Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

Notes
THESIS 1
1. 'Somos mujeres y hombres, niiios y ancianos bastante comunes, es decir,
rebel des, inconformes, inc6modos, soiiadores' (La Jornada, 4 August 1999).
THESIS 2
1. The story I have at the back of my mind is 'The Pit and the Pendulum': Poe
(1842/2004).
2. On the opening of categories and its importance, see the Introduction to
Bonefeld, Gunn and Psycho pedis (1992a).
3. See Marx (1844/1975a: 182): 'Theory is capable of gripping the masses
as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem
as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is grasp the root of the matter.
But for man the root is man himself.'
4. See Adorno (196611990) on the concept of a negative dialectics. For a
discussion of the political importance of negative dialectics, see Holloway,
Matamoros and Tischler (2009). On the importance of negativity as the
basis for critical thought, see also Agnoli (1999).
THESIS 3
1. See Davis (2006: 36): 'Los Angeles is the First World capital of homelessness,
with an estimated 100,000 homeless people, including an increasing number
of families, camped on downtown streets or living furtively in parks and
amongst freeway landscaping.'
2. This is not quite the classic but impersonal Leninist formulation 'What is
to be done?', which suggests already a distancing of our own responsibility,
but rather: what can we do?
3. Ticktin (2008). To be fair to Ticktin, he continues 'but before that time
pseudo-socialist and proto-socialist forms can exist. They are not socialist,
but they do conflict with capitalism - at the same time as they prop it up.'
4. In similar vein, see Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008: xii):
'we look for social change in seemingly insignificant occurrences of life.'
See also the Trapese Collective (2007: 2): 'As mass protests against the
current economic system have ricocheted around the world from Seattle to
Cancun, beyond the spectacle of the banners, tear gas and riots, when the
streets become silent again, ordinary people are doing extraordinary things,
learning by doing, imagining and building the blocks of other possible
worlds. We can resist the world we live in while at the same time creating
the world we want to see.'
5. In this sense, the approach here may be contrasted with that adopted by
Hardt and Negri (2000, 2004 and 2009).
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