Financial dependence forced the Institute to adopt the contract strategy it despised in Lazarsfeld.

Evidence

The Institute was re-established without Horkheimer having realized that an Institute that was no longer financially independent would sooner or later have to take on research contracts. Nor did he see that it would be difficult for Critical Theorists, in a period of restoration, not to fall into moral dilemmas. … What alternative was there to the strategy pursued by Lazarsfeld, who was so despised by the Critical Theorists, of using research contracts, even unwelcome ones, to give the Institute an opportunity to carry out its own projects? At the same time, it would not be possible for its own projects to kick up too much of a fuss, since this might result in contracts not being awarded. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1858

Categorization

• XREF: Vindicates Lazarsfeld’s approach (ch36) after the Critical Theorists had spent a decade scorning it. — connects to: The Frankfurt Institute suppressed its labor study over methodological disagreements with Lazarsfeld — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1563
• DEEPTHINKING: A poignant payoff: the institution’s materially coerced return to the despised ‘administrative research’ strategy, exposing how economic dependence converts contempt into necessity.

Broader Connections

• The Frankfurt Institute suppressed its labor study over methodological disagreements with Lazarsfeld #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1563