08.09.2015 Views

CRACK CAPITALISM

Holloway - Crack Capitalism

Holloway - Crack Capitalism

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS
  • No tags were found...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Criticism restores the subject to the centre. By criticising,<br />

humans say 'We are the negated creators, but we reject that<br />

negation. All social phenomena exist because we have made<br />

them: money or the state are just as much human products as<br />

the motor-car. They depend on our creation for their existence.<br />

And if we made them, we can change them.'<br />

There is still a question, though. We have created the social<br />

world around us, but are we stuck with our own creations<br />

(Frankenstein), or do they depend on our constant re-creation<br />

(Borges)? Do we have to make a distinction between some<br />

creations (for example, the state or money) and others (the<br />

car, say)?<br />

Money is a form of social relations, a way in which we relate<br />

to one another. When we buy something and pay for it with<br />

money, we establish a certain form of relation with the producer<br />

of the thing we buy. If we steal the thing, we establish a different<br />

sort of relation with her, and if we receive it as a present yet<br />

another, different relation. The sort of relationship we establish<br />

does not depend either on the thing bought, stolen, or received,<br />

nor on the materiality of any money involved (notes or coins).<br />

When we say that money is a form of social relations, we say,<br />

then, that it is a form that we create and re-create, a form that<br />

depends not just on our initial creation but on our constant<br />

re-creation. The same can be said of the state or capital.<br />

Is a car also a form of social relations that we constantly<br />

create and re-create? Clearly, cars have a certain materiality,<br />

as indeed money has a certain materiality. However, the car is<br />

also a way in which we relate to other people - to the workers<br />

who produced it, when we buy it, but also to the people around<br />

us, our family and friends, people in the street or in the town,<br />

when we use it. We could use it as a sculpture or for planting<br />

flowers, in which case we would no longer be re-creating the<br />

social relations indicated by the concept of 'car'.<br />

To put it in different terms: criticism is the recovery of verbs.<br />

Our vision of the world is dominated by nouns, by things:<br />

money, state, car, wall, computer, food, and so on. The: doing,<br />

creating, painting, cooking, organising, bricklaying, teaching,<br />

and so on are forgotten. Each noun implies the suppression<br />

231

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!