Confident socialist optimism among Institute theorists eroded as economists analyzed capitalist crisis management.

Evidence

None of the authors concerned themselves with topics such as the constitutional welfare state, Weimar democracy or Italian fascism. But none of them doubted that the future belonged to socialism. However, such optimism was increasingly undermined by the analyses of the effects of the world economic crisis, and of capitalist crisis policies and the planned economy, which were conducted by the Institute’s economistsPollock, Kurt Mandelbaum (alias Kurt Baumann) and Gerhard Meyerwho were more concerned with current events. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 142

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the planned-economy analyses by Pollock, Mandelbaum, and Meyer that later feed the state-capitalism thesis. — connects to: Institute economists split on whether capitalist crisis was producing a planned economy — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 503; The Institute’s original economic theories did not fit post-1973 capitalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 19

Broader Connections

• Institute economists split on whether capitalist crisis was producing a planned economy #complicates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 503
• The Institute’s original economic theories did not fit post-1973 capitalism #corroborates (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 19