Critical Theory of Capitalism

Contrary to the traditional Marxist interpretation, Marx's critical theory is not, on its most fundamental level, a critique of a mode of class exploitation that distorts modernity, undertaken from a standpoint that affirms labor. Rather, more basically, it uncovers and analyzes a unique form of social mediation that structures modernity itself as a historically specific form of social life. This form of mediation is socially constituted by a historically unique form of labor and is essentially temporal.