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requires the family (as an essential means of re-producing and caring for labor power; as a slave for the psychic wounds inflicted by anarchic social-economic conditions), even as it undermines it (denying parents time with children, putting intolerable stress on couples as they become the exclusive source of affective consolation for each other). (32f.)

      Immanent criticism, then, approaches the item on display supported by the help of theory in the above example, a Marxist reading of bourgeois society.

      Ultimately, the aim of any criticism is a transformation of the status quo. While external criticism always argues from a normative point of view, meaning it needs an alternative for its very existence and function, internal criticism can draw its persuasiveness from the criticised object itself, simply by holding it to claims previously made. Immanent criticism does not immediately offer a ready-made alternative because it “is oriented less to the reconstruction or redemption of normative potentials than to the transformation of existing conditions in ways that are facilitated by the immanent problems and contradictions of a particular social constellation” (Jaeggi, Critique 190f., emphasis in the original). This means, at first glance, immanent criticism is not overly productive in terms of alternatives. It might therefore disappoint those social reformers looking for ways to radically challenge the big picture and search for new models for society as a whole. But Jaeggi argues that we must reconsider our conception of ‘alternative.’ Immanent criticism produces an alternative ex negativo and should be thought of as transformative criticism: “the transformation process is suggested by the situation itself to a certain extent; it is prefigured in the situation, even if it exceeds the latter” (ibid. 209). For this most ambitious type of criticism, the performative gesture of critique suffices. Assuming that the criticised community can transform, immanent criticism does not need to spell out an explicit alternative to function successfully, for it “construes the crisis-prone contradiction that confronts it and confronts us not only as necessary but also – in contrast to the procedure of internal criticism – as productive” (ibid.). Jaeggi asserts that “the possibility of resolving [the contradiction] follows from criticism of the deficient state itself” (ibid.). To cite the words of Theodor W. Adorno: “[t]he False, once determinately known and precisely expressed, is already an index of what is right and better” (Critical Models 288).11 Knowing what we do not want prefigures what is desirable: dystopia prefigures eutopia.

	Basis of Criticism	Character	Role of Theory
External criticism	Contradiction between external standard and existing practices	Constructive	Normative theory as ‘judge’
Internal criticism	Contradiction in the sense of inconsistency between internal ideals and reality	Reconstructive	None
Immanent criticism	‘Dialectical’ contradiction within the constellation, crisis	Transformative	Necessity of analysis to demonstrate contradiction in crisis

      Fig. 1: Rahel Jaeggi – Models of Criticism (excerpt, cf. 213);

      With her taxonomy of criticism, Jaeggi has provided the necessary tool for analysing the difference between classical and contemporary dystopian fiction. Applying her terms, the following analysis will show that progressive contemporary dystopian fiction relies on immanent criticism, whereas classical dystopian fiction is connected to external criticism. This, as will be argued, is due to the change in focus and object of critique: from totalitarianism to neoliberal free market philosophy. In order to trace this shift, the following two sub-chapters will focus on what I call classical dystopian fiction, its focus on totalitarianism, and its use of external criticism. I will trace the function of critique within the classical fiction by Orwell, Huxley, and Co. before comparing their approach to the different methods and styles of contemporary dystopias and their immanent criticism strategy targeted at a neoliberal market ideology.12

      3.1. Classical Dystopian Fiction, State Totalitarianism, and ‘External Criticism’

      Whoever aspires to the articulation of final absolute truth about man and society has already planted the seed of tyranny. (Milovan Djilas quoted in Gottlieb 33)

      According to Fredric Jameson “[u]topia has always been a political issue” (Archaeologies xi). Although he concedes that this nexus constitutes “an unusual destiny for a literary form,” many definitions support exactly this classical connection, building their attempts to demarcate the genre through an analysis of content. Raymond Williams, for instance, concentrates on the nature of the society presented in dystopian works, before categorising the novels accordingly (cf. 95). Others have worked with the same mechanism to uncover a clear focus of the genre: dystopia’s traditional occupation is the topic of state power, and the abusive structures of authoritarian and totalitarian governments (cf. Suvin’s definition). Dystopia has been defined as “a fictional portrayal of a society in which evil, or negative social and political developments, have the upper hand,” dealing with “the quasi-omnipotence of a monolithic, totalitarian state demanding and normally exacting complete obedience from its citizens” (Claeys, “Origins” 107).1 The genre “articulates a specifically political agency” (Moylan quoted in Donawerth 30) and “describe[s] a variety of aspects and with some consistency an imaginary state or society” (J. Max Patrick quoted in Sargent 7). Accordingly, it has been described as a “draft of a state, based on a certain ideology […] [typically] an authoritarian, omnipotent state structure, which will triumph over individualism” (Layh 155, own translation), warning “of state structures, which reduce the individual to a marionette without will and consciousness” (Zeißler 9, own translation).2

      This focus on the state as object of investigation is grounded in two aspects. Firstly, dystopia’s state preoccupation results from its close generic connection to eutopia, which “is inextricably linked to modernity and to the state-form” (cf. Tally Jr. 3).3 Secondly, according to Tom Moylan, this focus on politics has its roots in the origins of the genre, which “begins to sharpen as the modern state apparatus (in the Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, social democratic welfare states, and right-wing oligarchies) is isolated as a primary engine of alienation and suffering” (Scraps xii). This focus on totalitarian states is evident in the classics of the genre, or the works of the “the big three” (Beauchamp 58), Huxley, Orwell, and Zamyatin, which “relied on a totalistic state to control time and space, history and memory, experiences and possibilities” (Stillman 377). Some 50 years after their publication they continue to define the genre’s standards and self-understanding (cf. Zeißler 9).

      Classical dystopian fiction traditionally works within the parameters of external criticism. Its focus on totalitarianism and state policies predestines an external criticism approach that supports an alternative way of living. As a first step, these novels usually flesh out the totalitarian world in all its gruesome details, smattered with scenes of surveillance, hardship, violence, famine, war, indoctrination, public hangings or torture. Implying that these worlds are merely the logical conclusion of the current state of affairs, these novels warn that totalitarianism is just around the corner unless we change things now – a horrific image for readers whose cultural memory stores two world wars and the times thereafter. As Friedrich and Brzezinski argue, totalitarianism is defined by characteristics that deter and repel: a single, simplistic ideology encompassing all aspects of existence; a single mass party typically led by one individual turned dictator, supported by a fanatic hard-core following; a system of police control and surveillance, terrorising the public; and a centrally

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