Neumann saw Pollock’s state-capitalism thesis as abandoning Marxism for Mannheim’s sociology.

Evidence

What Neumann wrote in Behemoth at the conclusion of his critique of the concept of state capitalism was a matter of existential significance for him: 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 up by a bureaucratic apparatus and by the ideology of the people's community.' Neumann's existential commitment may explain the vehemence with which, in his letter to Horkheimer, he took the view that Pollock's article contradicted the theory of the Institute from beginning to end’; it contained a clear departure from Marxism'; it was in reality merely a new formulation of Mannheim’s sociology, mainly of Mannheim’s last book, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1179

Categorization

• XREF: Neumann’s charge that Pollock’s state capitalism rehashes Mannheim connects back to the Institute’s long rivalry with Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. — connects to: Neumann studied under Laski and Mannheim at the LSE before guarding the Institute’s library. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 919; Neumann faulted Pollock for lacking a transition theory from monopoly to state capitalism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1172
• ADDENDUM: This internal Frankfurt School dispute over whether Nazism constitutes state capitalism is directly relevant background for the reader’s institutional-history purposes.