Adorno and Horkheimer saw postwar society as administered capitalism expropriating individual autonomy

Evidence

Contemporary society was an administered society' and an exchange society’. In the economy, as in other areas of society, individual autonomy was being increasingly restricted. Free competition between giant companies was being constantly reduced. The organic composition of capital was still increasingthat is, the proportion of objectified labour was increasing in comparison with that of living labour. At the same time, there was an increase in the organic composition of individuals themselvesthat is, the process that had begun by transforming labour-power into commodities was continuing as a growing reduction in the living proportion of subjects themselves in their dealings with things and people, both inside and outside the production process. Individuals were being increasingly robbed of their autonomy, through their growing loss of economic independence, through increasing dependence on economic, social and state organizations, and through the culture industry and the administrative bodies responsible for culture, which were neutralizing culture and turning it into an instrument with which to expropriate people’s independent experience. Individuals, uncertain how to deal either with their own discontent or with whatever had not yet been transformed into commodities and administered, tended to identify themselves with what kept them alive, to which there seemed to be no alternative: an administered capitalism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2313

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the core Frankfurt School concept of ‘administered society’ and the parallel ‘organic composition of capital / of individuals.’
• XREF: Connects to the earlier-material theme of cultural co-optation of experience; also maps onto Habermas’s later systems-lifeworld colonization thesis. — connects to: Horkheimer and Adorno located capitalism’s core in the exchange principle — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1635; Adorno defended typologies because capitalism had destroyed authentic individualism for most people — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 681
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the ‘culture industry controls experience’ angle; relevant to how institutions manage independent experience.

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer and Adorno located capitalism’s core in the exchange principle #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1635
• Adorno defended typologies because capitalism had destroyed authentic individualism for most people #expands (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 681