Pollock located capitalism’s crisis mechanism in market autonomy, not ownership

Evidence

Although its title was `State Capitalism: its Possibilities and Limitations’, state capitalism was presented in it as a system which not only was superior to the old capitalist companies but did not have any specific, inherent limitations at all. Pollock had always seen the decisive cause of capitalist crises as lying in the autonomy of the market, which, under pressure from the monopolies, was functioning less and less well as a self-control mechanism for the economy, and was producing anarchy and economic distortion to an ever greater extent. The fact that the autonomy of the market was abolished under state capitalism seemed in Pollock’s eyes to remove the decisive cause of the crises. He drily stated the superiority of state capitalism over the old private capitalist companies, and towards the end of the article observed just as drily that one was faced with a choice between totalitarian and democratic state capitalism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1168

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Pollock’s distinctive definition of state capitalism: the distinguishing trait is abolition of autonomous market self-control, not ownership form.
• XREF: Connects to Adorno and Horkheimer’s later Dialectic of Enlightenment critique of administered society and instrumental reason. — connects to: Pollock located capitalism’s crisis in sectoral disproportions rather than falling profit rates — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 239; Capitalist economic choice was coercive, not genuinely free. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 100; Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty #contradicts (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166
• Pollock located capitalism’s crisis in sectoral disproportions rather than falling profit rates #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 239
• Capitalist economic choice was coercive, not genuinely free. #expands (0.70) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 100