Individual spontaneity in commodity society is expropriated by that society.

Evidence

The individual himself forms a moment of the commodity society: the pure spontaneity that is attributed to him is the spontaneity which society expropriates. … The subjects are free, after the Kantian model, in so far as they are aware of and identical with themselves; and then again, they are unfree in such identity in so far as they are subjected to, and will perpetuate, its compulsion. They are unfree as diffuse, non-identical nature; and yet, as that nature they are free because their overpowering impulsethe subject’s nonidentity with itself is nothing elsewill also rid them of identity’s coercive character. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 639

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s dialectic of freedom: identity with oneself is simultaneously freedom and compulsion, nonidentity simultaneously unfreedom and liberation.
• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School reading on Horkheimer/Adorno’s critique of instrumental reason and identity-thinking. — connects to: Commodities have become sites of self-recognition that bind individuals to society. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 124; Individuality is a product of market political economy, not its opposite — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 169; Commodity fetishism in mass production dictates conventional human behavior — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 46 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Commodities have become sites of self-recognition that bind individuals to society. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 124; Individuality is a product of market political economy, not its opposite — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 169; Commodity fetishism in mass production dictates conventional human behavior — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 46 (+2 more)