Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

4. THE CRISIS OF ABSTRACT LABOUR
IS THE CRISIS OF ITS THEORY.
Inevitably, the crisis of abstract labour is the crisis of the theory
that takes its stand on the struggle of abstract labour against
capital. Orthodox Marxism, that is to say that Marxism that
bases itself on a unitary concept of labour (with all that that
entails), has become increasingly distanced from the movement
of anti-capitalist struggle and has been widely criticised, not just
by its bourgeois opponents of always, but by those who question
its relevance to contemporary struggles.
The crisis of the old theory is the opening of a rich new
theoretical ferment, a multiplicity of attempts to theorise our
struggles and to think how on earth we can get out of the mess
we are in. This is not the place to review these theories, but
there are three strands that are particularly important and that
may help to clarify the argument that is being advanced here.
First, the crisis of abstract labour and its theory is reflected in
the growing influence of anarchism and anarchist theory. This
can be seen as a 'new anarchism' (Graeber 2002), in which the
old rigid hostility to Marxism no longer plays an important role.
Many of the forms of action which break with the traditions of
the labour movement come from an anarchist tradition: 'The
very notion of direct action, with its rejection of a politics which
appeals to governments to modify their behaviour, in favour of
physical intervention against state power in a form that itself
prefigures an alternative-all of this emerges directly' from the
tradition of anarchism (ibid.). The anarchist tradition is clearly
relevant to the whole discussion of the cracks, especially in Part
II of this book and many of the authors cited in the discussion
of the cracks would probably regard themselves as part of
that tradition. It might be said, indeed, that, where orthodox
Marxism with its assumption of a unitary concept of labour
has theorised on the basis of the struggle of abstract labour, it
is anarchist theory that has focused more clearly on concrete
doing, at least in the sense of a breaking here and now with the
constraints of abstract labour.
Is the present argument then an anarchist argument?8 It does
not matter, partly because the old distinctions have broken down
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