Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

that take human contradictions into account without falling
back on authoritarian methods. Thus, the Zapatistas have a
system of rapid rotation in the composition of their Juntas de
Buen Gobierno not just to involve more and more people in
the self-government of their communities, but also to eliminate
the dangers of corruption. Cecosesola, the long-established
cooperative in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, that coordinates the
distribution of cooperative products and organises popular
markets, sets aside a great amount of time to the collective
discussion of the problems that arise from sexism, racism,
authoritarianism and so on, and adopts trust as a central organisational
principle.29 The problems are very real and should not be
overlooked, but they should certainly not be erected into some
sort of unchangeable concept of 'human nature'.30
4. CRACKS CLASH WITH THE RULE OF VALUE.
Beyond the state, beyond our personal reproduction of the social
relations that we reject, there is another force that pulls us back
in, that reabsorbs our attempts to break.
It is not the state that creates the social synthesis that
surrounds us, although it often presents itself as doing so. The
state represses and co-opts in order to defend something else.
We are repressed or co-opted into something other than the
state. The real force of cohesion stands behind the state: it is the
movement of money. Money makes the world go round, as the
saying has it. More precisely, the social synthesis is established
through that which is expressed in money: value.3l
Value is what holds society together under capitalism. It is a
force that nobody controls. Capitalism is composed of a huge
number of independent units which produce commodities that
they sell on the market. The social interconnection between
people's activities is established through the sale and purchase
of commodities or, in other words, through the value of the
commodities, expressed through money. Value (manifested in
money) constitutes the social synthesis in capitalist society,
that which holds together the many different, uncoordinated
activities.32 The state presents itself as being the focal point of
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