Adorno's Critique of Political Economy

A major intervention into the place of Marxist political economy in the work of celebrated critical theorist Theodor Adorno.

To this day, there persists a widespread assumption that Theodor Adorno's references to Marx-and especially to Marx's critique of political economy-represent a relic from an early and short-lived stage of the great Frankfurt School critical theorist's intellectual development. In this book, on the basis of relevant and largely unpublished textual sources, Adorno scholar Dirk Braunstein powerfully refutes this thesis and shows that Adorno's critical theory of society is centrally concerned with a critique not only of political economy, but of economy in general.

Dirk Braunstein is research fellow at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. He has published several books, articles and editions on Adorno, recently Die Frankfurter Seminare Theodor W. Adornos. Gesammelte Sitzungsprotokolle 1949-1969 [The Frankfurt Seminars of Theodor W. Adorno. Collected Minutes of Meetings 1949-1969]. 4 Volumes. Berlin und Boston: de Gruyter (2021)