By appropriating the tool of Marxist critique for art in the tense climate of the interwar period, Benjamin will sideline the concepts of "engaged" art, the sterile opposition of form and content, and will evaluate the artwork not as a reflection of productive relations, but based on its position within productive relations. For this purpose, he uses the concept of "technique": its progress or regression will become the criterion for a materialistic and dialectical evaluation. Thus, he will criticize intellectuals whose revolutionary ideas are not accompanied by reflection on their position as producers and suppliers of existing means of production, while through the cosmogony of the emergence of mass media, he will discern the "ascension" of literary forms beyond the spiritualistic perception of "literary works".

"A writer who teaches nothing to other writers teaches no one. What matters, therefore, is the exemplary character of production, which is capable, firstly, of provoking other writers to produce and, secondly, of providing them with an improved mechanism. And this mechanism is all the better, the more consumers it is capable of transforming into producers - that is, from readers and spectators into participants."

Walter Benjamin