CRACK CAPITALISM

has happened, for example, with the piquetem moy '111 '111', th '
movement of the unemployed workers in Ar)' neina, wh 'r ' SO 111 '
groups (such as the MTD de Solano)? moy d radi ally fronl
demanding employment to saying that thcy did 110r w;1I11 I'()
be employed, that they did not want to be exploit 'ti, tI t1I they
wanted to devote their lives to meaningful activity hos 'll by
them. A similar shift can be seen on a smaller sea I ' wi I' h 1 h '
German Gliickliche Arbeitslose (happy unemployed) moy 'Ill '1l1, H
The example already mentioned of EI Alto is another iml orCnll1'
case: the structures of mutual support developed to d < I wi 1 h
grinding poverty and government neglect (not remnants of I'll I'll I
communities but developed to meet the demands of city lif .)'1
were turned around to become the basis of one of th most
important movements of rebellion in recent years. Something
similar has happened with the black, the gay and the indigenous
movements: that which was previously seen as a mark of sha mc
suddenly becomes turned around into a badge of pride. In all
of these cases, there is an exclusion from the mainstream which
is reversed when those who are excluded declare that they do
not want to be included, that they prefer to go their own way.
Exclusion becomes refusal, and the patterns of alternative social
relations constructed to deal with the exclusion become real
cracks, powerful spaces of refusal-and-creation. The world is
turned upside down.
Certainly there are differences between the cracks created by
a conscious opting out (such as a group of friends who decide
to form a social centre) and those that arise from the turning
around of an exclusion (as in the case of the piquetero groups).
However, the differences should not be exaggerated. It is often
difficult to distinguish choice from necessity: a decision by
computer programmers not to work for the arms industry but
to devote their time to the creation of software to be shared
freely may well be a response to what they experience as an
existential necessity. What is important is not to draw dividing
lines but to see the lines of continuity. The enormously SLiC ssful
anti-poll tax campaign in Britain in the early 1990s was bllilt
around the slogan 'can't pay, won't pay', indicating th l l ilily
of those who could not pay the tax and those who chos not 1'0
pay a tax they considered HtlJst lr:J,..th sa e way, W' should