Adorno rejects causal-genetic and ideal-typical models of the commodity-form relationship.

Evidence

In the question of ‘which comes first, the socially necessary separation of physical and mental labour or the usurpatory privilege of the medicine man’, Adorno ultimately recognises the mere ‘debate over the chicken and the egg. In any case, the shaman requires ideology and without him it would not be possible’. On this point, he is even more explicit in a subsequent lecture, claiming that humans as ‘functionaries’ of exchange-processes are already ruled by domination, and that this is why he ‘does not base theoretical analyses … on some ideal-typical and ahistorical models of a pure exchange act from which this and that follow’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 330

Categorization

• XREF: Directly counters the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ reading and situates Adorno against Sohn-Rethel’s historical-genetic approach — core to the reader’s revisionist case. — connects to: Adorno rejected Benjamin’s philological method as trapped between magic and positivism. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 620; Adorno rejected Benjamin’s equation of commodity with the archaic — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 617; Adorno refused to treat economic primacy as a static anthropological constant — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1178
• DEFINE: Clarifies what Adorno’s non-causal, non-ideal-typical mediation of commodity form and thought actually is.

Broader Connections

• Adorno refused to treat economic primacy as a static anthropological constant #corroborates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1178