604 Notes to pp. 443– 446
178 A helpful survey of the theories arising from Marx’s analysis of capitalism
can be found in Gerhard Brandt, ‘Ansichten kritischer Sozialforschung
1930–1980’, p. 40ff.; Hans-Georg Backhaus, Dialektik der Wertform,
especially the appendix, ‘Theodor W. Adorno on Marx and the basic
concepts of sociological theory’, p. 501ff.
179 Adorno (ed.), Verhandlungen des 16. Deutschen Soziologentages, p. 4.
180 No less remarkable was the critical solidarity with the student movement
shown by Jürgen Habermas as long as the symbolic acts of protest during
demonstrations were aimed at securing fundamental reforms, e.g., in the
universities, and as long as they did not go beyond argument. This call for
reform was much less spectacular than Herbert Marcuse’s call for revolu-
tion. Marcuse had allowed himself to be nominated the true theoretician
of the ‘New Left’ (see Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation). Marcuse told
the New Left that they ‘had awakened the spectre of revolution which had
subordinated the development of the forces of production and a higher
standard of living to the demands of creating solidarity for the human
race, eliminating poverty and deprivation beyond all national frontiers,
and bringing about peace’ (ibid.). He was convinced that a new subject
was in the making that was capable of a new sensibility that would con-
stitute a politically emancipated force.
181 See Wolfgang Kraushaar (ed.), Frankfurter Schule und Studentenbewegung,
vol. 1, p. 302.
182 Adorno, ‘Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?’, GS, vol. 8, p. 368.
(Evidently a parody of Schopenhauer’s magnum opus: The World as Will
and Idea [trans.].)
183 Ibid., p. 354.
184 Adorno, Anmerkungen zum sozialen Konflikt heute, GS, vol. 8, p. 187.
185 The structural characteristics of capitalism are the production of com-
modities with surplus value, private ownership of the means of production,
the free signing of contracts, the antagonism of labour and capital, and the
competition of capital for the best rates of profit.
186 Adorno, ‘Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?’, GS, vol. 8, p. 361.
187 Ibid., p. 365.
188 Ibid., p. 362.
189 Ibid., p. 363f.
190 Ibid., p. 363.
191 Stefan Breuer has drawn attention to the similarity between Adorno’s
conception of social totality and the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann.
A comparison between the two is said to show ‘that critical theory...is
no antiquated theory which has lost its object, but very up to date. Its
conceptual apparatus may be less polished than that of systems theory,
but... it possesses a conception that permits more elegant solutions from
a structural point of view than the... organization of systems theory’
(Stefan Breuer, Die Gesellschaft des Verschwindens: Von der Selbstzer-
störung der technischen Zivilisation, p. 96).
192 Adorno, ‘Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?’, GS, vol. 8, p. 364.
193 Ibid., p. 369.
194 Adorno (ed.), Verhandlungen des 16. Deutschen Soziologentages,
p. 91ff.
195 Ibid., p. 93f.