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Friedrich Pollock

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Friedrich Pollock (/ˈpɒlək/; German: [ˈpɔlɔk]; also Frederick Pollock;[1] 22 May 1894 – 16 December 1970) was a German social scientist and philosopher. He was one of the founders of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, and a member of the Frankfurt School of Marxist theory.

Career

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Friedrich Pollock was born to a leather factory owner in Freiburg im Breisgau. Pollock's Jewish-born father turned away from Judaism, and raised his son accordingly.[2] Pollock was educated in finance from 1911 to 1915. During this time, he met Max Horkheimer, with whom he became a lifelong friend. He then studied economy, sociology and philosophy in Frankfurt am Main, where he wrote his thesis on Marx's labor theory of value.[citation needed] In 1923 Pollock received his doctorate in economics from the University of Frankfurt. The Institute for Social Research was founded in the same year by Pollock together with Leo Löwenthal, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and Horkheimer. The Institute for Social Research was reestablished after World War II, when Pollock and Adorno returned to Frankfurt after exile in the United States.[3]

Between 1927 and 1928, Pollock traveled to the Soviet Union in honor of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. His research there led to his treatise Attempts at Planned Economy in the Soviet Union 1917–1927. Thereafter, he took a post as lecturer at the University of Frankfurt replacing Carl Grünberg as director of the Institute for Social Research from 1928 till 1930.[citation needed] Prior to the Nazi seizure of power, Pollock had used his contacts in the International Labour Organization to establish a Geneva branch of the Institute for Social Research.[4] In 1933, Pollock and Horkheimer moved into exile, first in Geneva, then to London, Paris, and finally New York City.

In 1950 Pollock had resettled in Frankfurt and was reappointed director of the Institute for Social Research. From 1951 to 1958, he was professor of economics and sociology at the University of Frankfurt.[citation needed] In 1956 Pollock published Automation: Materials for the Evaluation of the Economic and Social Consequences as interdisciplinary analyses. This publication exemplified holistic economic research, which had been championed by the Frankfurt school in the 1950s.[5] In Automation Pollock argued that post-industrial employees might be spared from "soul-destroying drudgery".[6]

In 1959, Pollock and Horkheimer moved to Montagnola, Ticino, Switzerland, although Pollock held a position as professor Emeritus at the University of Frankfurt until 1963. He died in Montagnola in 1970.

Selected works

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  • Werner Sombart's "Refutation" of Marxism, Leipzig, 1926
  • Attempts at Planned Economy in the Soviet Union 1917–1927 (in Georgian). Leipzig. 1929. OCLC 1281514.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations". Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. 9: 200. 1941.[7]
  • "Is National Socialism a New Order?". Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. 9 (2): 440–5. 1941.
  • Group Experiments. Frankfurt a.M. 1955. OCLC 6995146.
  • Automation: Materials for the Evaluation of the Economic and Social Consequences. Frankfurt a. M. 1956. OCLC 901285181.
  • Possibilities and Limitations of Social Planning in Capitalism. 1973. OCLC 1530105.

References

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  1. ^ Frederick Pollock, "Is National Socialism a New Order?", Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 9(3), 1941, pp. 440–455.
  2. ^ Wiggershaus, Rolf (1995). The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance. MIT Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780262731133.
  3. ^ Bernard A. Cook (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia Volume 2. Garland. p. 1022. ISBN 9780815340584.
  4. ^ Dubiel, Helmut (1981). "Origins of Critical Theory: An Interview with Leo Löwenthal". Telos journal. 1981 (49): 142–143. doi:10.3817/0981049141. S2CID 143888896.
  5. ^ Alessandro Roncaglia (2019). The Age of Fragmentation: A History of Contemporary Economic Thought. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 9781108478441.
  6. ^ Gary Gerstle; Nelson Lichtenstein; Alice O'Connor, eds. (2019). Beyond the New Deal Order: US Politics from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 160. ISBN 9780812296587.
  7. ^ Pollock, Friedrich (1978). "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations". In Arato, Andrew; Gephardt, Eike (eds.). The Essential Frankfurth School Reader. Blackwell. pp. 71. ISBN 0826401945.

Further reading

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  • Lenhard, Philipp. Friedrich Pollock: The Éminence Grise of the Frankfurt School. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2024.
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