Class analysis is central to Adorno’s Critical Theory

Evidence

This passage once again reveals that the meta-economic principle of domination via equivalence and identity (which has become total under capital) is central to Adorno’s work. Furthermore, it also demonstrates that class analysis – which Adorno allegedly ‘hints at only aphoristically and relegates to the periphery of his thought’’ – is in truth at the centre of both his critique of economy and his Critical Theory as a whole. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1472

Categorization

• XREF: Directly counters the standard ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ and ‘aphoristic, peripheral class analysis’ readings of Adorno — the revisionist historiographical debate the reader is pursuing. — connects to: Adorno retained class analysis while abandoning proletarian class-consciousness as impossible — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 679; Adorno prioritized analyzing class struggle within dialectical materialism from 1936 onward — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 628; Adorno developed an independent theory of class beyond Marx’s — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1468 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: which secondary literature claims Adorno relegates class analysis to the periphery, and how does the surrounding debate in the volume substantiate or complicate the counterclaim?

Broader Connections

• Adorno rejected idealist reconciliation of class antagonism as evading objective social causes #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 236
• The proletariat’s integration forced critical theory into transcendent critique #qualifies (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 190