Competition under capitalism is a functional necessity, not manufactured legitimation.
Evidence
However, competition between concerns is not artificial, but rather emerged ‘primordially’ – that is, in accordance with political-economic necessities as a functionally essential element within capitalism. Additionally, competition is also not maintained by regulation for the purpose of legitimating exploitation and domination. While class antagonism and domination continually reproduce each other, the state is tasked with regulating monopolisation to the extent that no sole producer of a particular kind of product can determine its price independently from ‘economic competition’. Domination is not merely reproduced by ideology, but rather, as always, is bound to control over the means of production. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 611
Categorization
- QUESTION: Adorno insists competition is ‘primordially’ necessary to capitalism rather than a regulative fiction — this runs against post-liberal critique readings and is worth chasing in his texts.
- XREF: Connects to the established Adorno—Horkheimer debate over whether late capitalism is organized/state-controlled or still market-driven; relevant to the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ counter-reading. — connects to: Monopoly is the outcome, not the antithesis, of competition. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 138; Capitalism’s apparent naturalness is a constructed hoax, not an inevitability. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 26; Competition is a discovery process requiring minimal rules, not an endpoint or structure. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 705 (+3 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that competition is functionally essential — not an instrument of legitimation — overturns a common critical-theory assumption that competition under monopoly is mere ideological cover. Dense enough to sit with.
Broader Connections
- Monopoly is the outcome, not the antithesis, of competition.
#expands(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 138