Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

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Doing dissolves totality, synthesis, value.
1. DOING FLOWS OUTWARDS FROM
THE PARTICULAR, AGAINST AND BEYOND.
Self-determination flows from us outwards. I bake a cake because
I enjoy doing it, or because I am hungry, or because I want to
invite my friends. I ask my children and some of my friends to
join me and we discuss together what flavour the cake should
be. We decide that we would like to make the cake with organic
flour and one of my friends mentions that she has a friend who
grows organic wheat and makes her own flour, so we decide to
invite her to join us.
This is the outward push of doing towards self-determination.
It is not complete self-determination because there are so many
things that we do not control, so many ways in which our
doing depends on the doing of others in a way that we do not
determine: the quality of the oven, the butter, the salt, the fruit
that we use, and so on. We are not even free to devote the time
that we wish to baking the cake because in the morning we
shall have to go to work to earn our living. Our push comes up
against restrictions that flow from the totality of social relations,
the way that society is organised.
Together with some friends, I decide to plant a garden so that
we can grow vegetables and flowers and trees. We soon come up
against an obstacle: we do not own any land. There is a vacant
plot of land near us, so we decide to occupy it and turn it into
a garden. Soon, a second obstacle presents itself: the police try
to force us off the land. However, we have already mobilised
support from our neighbours and the whole community turns
out to stop the police.
I enjoy reading Marx but I find Capital a bit difficult. Together
with some friends we form a reading group and read it together.
We are all students, some of economics, some of philosophy,
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