The immiseration thesis was equally questioned by contemporarylater theorists, notably by early members of the [[Frankfurt School]]. For [[Theodor Adorno|Adorno]] and [[Max Horkheimer|Horkheimer]], [[Economic interventionism|state intervention]] in the economy had effectively abolished the tension in capitalism between the "[[relations of production]]" and "material [[productive forces]] of society"—a tension which, according to traditional Marxist theory, constituted the primary contradiction within capitalism. The previously "free" market (as an "unconscious" mechanism for the distribution of goods) and "irrevocable" [[private property]] of Marx's epoch have gradually been replaced by the [[Planned economy|centralized state planning]] and socialized ownership of the [[means of production]] in contemporary Western societies. The dialectic through which Marx predicted the emancipation of modern society is thus suppressed, effectively being subjugated to a positivist rationality of domination:
{{quotation|[G]one are the objective laws of the market which ruled in the actions of the entrepreneurs and tended toward catastrophe. Instead the conscious decision of the managing directors executes as results (which are more obligatory than the blindest price-mechanisms) the old law of value and hence the destiny of capitalism.<ref>Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. (2002). ''Dialectic of Enlightenment'', p. 38.</ref>}}