Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

useful doing completely subordinated to abstract labour (though
the distinction is never made explicit in this analysis): the only
possibility is exit, exodus.
The analysis certainly stirs recognition. The adoption of flexible
hours and more informal practices is established managerial
practice in many workplaces. Developments in information
technology and the use of laptops have made working from home
much more common, so that the strict demarcation of the place
and time of labour has become blurred. However, to go from
that observation to the statement that there is 'no longer any
difference between labour time and non-labour time' is clearly
an exaggeration. For most people, there is still a clear distinction
between labour and non-labour time. Similarly, although it might
be said that there is a blurring of the distinction between labour
and other activities, to say that 'there is no longer anything which
distinguishes labour from the rest of human activities' is surely
not true. The statements might be defended by reference to what
Negri calls the 'method of the tendency', the idea that the theorist
should draw out tendencies in current development and draw
them into a coherent picture or paradigm of the evolving pattern
of domination. Thus, the characteristics mentioned by Virno
are compatible with the idea of the 'social factory' advanced by
Negri, the idea that in modern capitalism the discipline of the
factory has been effectively extended to the whole of society
(an idea further developed in Guattari and Negri's (198511990)
'integrated world capitalism' and in Hardt and Negri's (2000)
'empire'). The attraction of these analyses lies in the fact that
they do point to real tendencies and underline the drastic nature
of current capitalist development. The problem is that they close
(or push to the very margins) the possibilities of revolutionary
change. Put simply, the tendency of current development is that
humanity is annihilated.
In emphasising the tendencies of domination, there is an
over-hasty closure of crisis. The importance of the crisis of
Fordism is recognised, but immediately attention is then
concentrated on the structure of the newly emerging patterns of
domination. One structure has collapsed, so we must immediately
theorise the new paradigm of domination - post-Fordism,
empire, post-modernism, call it what you will. The king is dead,
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