Neumann’s trade-union and SPD background clashed with Horkheimer’s homogeneous circle ideal.

Evidence

Franz Neumann, to whom this mainly legal task had been delegated, could hardly suit Horkheimer’s idea of having a homogeneous circle of research associates. Up to 1933 he had been a committed lawyer for the trade unions and the SPD, and only in exile had he become a full-time academic. His position was extremely close to that of Harold Laski, who was the principal theoretician of the reformist Labour Party. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 920

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer and Neumann grounded incompatible versions of Marxism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1178; Frankfurter and the US academic left shaped Neumann’s divergence from Horkheimer’s circle — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 938; Neumann’s mechanistic Marxism aligned him with Grossmann and Wittfogel against Horkheimer’s circle. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 462

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer and Neumann grounded incompatible versions of Marxism. #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1178
• Neumann’s mechanistic Marxism aligned him with Grossmann and Wittfogel against Horkheimer’s circle. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 462
• Frankfurter and the US academic left shaped Neumann’s divergence from Horkheimer’s circle #expands (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 938