Theory and class consciousness

Abstract

In 1937, when Max Horkheimer tied critical theory to skepticism about the assumption that working-class consciousness would transcend reification and achieve revolutionary clarity, the working class itself was still a modest presence on the world stage. Now, that class is vastly larger and more diverse. Wage-paid labor has become the norm everywhere, not just or primarily in the Euro-Atlantic realm. Yet today, few of Horkheimer’s heirs occupy themselves with questions of class and social transformation. Why? Clues, this chapter argues, can be found in the early history of critical theory, which was divided on this question from the start. Working-class subjectivity appeared, from the standpoint of Horkheimer, to combine authority fetishism with commodity fetishism, and the mission of theory was redefined as critique, by means of inquiry anchored in research, with class and consciousness as focal themes. The early critical theorists, however, were unable to sustain this dialectic. Ultimately, this chapter argues, their rejection of blind optimism yielded to an equally blinkered pessimism, which vitiates most forms of “critique” today.