Márkus and the retrieval of the sociological Adorno

Abstract

Major sociological work related to the culture industry thesis was undertaken by Adorno during his period as a ‘refugee scholar’ in the USA. It has been charged with a ‘sociological deficit’ by leading figures within critical theory, typically without reference to that US context. A dialogue with Márkus’s work on Adorno and the Marxian production paradigm can redress failings in those critiques. However, such a task is complicated by the limitations of Márkus’s own major essay on this topic. This paper thus conducts an immanent critique of Márkus: ‘Márkus against Márkus’. Márkus’s proposals for the application of the Marxian production paradigm to aesthetic culture and his prospective vision for critical theory are so found to be very compatible with Adorno’s related work.