of the contradiction,seeM.Postone, Necessity,LaborandTime, SocialResearch Winter1978).

73. To avoidany unnecessarymisunderstandings:hisreinterpretationf the contra-dictionbetweenthe forces andrelationsof production houldbe takento implyapositionthat assumes he necessaryemergenceof oppositionalconsciousness ndthe achievementof emancipation.The latter problemscould not be directlyaddressed n thisarticle. Theproblem,however, s not simplythe relationbetweenthe objectiveand subjectivedimensions of social life, for any approach o thatquestionis necessarilynformedby assumptionsabout the essentialcharacterofthe socialformation.Basicassumptionsof traditionalMarxismhave been sharedby a wide varietyof theoriesthat divergeconsiderablyrom one another on thelevel of the relationof socialobjectivityand subjectivity. t therefore no longersuffices, for example, to oppose objectivist heoriesof socialchangeto thosein which socialpracticeand subjectivityplay a centralrole,withoutinvestigatingtheirsocialassumptions.Ourconcern n this article is to indicate the limitationsof the traditionalMarxistassumptionsthemselvesfor an adequatecritiqueofcapitalism.

74. The notion of abstract domination appears n Habermas'LegitmationCrisis(1975) as classdominationthat is not manifest,but is veiledby the nonpoliticalform of exchange(52). The existence of this form of domination,according oHabermas, roundedMarx'sattemptto graspthe crisis-proneevelopmentof thesocialsystemby meansof an economicanalysisof the lawsof motionof capital.With the repolitizationof the socialsystemin postliberalcapitalism,dominationonce againbecomesovert;the validityof Marx'sattemptis therefore imitedto

liberalcapitalism 52-3). LikePollock,Habermasdentifiedthe law of value withthe self-regulatingmarketand groundsdominations n class structure.Accordingto the interpretationpresentedhere, however,classdomination should not beassumed o be the invariable roundof socialdomination.Thedifferencebetweenconcrete and abstractdomination is thereforenot simplya matter of how classdominationprevails politicallyor mediatedby the market).It expresses, ather,that with the developmentof capitalism,classdominationdoes not remain heultimate groundof social domination,but itself becomesa function of a super-ordinate, abstract orm of domination.Dominationn capitalisms, ultimately,not groundedin the dominatingclass but in the compulsionsexertedby thealienatedforms of social relations(value, capital).Those forms can neitherbegraspedadequately n terms of the marketnor, as quasi-independentorms thatexist outside and opposed to individualsand classes,can they be understood n

termsof the concretesocialrelationsamong hem.75. Thisnotion of two-sideddevelopmentclearlyhaslittle in commonwith notionsof linear progress,whether with referenceto the developmentof (capitalist)society in generalor to that of production n the narrower ense ( technicalprogress ). The latter notion fails to penetrate the fetish on the level of capitaland considersthe processof production only in termsof concretelabor. Thisholds truefor alloptimisticvarietiesof traditionalMarxism,n which the develop-ment of labor s considered o be the guarantor f the good life, as well as thepessimisticreaction of CriticalTheory and Habermas'subsequentattempt togroundthe possibilityof emancipationoutside of the realmof technicalpro-gress. In terms of Marx'sanalysis,any attemptto consider he relation of pro-ductionand emancipation hat proceedsfrom an understandingf labor in capi-talismas labor mustnecessarilyposethe problemnadequately.



658

76. Althoughsuch a transformationwould not affect the basictemporaldetermina-tion of the value form, it would entail a significantchangein the manner n

which that form prevails.Whilethe marketdoes not playa centralrole in Marx'sanalysisof the relations of production n Vol. I, competitionis importantinVol. III, for example,as the meansby which an average ate of profit is estab-lished.It is at this level that the emergence f statecapitalismdemandsa revisionof Marx's riticalanalysis.

77. Capital, , 255-6.78. M. PostoneandH. Reinicke, OnNicolaus, Telos,22 (Winter1974-5), 139.79. For a similarargument, f. IringFetscher, VierThesenzurGeschichtsauffassung

bei Hegelund Marx, n HansGeorgGadamer, d., StuttgarterHegel-Tage 970(Bonn, 1974), 481-488.

80. Thathistoricallydeterminate ormsareperceivedand understoodas beingtrans-historical is central to Marx's notion of the fetish, which he explicated andgroundedas the epistemologicaldimension of the dialectic of the categoricalsocialforms.

81. Cf.Arato, Introduction, n AratoandGebhardt,12. 19.82. PostoneandReinicke,135-6. 83.MEW,3, 5-6.84. 'Traditionaland CriticalTheory, Zeitschriftfur Sozialforschung,VI (1937),

156-7.85. Ibid.,259, 262. 86.Ibid., 265.87. Ibid., 282. Horkheimers not referringo the unityof theoryandpracticesimply

in termsof politicalactivity, but, morefundamentally, n the level of socialcon-stitution.

88. TraditionalndCriticalTheory, 251. 89. Ibid.90. Ibid., 258.91.Ibid., 259.92. Ibid., 271.93. Ibid., 281, 257. 94.Ibid., 255, 279. 95.Ibid., 270.96. Ibid., 269. 97.Ibid., 262, 272. 98.Ibid., 257, 270.99. Ibid., 257. 100.Ibid., 263. 101.Ibid., 271.

102. Ibid., 268-291.103.Ibid., 268. 104.Ibid., 273. 105.Ibid., 285-7.106. Ibid., 285. 107.Ibid., 287-8. 108. In AratoandGebhardt, 6.109. Ibid., 102. 110.Ibid., 109. 111.Ibid., 103, 109. 112.Ibid., 109-11.113. Ibid., 106. 114.Ibid. 112, translation hanged.115. Ibid., 114. 116.Ibid., 106, translation hanged.117. Ibid., 107. 118.Ibid. 119.Ibid., 107-8, 116.120. Ibid., 106, translation hanged.121.Ibid., 108. 122.Ibid., 108-9.

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