Crack Capitalism

John Holloway

Crack Capitalism, argues that radical change can only come about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of ‘cracks’ in the capitalist system. These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing.

John Holloway’s previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism. Now Holloway rejects the idea of a disconnected array of struggles and finds a unifying contradiction–the opposition between the capitalist labour we undertake in our jobs and the drive towards doing what we consider necessary or desirable.

Clearly and accessibly presented in the form of 33 theses, Crack Capitalism is set to reopen the debate among radical scholars and activists seeking to break capitalism now.

Contents

Part I Break
Chapter 1–Break. We want to break. We want to create a different world. Now. Nothing more common. Nothing more obvious. Nothing more simple. Nothing more difficult.
Chapter 2–Our method is the method of the crack.
Chapter 3–It is time to learn the new language of a new struggle.

Part II Cracks: The Anti-Politics of Dignity
Chapter 4–The cracks begin with a No, from which there grows a dignity, a negationand-creation.
Chapter 5–A crack is the perfectly ordinary creation of a space or moment in which we assert a different type of doing.
Chapter 6–Cracks break dimensions, break dimensionality.
Chapter 7–Cracks are explorations in an anti-politics of dignity.

Part III Cracks on the Edge of Impossibility
Chapter 8–Dignity is our weapon against a world of destruction.
Chapter 9–Cracks clash with the social synthesis of capitalism.
Chapter 10–Cracks exist on the edge of impossibility, but they do exist. Moving they exist: dignity is a fleet-footed dance.

Part IV The Dual Character of Labour
Chapter 11–The cracks are the revolt of one form of doing against another: the revolt of doing against labour.
Chapter 12–The abstraction of doing into labour is the weaving of capitalism.
Chapter 13–The abstraction of doing into labour is a historical process of transformation that created the social synthesis of capitalism: primitive accumulation.

Part V Abstract Labour: The Great Enclosure
Chapter 14–Abstract labour encloses both our bodies and our minds.
Chapter 15–The abstraction of doing into labour is a process of personification, the creation of character masks, the formation of the working class.
Chapter 16–The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of the male labourer and the dimorphisation of sexuality.
Chapter 17–The abstraction of doing into labour is the constitution of nature as object.
Chapter 18–The abstraction of doing into labour is the externalisation of our power –todo and the creation of the citizen, politics and the state.
Chapter 19–The abstraction of doing into labour is the homogenisation of time.
Chapter 20–The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of totality.
Chapter 21–Abstract labour rules: The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of a cohesive law-bound totality sustained by the exploitation of labour.
Chapter 22–The labour movement is the movement of abstract labour.

Part VI The Crisis of Abstract Labour
Chapter 23–Abstraction is not just a past but also a present process.
Chapter 24–Concrete doing overflows from abstract labour: it exists in-against-andbeyond abstract labour.
Chapter 25–Doing is the crisis of abstract labour
Chapter 26–The breakthrough of doing against labour throws us into a new world of struggle.

Part VII Doing against Labour: the melodies of interstitial revolution
Chapter 27–Doing dissolves totality, synthesis, value.
Chapter 28–Doing is the moving of the mulier abscondita against character masks. We are the mulier abscondita.
Chapter 29–Doing dissolves the homogenisation of time.

Part VIII A Time of Birth?
Chapter 30–We are the forces of production: our power is the power of doing.
Chapter 31–We are the crisis of capitalism, the misfitting- verflowing of our power-todo,the breakthrough of another world, perhaps.
Chapter 32–Stop Making Capitalism
Index

About the Author

John Holloway is a Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. His publications include Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010), Change the World Without Taking Power (Pluto, 2005), Zapatista! Rethinking Revolution in Mexico (co-editor, Pluto, 1998) and Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money (co-editor, 1994).