Adorno’s identification of exchange with identity logic is meta-economic, not capitalist

Evidence

Here, Adorno vacillates between two definitions of use-value. On the one hand, in analogy to the non-identical, use-value is construed as non-substantive. Yet on the other, Adorno suggests that use-value as a ‘part of nature’ is in a certain sense co-opted by exchange-value. This latter construal backslides into the critique of political economy’s capitalism-specific concept of exchange, whereas the reference to the difference between the identical and the non-identical demands the meta-economic, extra-capitalist concept of exchange already employed elsewhere by Adorno. Contrary to Lindner, Negative Dialectics does not conceptualise ‘identity logic as the capitalist form of thought par excellence, one whose model is exchange’. Although Adorno does claim that the principle of exchange ‘is fundamentally akin to the principle of identification’ and that exchange itself is ‘the social model of the principle’, the exchange presented by Adorno as a model here is not the specifically capitalist exchange-relation. Rather, it is meta-economic exchange in general. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1298

Categorization

• XREF: Directly counters Lindner’s reading; ties into the revisionist claim that Adorno’s critique of identity logic is not reducible to a critique of capitalist exchange — connects to the book’s core thesis. — connects to: Adorno made instrumental reason a transhistoric urge rather than a capitalist product — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 380; Adorno read Kierkegaard’s subjectivism as a covert identity theory. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 259; Adorno saw formal logic as a social artifact mirroring commodity exchange. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 266 (+9 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the contested distinction between capitalism-specific exchange and meta-economic, extra-capitalist exchange in Adorno.

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s critique targets economy-in-general as universal rationality, not just capitalism #corroborates (0.93) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1605
• Adorno’s ‘use-value-in-itself’ assumption departs from and contradicts Marxian theory #complicates (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 230
• Adorno’s utopia keeps exchange but makes every exchange just #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1559