DOI

10.5840/philtoday2025318567

Abstract

This essay interrogates Frankfurt School “racket theory.” While sympathetic to its claim that the most pervasive form of hegemony is the hierarchical and authoritarian group, the paper explores the School’s apparent blind spot in underestimating the crime family’s resurgent significance (e.g., the Trumps or culture industry sagas from The Godfather to Ozark). Early racket theory was limited by Horkheimer’s intensified version of Hegel’s concept of the modern family, its nuclear form and early dissolution. A brief genealogy of the US crime film—from early 1930s individual rogue gangsters to the present—confirms the need to rethink this aspect of racket theory.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2025

Publisher Statement

© Philosophy Today

Download

Included in

Philosophy Commons

Share

COinS