The early Adorno’s project of fetishizing pre-capitalist society contradicts Marxian theory

Evidence

At the same time, this also means that fetish-character in the Marxian sense can only be spoken of in a society in which the commodity-form dominates the entirety of production – that is, in a capitalist society. In other words, Adorno’s description of his programme to Fromm as ‘tracing the economic fetish-character back beyond capitalist society’ is a contradiction in terms, as Marxian fetish-character cannot grasp pre-capitalist modes of production. In his letter to Fromm and his ‘Fetish-Character’ essay, Adorno has not yet come to appreciate the specific relevance of Marx’s critique of political economy to capitalism. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 411

Categorization

• XREF: This is a historiographical stake: it grounds the revisionist claim that the young/fetish-essay Adorno had not yet properly absorbed Marx’s critique of political economy into his work. — connects to: Adorno’s early encounter with Lukács seeded a lifelong theoretical rift — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 116; Adorno’s identification of exchange with identity logic is meta-economic, not capitalist — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1298; Adorno used fetishism to mediate Marx and Freud into synthesis — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 405 (+1 more)
• SEED: Possible essay: tracing Adorno’s intellectual trajectory from the Fromm-letter/early fetish essay to a mature, properly capitalist-grounded critique of political economy.
• DEEPTHINKING: The passage exposes a live fault-line in Adorno scholarship — whether fetish-character is strictly capitalist or extends into human prehistory — with real stakes for the whole architecture of his late theory.

Broader Connections

• Adorno used fetishism to mediate Marx and Freud into synthesis #qualifies (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 405
• Adorno’s identification of exchange with identity logic is meta-economic, not capitalist #complicates (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1298