Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity

In this work, Douglas Kellner brings new light to bear upon the development and contemporary implications of critical theory. The origins of critical theory, he argues, were connected to the transition from classical to state-organized capitalism. While some of the perspectives of critical theory are vital to social analysis today, in other basic respects the approach of critical theory must be updated to be able to confront the changes which have intervened in Western society over the past quarter of a century. The dialectical revision of Marxian theory carried out by the Frankfurt authors must now be applied to their own works to generate a critical interpretation of today's social world. This, Kellner argues, requires a reassessment of the previous critical theory analysis of contemporary capitalism through new perspectives which take account of developments in consumer, media, technological, cultural and other spheres of what Kellner calls "techno-capitalism".