Frankfurt School
(en)
a school of social theory and philosophy associated in part with the Institute for Social Research at the Goethe University Frankfurt; consisted of dissidents who felt at home neither in the existent capitalist, fascist, nor communist systems that had formed at the time
1
The term ‘critical theory’ has a long history. Traditionally – often in the singular and upper case – it refers to the thinkers of the Frankfurt School, the generations of philosophers and sociologists who have succeeded one another at the helm of that city’s Institut für Sozialforschung
notable
6 years, 7 months ago
The term ‘critical theory’ has a long history. Traditionally – often in the singular and upper case – it refers to the thinkers of the Frankfurt School, the generations of philosophers and sociologists who have succeeded one another at the helm of that city’s Institut für Sozialforschung
notable
6 years, 7 months ago
Tobin tax
(en)
a proposed tax on international financial transactions, especially speculative currency exchange transactions; suggested by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Laureate economist James Tobin
2
Critical theories are theories that more or less comprehensively challenge the existing social order. The criticisms they formulate do not concern particular aspects of this order, like the imposition of a tax on financial transactions (the ‘Tobin tax’) or some measure relating to pension reform
notable
6 years, 7 months ago
Critical theories are theories that more or less comprehensively challenge the existing social order. The criticisms they formulate do not concern particular aspects of this order, like the imposition of a tax on financial transactions (the ‘Tobin tax’) or some measure relating to pension reform
notable
6 years, 7 months ago
3
The historical conjuncture in which theories are formed stamps them with their main characteristics. ‘Classical’ Marxism – initiated on Marx’s death by Engels and notably comprising Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Otto Bauer – emerged against the background of profound political and economic turbulence, which led to the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Conversely, so-called Western Marxism, of which Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci were the initiators, and to which Adorno, Sartre, Althusser, Marcuse and Della Volpe in particular belong, developed in a period of relative stability for capitalism. The themes broached by these authors, but also their theoretical ‘style’, clearly register the effects of this. Thus, although they all pertain to the Marxist tradition, a gulf separates Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) and Lenin’s State and Revolution (1917) from Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951) and Sartre’s The Family Idiot (1971–72).
The historical conjuncture in which theories are formed stamps them with their main characteristics. ‘Classical’ Marxism – initiated on Marx’s death by Engels and notably comprising Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Otto Bauer – emerged against the background of profound political and economic turbulence, which led to the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Conversely, so-called Western Marxism, of which Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci were the initiators, and to which Adorno, Sartre, Althusser, Marcuse and Della Volpe in particular belong, developed in a period of relative stability for capitalism. The themes broached by these authors, but also their theoretical ‘style’, clearly register the effects of this. Thus, although they all pertain to the Marxist tradition, a gulf separates Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) and Lenin’s State and Revolution (1917) from Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951) and Sartre’s The Family Idiot (1971–72).