Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

2. CRACKS CLASH WITH THE STATE.
'l'h ' most obvious force of social cohesion that confronts the
'1':1 'ks is the state. The threat of violent repression by the state
is 'onstantly present. A report in today's newspaper makes the
point dramatically:
About 120 members of the Federal Preventive Police, armed with rifles,
last night broke into the installations of the community radio Tierray
Libertad, transmitter with a power of 1 watt and with a radius of about
4 kilometres in the popular settlements at the west of the city ... The
attorney general's office indicated in a bulletin that the operation was
due to the fact that the transmitter operated without a legal concession
in Monterrey. (Lajornada, 7 June 2008, p. 13)
The violence of this example is grotesque, yet it highlights the
growing brutality and intolerance not only of the Mexican, but
of all states. The violent repression of non-violent cracks, in
the name of property or law and order, is a daily occurrence in
every part of the world. The eviction of Ungdomshuset, the longestablished
commune in Copenhagen, made world headlines in
March 2007, as did the destruction of South Central Farm in Los
Angeles in June 2006, where the bulldozers moved in to 'destroy
the corn, flowers, medicinal plants, vegetables, fruits and some
of the 600 trees that have been cultivated for more than 14 years
with dedication, love and hard work by the farmers - most of
them Mexican immigrants'.4 A similar fate met the Orgazmic
Orchard in central Buenos Aires just a few months ago. And
so on and on and on. Everywhere, the attempt to do things in
a different way, the attempt to crack capitalist social relations,
is seen as being a threat to society (as indeed it aims to be) and
is liable to be met with various degrees of violent repression.s
This immediately raises the questions of legality and
self-defence. The very notion of a crack implies disrespect for
the law, since it is a force of cohesion of the society we reject.
The law, by its form, whatever its content, is an alien imposition.
Whether it makes sense to disobey the law in any given situation,
however, can only be judged in the context of a particular
str uggle. People who come together to form a social centre as
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