<Overview> This presentation examines the possibilities of contemporary critical theory through the work of Moishe Postone (1942–2018), the Jewish-Canadian critical theorist based in the United States. Against claims about the “end of critique” or the “end of critical theory” associated with figures such as Latour and Rancière, it asks how Postone’s thought can operate as a critical theory turned back upon critical theory itself. At its center is the concept of the “treadmill effect” in Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (1993/2003), through which Postone analyzes capitalism’s fundamental contradiction and the dynamic of its historical development. The presentation focuses on key themes including the distinction between material wealth and value, the dialectic of abstract and historical time, the paradoxical reconstitution of value under rising productivity, and the simultaneous superfluity of labor and necessity of value. It emphasizes that Postone’s theory does not rest on a conventional opposition between essence and appearance, nor on a simple logic of inversion, but instead confronts the movement of capital as a “moving contradiction.” It also considers the contemporary extension of Postone’s critical theory to analyses of financial capitalism and modern antisemitism. As a supplementary case, it applies his controversial theory of modern antisemitism, deeply connected to his own historical and existential concerns, to the “exterminationist” politics of hatred in Korean far-right Protestantism, asking how Postone’s work may renew critical theory’s capacity to understand the present.

On May 26, 2025, the K-Future Team held a Theory Atelier centered on “Moishe Postone: A Critical Theory That Critiques Critical Theory,” a lecture by Yongtaek Jung, Research Professor at the Institute of Theological Thought, Hanshin University. Through Postone’s work, the lecture revisited the questions of the “end of critique” and “anti-critique,” asking what form critical theory might take after models of critique grounded in the binaries of essence/appearance and truth/falsity.

Focusing on Postone’s major work Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory, the lecture read capitalism as a historically specific form of domination organized by value, abstract labor, and abstract time. In particular, the “treadmill effect” was discussed as a concept for understanding the repeated cycle of productivity increases, value readjustment, and temporal pressure. This line of inquiry also extended to questions of financial capitalism, modern antisemitism, and the eliminationist hate politics of far-right Protestantism.