Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

are social relations: the noun, like value, is 'a relation between
persons expressed as a relation between things' (186711965: 74;
186711990: 167). Or, even better: the noun is a relating between
doings expressed as a relation between things.
In a world of verbs, duration loses its force completely (as
indeed does ontology). If everything (every social thing) is a
done, a result of doing, and if the present existence of each done
is understood as a relating between doers, then each moment
acquires a particularity in which everything is at issue. We
have in our pocket a piece of paper which has been monetised
(converted into money) by social practice. It is not the case that
it is money: it is a piece of paper monetised by practice. We have
participated in its monetisation, but the next time we go out, we
can either continue to monetise it (by using it as money) or we
can choose to de-monetise it - by refusing to use it as a medium
in our relations with other people and using it to light a cigarette.
The same might be said of a car: we have a piece of metal which
has been converted into a car by the intention of its makers
and the practice of its users. It is not the case that it is a car: it
is a piece of metal car-ised by practice, and tomorrow we can
either continue that practice (with all that it implies in terms of
contamination and danger to others) or we can de-car-ise it - by
refusing to relate to other people in that way and by using it as
a receptacle for planting flowers or carrots. We make money by
using the paper in that way and we can stop making it; we make
the car and we can stop doing so. Similarly, we make capitalism
and we can stop doing so.
By recovering the subject suffocated by the object, criticism
puts our power-to-do, and our power-not-to-do, at the centre.
It challenges the noun and recovers the verb, the doing that is
(and is not) contained in the noun, that overflows against and
beyond the noun. Verbs are the language of non-identity, the
bursting beyond that which is. Identity establishes a continuous
time, a time of duration, an extended is-ness, but the force of
our doing says 'no, there is no continuity, there is no duration,
each moment has its particularity, each moment is a moment
of creating.' Our time, doing-time, is the time of opening each
moment against the force of duration.
233