Horkheimer’s state-capitalism thesis entirely lacks Pollock’s affirmative assessment

Evidence

Horkheimer cites this passage at the very beginning of his essay before concluding as follows: ‘In the transition from monopoly to state capitalism, the last stage offered by bourgeois society is “the appropriation of the large productive and commercial organisms, first by joint-stock companies, later by trusts and then by the state”. State capitalism is the authoritarian state of the present’. However, in contrast to the consequences Pollock draws from the supposed progression towards state capitalism, Horkheimer’s assessment contains no affirmative element whatsoever. ‘The authoritarian state is repressive in all of its forms’. Writing to Pollock regarding his essay ‘State Capitalism’, Horkheimer urges the former to ‘avoid being misunderstood as overly sympathetic to state capitalism’, apparently failing to recognise that Pollock’s apparent sympathy can hardly be attributed to a simple misunderstanding. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 569

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the revisionist historiography of the Frankfurt School debate — directly counters the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ reading this reader is pursuing. — connects to: Adorno read Pollock’s state capitalism paper as reversing Kafka’s hell imagery; Horkheimer feared Pollock’s state capitalism paper read as sympathetic to it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1166
• DEEPTHINKING: Distinguishing Horkheimer from Pollock on state capitalism is a dense historiographical crux that rewards prolonged unpacking.