Hans Mayer accused Adorno of using Marxian categories without grounding them in Capital.

Evidence

First, this essay sharply criticises Adorno’s inadequate use of economiccategories.‘Adornochoseasthefoundationof hisanalysis(andsignalled asmuchwiththetitleof hiswork)thefamousconceptof commodity-fetishism, which was developed by Marx to inquire into the secret of the commodityform, and later expanded by Luk[á]cs in his famous considerations of the problem of “reification” and then applied to the formation of consciousness. Yet everything depends on whether this category is well-chosen in the present case, on whether it is “fruitful”’. Mayer forthrightly concludes that it is not. According to him, ‘Fetish-Character’ takes ‘formulations such as “reification” and “fetishism”, which are gradually becoming catchwords’, out of the context of Marx’s Capital, only to place them ‘anywhere at random’. Ultimately, he argues, Adorno’s ‘reading of Capital appears to be limited to familiarity with its first chapter on the secret of the commodity-form’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 452

Categorization

• XREF: Central to the historiographical debate the reader is pursuing — the charge that Adorno’s Marxism was superficial or ornamental, which the book apparently mounts a revisionist counter to. — connects to: Marx saw Capital as scientific while Adorno denies science’s authority — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 985; Adorno demanded Benjamin ground his commodity-soul thesis in Marx’s Capital chapter on fetishism. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 290

Broader Connections

• Marx saw Capital as scientific while Adorno denies science’s authority #expands (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 985
• Adorno demanded Benjamin ground his commodity-soul thesis in Marx’s Capital chapter on fetishism. #exemplifies (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 290