Cold War political dependence pushed Horkheimer to stop naming capitalism in his published work.
Evidence
Those who did not wish to speak of capitalism should also be silent about fascism, Horkheimer had written in 1939 in `The Jews and Europe’. Now he no longer mentioned capitalism himself either. This was primarily for tactical reasons. If one criticized capitalism, one would have no chance of gaining the goodwill and support of the American authorities which permitted his activities as an American citizen in Germany, and which would possibly allow an Institute to be founded. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 425
Categorization
- XREF: Ties to the book’s recurring theme of Institute funding insecurity and American patronage from earlier chapters. — connects to: Horkheimer’s postwar conservatism led him to suppress politically engaged student research — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2356; Horkheimer himself had renounced the critique of political economy by the 1940s — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 898; Horkheimer’s own silence on capitalism contradicted his 1939 demand that fascism analysis require it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1722 (+3 more)
- QUESTION: Did the tactical silence reshape the theory itself, or merely its vocabulary? The chapter leaves this open.
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Horkheimer’s postwar conservatism led him to suppress politically engaged student research — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2356; Horkheimer himself had renounced the critique of political economy by the 1940s — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 898; Horkheimer’s own silence on capitalism contradicted his 1939 demand that fascism analysis require it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1722 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Horkheimer abandoned explicit capitalism critique to protect American goodwill
#corroborates(0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1722