Marx saw all known history as prehistory under bondage
Evidence
For Marx and, before him, Hegel, the dialectical movement of history could, in a sense, be summed up as permanent transition or unchanging change. With a kind of hope born of despair, Marx applied the term ‘prehistory’ to no less than the entire stretch of history known to him – to what had been, and was, the realm of bondage. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1455
The description of history as the history of class struggles ontologises history as what ‘was always the same’, statically defining it as what has been until now – as what Marx himself terms prehistory ‘[w]ith a kind of hope born of despair’. However, this always still current prehistory is ‘no less than the entire stretch of [known] history …, the realm of bondage’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 697
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the scope of Marx’s ‘prehistory’ — the entire realm of bondage, not merely a limited period.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1455; Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 697
- XREF: connects to: Marx’s own theory anticipated its eventual negation as historical ideology