The Frankfurt School self-censored its Marxist vocabulary for American approval

Evidence

The book edition of the Philosophical Fragments, published by the émigré publishers Querido in Amsterdam in 1947 under the title Dialectic of Enlightenment, contained numerous small changes in comparison with the mimeographed edition of 1944. The word capitalism' was changed to existing conditions’; capital' was changed to economic system’; capitalist bloodsuckers' became knights of industry’; class society' became domination’ or order'; ruling class’ became rulers'. A sentence such as That would be a classless society’ was omitted. This form of self-censorship was not new; it was an Institute tradition. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1722

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader history of émigré intellectuals softening political language to fit Cold War-era American patronage — echoes the FBI files on the Frankfurt School and Horkheimer’s tactical American citizenship. — connects to: The Institute strategically self-censored Marxist vocabulary for American funders; Horkheimer censored explicit political language in Institute publications — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 865; The Frankfurt School deliberately censored Marxist terminology to appease American Jewish sponsors — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1551 (+4 more)
• ADDENDUM: The specific lexical substitutions (capitalism to existing conditions, class society to domination) parallel the tactical softening of rhetoric discussed in my other analyses of how frameworks get sanitized for institutional survival.

Broader Connections

• Zeitschrift editors censored Adorno’s Marxian vocabulary to avoid appearing doctrinaire #exemplifies (0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 355
• Horkheimer censored democratic language from the student study for fear of funders #exemplifies (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2355
• Anti-Semitic findings about American workers were suppressed to spare American opinion #exemplifies (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 675