In 1937, Horkheimer still characterized capitalism in traditional terms, however sophisticated—namely in terms of a structural contradiction between a social totality constituted by labor, which could be organized in a just and rational manner, and the fragmented, irrational form imparted on that whole by the market and private property.  Like “totality,” labor here is understood transhistorically, positively valorized, and closely related to reason and emancipation. Critical Theory is grounded reflexively in the contradiction between the totality constituted by labor and the way that totality is mediated by capitalism’s relations.

From ‘Critical Theory and the Twentieth Century’ by Moishe Postone
utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publications/2009/06/history_and_heteronomy_critica/index_en.php

Thanks to Oliver

               

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