Adorno read Pollock’s state capitalism paper as reversing Kafka’s hell imagery

Evidence

In one letter, he writes the following: … I can best summarise my views on this essay by saying that it represents an inversion of Kafka. Kafka portrayed bureaucratic hierarchy as hell. Here, hell is transformed into a bureaucratic hierarchy. Additionally, the whole thing is so full of theses and so formulated ‘from above’ in a Husserlian sense that it fully dispenses with urgency. This is to say nothing of its undialectical assumption that in an antagonistic society, a non-antagonistic economy would be possible. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 584 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

If Adorno had agreed with Pollock’s thesis that state capitalism had overcome monopoly capitalism, he no longer would have had to (or have been able to) pursue the critique of economy for the sake of social critique. Instead, he could have focused solely on a critique of hierarchised administrative hell – a critique expressed extensively throughout his and Horkheimer’s work by the concept of the ‘administered world’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 586 (#expands, via linked claim)

Horkheimer cites this passage at the very beginning of his essay before concluding as follows: ‘In the transition from monopoly to state capitalism, the last stage offered by bourgeois society is “the appropriation of the large productive and commercial organisms, first by joint-stock companies, later by trusts and then by the state”. State capitalism is the authoritarian state of the present’. However, in contrast to the consequences Pollock draws from the supposed progression towards state capitalism, Horkheimer’s assessment contains no affirmative element whatsoever. ‘The authoritarian state is repressive in all of its forms’. Writing to Pollock regarding his essay ‘State Capitalism’, Horkheimer urges the former to ‘avoid being misunderstood as overly sympathetic to state capitalism’, apparently failing to recognise that Pollock’s apparent sympathy can hardly be attributed to a simple misunderstanding. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 569 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s diagnosis of Kafka leads him to reject Pollock’s state capitalism — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 584; Disagreement with Pollock forced Adorno to retain economic critique — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 586; Benjamin read Kafka’s messianism as a theologico-political remnant — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 756 (+1 more)

Related

• Adorno’s diagnosis of Kafka leads him to reject Pollock’s state capitalism (similarity 0.96)
• Adorno condemned Pollock’s state capitalism thesis as undialectical and complacent. (similarity 0.91)
• Disagreement with Pollock forced Adorno to retain economic critique (similarity 0.87)
• Horkheimer’s state-capitalism thesis entirely lacks Pollock’s affirmative assessment (similarity 0.86)
• Horkheimer feared Pollock’s state capitalism paper read as sympathetic to it (similarity 0.82)
• State-capitalism theory downgrades the economic base in favor of direct political domination (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s diagnosis of Kafka leads him to reject Pollock’s state capitalism #contradicts (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 584
• Disagreement with Pollock forced Adorno to retain economic critique #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 586
• Horkheimer’s state-capitalism thesis entirely lacks Pollock’s affirmative assessment #contradicts (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 569
• Benjamin read Kafka’s messianism as a theologico-political remnant #responds-to (0.72) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 756