Fascism replaces blind market mechanisms with conscious domination

Evidence

Horkheimer outlines the terrible vision of a ‘fascism as world system’ whose end from an economic perspective would be unforeseeable. Under its new relations, exploitation of the weak would not simply reproduce itself through blind mechanisms, but rather ‘through the conscious exertion of domination’. Methodical violence would be strived for in order to ‘directly master social antagonisms’. While this would not cause the categories of Marxian economy to lose their ‘real validity’, it would – ironically – mean the realisation of their predicted consequence: ‘the end of political economy’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 560

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The irony that fascism realizes Marx’s predicted ‘end of political economy’ precisely by abolishing the market’s blind logic — a dense, layered claim that resists one-sentence summary. This is core to the book’s revisionist thesis.
• XREF: connects to: Fascism operates through micro-organizational molecular power rather than centralized bureaucracy — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2536; Fascism solved national representation by organizing citizens into functional pyramids inside the State — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2473; Fascist-era economists saw their models as Platonic truths to impose on reality — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1116

Broader Connections

• Fascism operates through micro-organizational molecular power rather than centralized bureaucracy #qualifies (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2536
• Fascism solved national representation by organizing citizens into functional pyramids inside the State #expands (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2473