Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

Ilecessary or desirable, but we all know that too is non-!; 'l1si 'al,
literally devoid of meaning, in the real worl l of co pit·nlisll1. (low,
then, can this nonsense avoid being swamped by th ' I'atiollalily
of capitalism?
The universal pressure to conform comes from t'h ' so ' ia I
cohesion of capitalist social relations. We can mal a PI'()t 'St,
we can scream, we can throw stones, but then th tot'o lity 01:
capitalist social relations seems to flow around u and Sli 'k LIS
back into the system. We go and hurl our fury at th m' -rinl-\s
of the G8, but then what? We still must eat and we still IllUst
sell our labour power or otherwise bow to capital in arc! 'I' to
get money to buy food. We can occupy a factory, but then what ?
We still must find a way of selling the products we mak if w '
carry on producing, we still must bow to market forces. W, an
overthrow the government, perhaps, if we all go on the streets
and protest enough, but then what? What happens after our
moments of rebellion, our moments of excess? We still have to
find a way of reinserting ourselves into the world order, and that
world order is capitalist.
To fight the but then what? is to fight for the particular, for
the particular that refuses to fit in. It is to fight for a world of
particulars, a world of many worlds. We are hurling particulars
against the totality. But often it seems that the totality, the
social synthesis, just laughs back at us, absorbing it all. How
do we avoid that, how do we avoid being reabsorbed into the
everyday functioning of capitalism? How do we avoid our cracks
becoming simply a means for resolving the tensions or contradictions
of capitalism, just an element of crisis resolution for
the system? How do we know that our cracks are not just like
cracks in the side of a volcano, escape valves that secure the
stability of the whole?
The enemy, we said, is the capitalist social synthesis, the
peculiarly tight logic of social cohesion in capitalist society.
This cohesion draws us back into its arms in different ways.
The most obvious are perhaps the state and our own personal
'failings', but the most insidious and forceful is value. Let us
look at each of these.
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