Capitalism may resolve its internal contradictions by making them tolerable rather than ending them

Evidence

On these grounds, there arises a universe of administration in which depressions are controlled and conflicts stabilized by the beneficial effects of growing productivity and threatening nuclear war. Is this stabilization “temporary” in the sense that it does not affect the roots of the conflicts which Marx found in the capitalist mode of production (contradiction between private ownership of the means of production and social productivity), or is it a transformation of the antagonistic structure itself, which resolves the contradictions by making them tolerable? And, if the second alternative is true, how does it change the relationship between capitalism and socialism which made the latter appear the historical negation of the former? — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 161

Categorization

• QUESTION: This touches the unresolved question of whether absorption is permanent transformation or postponement — worth chasing whether Marcuse ever commits to one side.
• DEFINE: The ‘universe of administration’ is introduced here: growth plus nuclear threat as the twin stabilizers.
• XREF: connects to: Capitalism co-opts opposition and must be escaped rather than confronted — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 468; Full subsumption by capital will not collapse capitalism through internal contradictions — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 54; Capitalism can preserve ‘irrational’ features like unfree labor rather than abolish them — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 590 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism can preserve ‘irrational’ features like unfree labor rather than abolish them #exemplifies (0.95) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 590
• Financialization functions as a disciplinary mechanism to exploit labor and displace capitalist contradictions #exemplifies (0.85) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 58
• Capitalism’s permanent contradiction enables endless mutation instead of revolution #corroborates (0.80) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 21
• Capitalism co-opts opposition and must be escaped rather than confronted #corroborates (0.75) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 468
• Advanced capitalism needs two contradictory legitimating discourses at once #qualifies (0.75) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 275
• Full subsumption by capital will not collapse capitalism through internal contradictions #corroborates (0.72) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 54
• Capitalism cannot function without its ideological disguises and myths #expands (0.70) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 96