Critical theory – work: half life

Lying on the water and looking peacefully into the sky » – Theodor W. Adorno described the doing nothing as the motive of an unfulfilled utopia in the“ Minima Moralia ”. The utopian couch outside, not within work. Countless other quotes from Adorno could be found in which this work -critical attitude appears. It is all the more surprising that it is still controversial, what role the concept of work plays in his work. And that applies to critical theory as a whole.

The concept of work in the critical theory is therefore now devoted to the anthology published by Philipp Lorig, Virginia Kimey Plasch and Martin Seeliger in the Mandelbaum-Verlag «work in critical theory. For reconstruction of a term » – the title is misleading, since there is far more than a mere concept reconstruction. In addition to the concept of work in critical theory, you also learn a lot about the way the critical theory works. Not only are authors such as Adorno or Max Horkheimer, but also on “marginal figures” of the first generation such as Siegfried Kracauer or Franz Neumann, as well as on frequently forgotten authors of later generations, such as Regina Becker-Schmidt, Alfred Schmidt or Gerhard Brandt.

Socially critical foundation

With the anthology, the editors refer to a research gap. In critical theory, a striking absence of the concept of work can be observed: striking because the concept of work – especially in a negative point of view – seems to play a constitutive role in the social criticism of the Frankfurt School; absent because it is only implicitly included. In the introduction, the editors specify this statement. In the early critical theory there was no dedicated examination of work and work sociology. However, the editors refer to three basic motifs in which the concept of work comes into play again and again: natural control, alienation and reign. According to the previous diagnosis of the book, these core terms would have become more important in later representatives of critical theory. The potential of a critical concept of work was also lost. A reconstruction – the editors hope – could revive the “socially critical foundation” of the theoretical tradition and finally pave the way for an “updated critical theory of work”.

Already the first two contributions in the anthology dampen this high expectation by making it clear that it is not enough with a mere conceptual reconstruction. For example, Hans-Ernst Schiller argues that “Adorno’s utopia” contains the idea of ​​a radical shortening of working hours, his concept of work is nevertheless analytically out of focus. The criticism of Diethard Behrens, which attributes the “imprecise concept of work” by Adorno and Horkheimer to a “selective reception” of Marx’s economic criticism, is unequal.

Capitalist specifics?

This turns out to be the question of the concept of work as a question of the relationship between critical theory and Marx ‘criticism of political economy. With the “double character” shown in the “capital”, Marx made the aim of discovering the specific form of work in capitalism. It is precisely this discovery, followed by Behrens, but was only insufficiently observed by Adorno and Horkheimer. At Horkheimer, this empty space is due to the Marx interpretation of Friedrich Pollock, the then chief economist at the Institute for Social Research (IFS). His “historical reading” – according to which the initial categories in “capital” are understood as various historical development levels – had a significant impact on Horkheimer. This resulted in the historical-specific importance of Marx’s categories for the capitalist society. Accordingly, Behrens stated soberly: “You are quite far away from understanding the value form analysis.”

The question of the concept of work turns out to be a question of the relationship with Marx ‘criticism of political economy.

With regard to the “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, Marcel Stoetzler comes to a similar result in his contribution. Work here is often understood in an anthropological sense as a mere nature processing. Accordingly, this shows itself in Adornos and Horkheimer’s conception of dialectic: humanity has freed itself from the immediate natural constraints by mastery by means of work, but in turn submitted to the work and was therefore into the spell circle of instrumental reason. Liberation and mastery through work appears here as a cross -civilization process.

Awarding of the work

At the same time, however, contrary statements can also be found in which Adorno and Horkheimer – the intention of Marx ‘criticism of political economy – identify rule through work as a specificity of capitalist modernism. According to Behrens, this tension between historical-specific and transhistorical interpretation shows, especially in the concept of the “exchange principle”, with which Adorno recurres on Marx, but at the same time runs the risk of criticizing the sphere of the circulation and hypostency work as a temporal constant.

Claus Baumann shows in his contribution based on Georg Lukács and Hans Heinz Holz that the tendency to work beyond their concrete social form, also among other authors of Western Marxism. Whether work, as with wood, is understood as a metabolic process or, as with Lukács, as a “telos- realization”, that is, self -realization – in both cases the conceptual determination of your social dimension remains insufficient.

It becomes clear that the theoretical contradictions of the concept of work are not a genuine problem of critical theory, but of Marxism as a whole. Against this background, the question arises whether a pioneering concept of work can be reconstructed – for the project of an “updated critical theory of work”. Rather, the contributions discussed in this context suggest that it requires a fundamental criticism of the term.

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However, there are also more optimistic voices in the anthology that open up a different perspective. Overall, this reveals greatly divergent assessments: While Ulf Bohmann and Tanja Hoss highlight the emancipatory potential of Herbert Marcus’s concept of work, Jonas Balzer and Ansgar Martins criticize his tendency towards unshoric “laborontology”. On the one hand, the diversity of the positions can be interpreted as an expression in terms of content. At the same time, however, this also creates the impression of a fragmented discussion.

Connection to work sociology

For this, however, the anthology offers insights into some discussion strands that are usually neglected in the thicket of secondary literature on the critical theory. For example, the contribution by Felix Gnisa presents industrial sociological research on the IFS in the 70s and 80s: Under the direction of the then institute manager Gerhard Brandt, numerous empirical research was initiated, in which one was oriented towards the Marx’s concept of “real subscription” and the theory of Alfred Sohn-Rethel. According to the social -philosophical turn of the institute under Axel Honneth, these research projects have largely been forgotten, they contain valuable insights into the relationship between critical theory and empirical research as well as starting points for current work sociological questions. It is one of the strengths of the anthology to have achieved these chapters of critical theory.

Philipp Lorig, Virginia Kimey Panzen and Martin Seeliger (ed.): Work in critical theory. For reconstruction of a concept. Mandelbaum 2024, 588 pages, Br., € 37.