Late Modern Individualization in Light of Critical Theory (the Frankfurt School): An Essay

Abstract

The article describes the dialectic of the process of individualization in modernity and late modernity from the perspective of critical theory, particularly in its classical form (Frankfurt School). This dialectic consists in the transformation of individualization as a medium of emancipation into individualization understood not only as an ideology but most of all as a productive force of neoliberal capitalism, as a principle of its functioning. The article discusses the social-cultural determinants of this transformation, and subsequently the way in which late-modern individualism in the form of self-realization is functionalized by the market and subjected to the requirements of profit and efficiency in individual areas of economic and social life in the neoliberal world. The article refers to the methodology of qualitative sociology.