Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

19
The abstraction of doing into labour
is the homogenisation of time.
One of the most subtle and yet most powerful elements of the
web that we weave to entrap ourselves is time itself. Abstract
labour produces abstract time, abstract labour produces the
clock.
Clocks speak of duration, the homogenisation of time. From
the perspective of the clock, one minute is just the same as the
next. The clock goes round and round, quantifying time, treating
minutes of happiness in the same way as minutes of despair,
projecting the past into the future. For the clock, tomorrow will
be just the same as today or yesterday. For the clock, the only
revolution conceivable is the one that goes round and round,
changing nothing.1
Any system of domination depends on duration, on the
assumption that, just because something exists in one moment,
it will continue to exist in the next. The master assumes that
because he ruled yesterday, he will continue to rule tomorrow.
The slave dreams of a different tomorrow, but often locates it
beyond death, in heaven. She assumes in that case that there is
nothing she can do to change the situation. The power of doing
is subordinated to that which is. She is a slave and will still be
a slave tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.
We look around us. We see the politicians and the capitalists.
We see their big buildings and their police and their armies. We
see a world of great complexity and corruption. We know it is
unjust, violent, destructive and we want it to be different. But
we assume that it will still be there tomorrow. And tomorrow.
And tomorrow.
And the clock ticks on, telling us that it is so, that time is a life
of tomorrows, all repetitions of today. Life is so, things are so,
that is the way things are. For the clock there is no past that was
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