Adorno refused to treat economic primacy as a static anthropological constant

Evidence

It’s important … that one doesn’t fall victim to apologetic thinking and try to produce evidence of economic supremacy since times of yore [zu Olims Zeiten]. What’s interesting in this problem is the question of the respective degree of independence of society from the economy in various eras of social development. In other words, it’s important not to turn historical tendencies and this question into an anthropological one.With this problem regarding the dynamics of society, one should not try to orient oneself on a static model of the human being, for human, society and economy are historically realised. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1178

Categorization

• DEFINE: IsoRe: distinguishes Adorno’s historicized dialectical approach from an apologetic/anthropological reading of economic determinism.
• XREF: connects to: Influential readings wrongly claim Adorno ignored political economy — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 35; Adorno rejects causal-genetic and ideal-typical models of the commodity-form relationship. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 330; Adorno openly admitted the aporia of strictly adhering to versus weakening economic categories — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 899 (+4 more)