Moishe Postone: Anti-Semitism and National Socialism

"The Holocaust... cannot be understood so long as anti-Semitism is viewed as an example of racism in general and so long as Nazism is conceived of only in terms of big capital and a terroristic bureaucratic police state. Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Maidanek, Sobibor, and Trenlinka should not be treated outside the framework of an analysis of National Socialism. They represent one of its logical end points, not simplyits most terrible epiphenomenon. No analysis of National Socialism that cannot account for the extermination of European Jewry is fully adequate."

In this excellent essay Moishe Postone, author of the critically acclaimed "Time, Labour and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory", develops a profound analysis of the relationship between modern anti-Semitism and National Socialism, which deepens our understanding of the Holocaust.