Neumann rejected state capitalism and the primacy of politics thesis.

Evidence

More central still was his disagreement with Pollock’s notion of state capitalism. To Neumann, “The very term ‘state capitalism’ is a contradictio in adiecto.” Quoting Hilferding, he continued, “Once the state has become the sole owner of the means of production it makes it impossible for a capitalist economy to function, it destroys that mechanism which keeps the very processes of economic circulation in active existence.” 96 That the “primacy of politics” and the managerial revolution had not yet been achieved Neumann set out to prove by examining the German economy empirically. In doing so, he also made it clear that he did not share Pollock’s general gloom about the invulnerability of the system: “The present writer does not accept this profoundly pessimistic view. He believes that the antagonisms of capitalism are operating in Germany on a higher and, therefore, a more dangerous level, even if these antagonisms are covered by a bureaucratic apparatus and by the ideology of the people’s community.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 508

Categorization

• QUESTION: Neumann’s empirical challenge to Pollock’s state-capitalism thesis seems like the decisive theoretical break in the Institute’s exile economy debates — worth tracing how Horkheimer adjudicated the dispute.
• XREF: Directly pays off the Pollock-state-capitalism-primacy-of-politics debate that must have been set up in earlier chapters on the Institute’s exile economics and the authoritarian state. — connects to: Neumann rejected orthodox Marxist accounts of fascism as finance-capital dictatorship — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 509; Pollock’s state capitalism theory erased class antagonisms in favor of purely political rulers — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 599; The Frankfurt School neglected autonomous political theory until Pollack’s state capitalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 395

Broader Connections

• Neumann rejected orthodox Marxist accounts of fascism as finance-capital dictatorship #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 509
• Pollock’s state capitalism theory erased class antagonisms in favor of purely political rulers #contradicts (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 599
• The Frankfurt School neglected autonomous political theory until Pollack’s state capitalism #complicates (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 395