The exchange-principle and nature-domination hypotheses could not both explain the East

Evidence

If the principle of the exchange of commodities was the decisive, fateful factor, why were the autonomy of the individual and man’s relation to nature not better attended to in the USSR and other East European countries than they were? If domination over nature was the decisive, fateful factorand the roots of the evil were the same in both West and East European industrial societieshow was it possible for Adorno to welcome further development of the forces of production, and to see the distorting influence as arising first from the principle of the exchange of commodities? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2314

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The unresolved tension in Dialectic of Enlightenment: if exchange is the fatal factor the USSR should be freer; if nature-domination is, then exchange loses explanatory primacy — a genuine aporia at the heart of the theory.