Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

7. As in abstract labour, so 'in ... formal logic, thought is indifferent towards
its objects' (Marc use 1964/1 968: 114).
8. The critique of instrumental reason is one of the central themes developed by
the authors associated with the Frankfurt School. See especially Horkheimer
(1946/2004), Marcuse (1964/1968).
9. I prefer to designate the performers of abstract labour as 'he', doers as 'she'.
10. On class and classification, see Holloway (2002/2005: Ch. 8), and Holloway
(2002).
11. See Bonefeld's critique of Postone in this sense: Bonefeld (2004).
12. On the crucial question of the constitution of forms of social relations, see
Bonefeld (1995).
THESIS 22
1. Rubin's work was first published in about 1923, but the date is uncertain,
which is why I have referenced it on the basis of the third edition of 1928.
2. See Mattick (1969/1974 and 1981), for example.
3. An exception is to be found in the closing lines of Diane Elson's article
on 'The Value Theory of Labour' (1979), where she makes an opening in
the direction that I take the argument in this book: 'Capital ... analyses
... the determination of labour as an historical process of forming what
is intrinsically unformed; arguing that what is specific to capitalism is the
domination of one aspect of labour, abstract labour, objectified as value.
On this basis, it is possible to understand why capital can appear to be
the dominant subject, and individuals simply bearers of capitalist relations
of production; but it is also possible to establish why this is only half the
truth. For Marx's analysis also recognises the limits to the tendency to
reduce individuals to bearers of value-forms. It does this by incorporating
into the analysis the subjective, conscious, particular aspects of labour
in the concepts of private and concrete labour; and the collective aspect
of labour in the concept of social labour ... In this way, the argument of
Capital does incorporate a material base for political action. Subjective,
conscious and collective aspects of humanity are accorded recognition.
The political problem is to bring together these private, concrete and
social aspects of labour without the mediation of the value forms, so as to
create particular, conscious collective activity directed against exploitation.
Marx's theory of exploitation has built into it this possibility' (ibid.: 174).
This is an extraordinary passage that swims strongly against the stream of
one-eyed Marxism.
4. The page reference is taken from the pdf version available at .
5. Marx too understood the communist movement as a movement against
labour: 'The communistic revolution is directed against the preceding mode
of activity, does away with labour', and 'the question is not the liberation
but the abolition of labour' (Marx and Engels, 1845/1976: 52). Both are
quoted by Marcuse in a section devoted to 'The Abolition of Labour'
(194111969: 292). See also Arthur (1986: Ch. 1).
6. Postone also makes a clear distinction 'between two fundamentally different
modes of critical analysis: a critique of capitalism from the standpoint of
279