Kirchheimer doubted that pre-capitalist societies were mere racket systems

Evidence

Kirchheimer, for example, questioned whether the working class had been transformed into a `pragmatic totality’, whether the process of production had become the basis of society’s legitimacy, and whether pre-capitalist societies could be considered as racket systems, systems of domination which lacked any really significant system of ideological justification. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1334

Categorization

• XREF: Kirchheimer’s objection anticipates the charge that racket theory reduces all domination to gang rule, aligning with broader critiques of Frankfurt functionalism.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1334