Adorno extends Marx from coercive structures to the lived possibilities of individual self-determination.

Evidence

Marx discovered the overarching coercive mechanisms in effect between all individuals in society, mechanisms which classify individuals and which in doing so ultimately give society its specific, capitalist form. From here, Adorno goes on to examine both the manner in which society’s coercion of socialised individuals takes place and the results of this coercion. This marks a shift in focus onto questions concerning individuality’s conditions and possibilities – its expressions in professional life, leisure time, culture, art, sport, consumption and daily routine, and the ways in which it relates to science, reason, philosophy and art. In short: Adorno is concerned with the remaining possibilities for self-determination, for unregulated experience which is neither standardised nor determined in advance, for accessing and generating culture and for social knowledge – that is, with the remaining possibilities for living life, given that the vision of life offered by bourgeois society as an individual promise of happiness is rendered de facto unliveable by the existence of bourgeois society, where the prevailing and totalising capital-relation forms the backdrop of socially mediated domination, repression and restriction both in general and particular. ‘Private life is, more than we can even imagine, mere reprivatization; the realities to which men hold have become unreal. “Life itself is a lifeless thing” [Das Leben lebt nicht]’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 917

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the book’s revisionist purpose: Adorno’s critique of political economy extends beyond economics into everyday life, culture and selfhood. — connects to: Adorno linked the performer’s interpretive freedom to the stage of capitalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 560; Adorno extended Marx’s species-concept by deriving individuality itself from economic relations. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1255; Adorno extends Marx by linking systemic antagonisms to every individual’s consciousness — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1389 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the real scope of Adorno’s critique of political economy as a critique of life under the totalising capital-relation, not just of economic theory.

Broader Connections

• Adorno extends Marx by linking systemic antagonisms to every individual’s consciousness #expands (0.88) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1389
• Adorno extended Marx’s species-concept by deriving individuality itself from economic relations. #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1255
• Adorno treats exchange as a principle shaping thought and feeling to the innermost being. #expands (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 930
• Adorno’s theory aimed at practical triumph over prevailing circumstances. #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1026
• Adorno kept class struggle but demoted it from analytical focus #qualifies (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1743