HOW TO LOOK AT NEOLIBERALISM. REVISITING ADORNO'S SOCIAL PHYSIOGNOMY

Against the widespread view that Adorno remains stuck in an antiquated way of approaching ideology as expression of social totality, the present article tries to recuperate Adorno's dialectical legacy in the context of contemporary neoliberalism. One central point made by Adorno--though usually missed by interpreters--is that ideology operates according to the Hegelian "negation of negation". We believe that this basic insight can be applied not only to liberal capitalism (19"' century) and monopoly capitalism (20th century), but also to neoliberalism, thus shedding a new light even on contemporary phenomena like fake news or the proliferation of dystopian political scenarios as in the case of Trump or Brexit campaigns.