Abolition of equivalent exchange is its fulfillment, not its negation

Evidence

Adorno agues that for exchange to make ‘all well’, it would have to live up to a further possibility enabled by its descent from the principle of identity: it would have to become just. ‘[I]n society as it ought to be, [exchange] would be not only abolished but fulfilled’. … The abolition of the exchange of equivalents would be its fulfillment; as long as equality reigns as law, the individual is cheated of equality’. In this fulfilment, each would finally ‘receive’ what ‘exchange essentially always only promised to them, only to let them down’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1554

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The dialectical crux — that suspension of exchange must not fall back behind exchange — is dense, paradoxical, and resists quick summary.
• XREF: Directly connects to Marx’s critique of Proudhon’s naive abolition of exchange, and to the Grundrisse discussions of the ‘abolition as fulfillment’ dialectic. — connects to: Exchange is sacrifice’s secularized form, not its offshoot — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 770; Exchange society is immanently critical because equivalence contradicts itself — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1382; Fulfilling the concept of free exchange reveals it as its own opposite — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1601 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• A just exchange of equivalents would abolish the exchange category itself #corroborates (0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1556
• Exchange is a change within each party, not a thing between them. #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 223
• Every exchange is individually advantageous given its actual circumstances #corroborates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 255