Is Marx Obsolete? Adorna, Theodor W.
Diogenes (English ed.),
12/1968, Volume:
16, Issue:
64
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Reports and discussions should be aimed at deciding whether the capitalist system still reigns—however much it may have modified itself—or whether industrial development has made the very concept of ...capitalism, the difference between capitalist and non-capitalist states, and the very critique of capitalism redundant. In other words, is the thesis that Marx is obsolete (a very widespread thesis in sociology) correct? According to this thesis, the world is so permeated by the previously undreamed-of development of technology that the social relation which once defined capitalism—the conversion of living work into goods, and the class separation which it brought about—has lost its relevance, if indeed it has not degenerated into a superstition. And here one may point to unmistakable signs of convergence between the most technically advanced countries, the United States and the Soviet Union. In the principal western countries class differences in living-standards and class consciousness are altogether far less in evidence than in the decades during and immediately after the industrial revolution. The prognoses of the class theory, such as the prediction of impoverishment and collapse, have not come true as drastically as they were meant to—as they must have been meant to, unless one is to deprive these predictions of most of their meaning. Even if Marx's by no means unambiguous law of falling profit rates had proved true, within the system, we should have had to concede that capitalism had discovered resources within itself which enabled the collapse to be relegated to the Greek kalends. There is no doubt that the immense increase in technological potential and the large amount of consumer goods available to all inhabitants of the highly industrialized countries are foremost among these resources. And at the same time the relations of production proved to be more elastic, in the face of this technological development, than Marx credited them with being.
Richard Strauss. Born June 11, 1864 Adorno, Theodor W.; Weber, Samuel; Weber, Shierry
Perspectives of new music,
10/1965, Volume:
4, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Hofstatter criticizes Pollock's res (See SA 3252) to discover non-public opinion in Germany. A letter of a fictitious American or British soldier was discussed (tape recorded & transcribed) in 121 ...groups. 21% of the material thus gained was submitted to a qualitative analysis. The selection of R's was not on a random base. 61% of the persons present did not speak at all. One result of the study is the discovery of a syndrome of antidemocratic opinion, but there are no r's to prove this. The qualitative analysis is concerned mainly with the problem of German guilt with respect to WWII & to the concentration camps. This analysis is an indictment of the Germans which, according to Hofstatter, is not justified, because nobody can really imagine the horrors of Auschwitz. Adorno replies to this criticism by saying that it was more important to see the results of a new method of inquiry than the results themselves. It was intended to penetrate the surface of PO to discover real opinions. The method of group discussions was used because the usual interview method considers the answers given as valid without trying to discover their origins & real meanings. That so many members of the discussion groups kept silent can mean that they agreed with those who spoke, or that they were not willing to oppose the more vocal members. But it is not the individuals who are the subjects of the study but group opinion as such. Hofstatter tries to apologize for the Germans & thus criticizes the book because it does not fit into his preconceived ideas. M. K. Adler.
