(#)mcnaughton, colm - critique of holloway

7/27/2019 (#)McNaughton, Colm - Critique of Holloway

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A cri t ique of JohnHoiioway^s Change TheWorld Without Taking PowerColm McNaughton AbsfractJohn Holloway's Change the World Without Taking Power is anattempt to translate the Zapatista experience into Marxist categoriesanundertakingfraught -with many difficulties. This review interrogates the ourkey issues addressed by Holloway: the state, the nature of power, commodityfetishism and the meaning and relevance of revolution.Born in D ublin and now living and working in Mexico City, John Hollowayis one of a small group of intellectual-activists whose work emerges from andcontributes to an autonomist reading of Marxism. Holloway's work w ithinthis milieu has largely been concerned with revitalising a Ma rxist comp rehen-sion of the state that is , until Janua ry ip^, when the masked Zapatistas ofChiapas, Mexico, burst onto the global scene. After this, he became a commenta-tor on the role and impact of the Zapatistas on the resistance to exclusive ormsof globalisation. Indeed, his most recent work. Change The Wor ld Wi thou tTaking Power, is an attempt to translate the Zapatista experience intoMarxist categories. Holloway is often criticised for focu sing so heavily on theZapa tistas, but in his defence, they do seem to constitute a si^iftcant shift with-in the emancipatory imagination and, as such, their contribution warrants fur-ther scrutiny and re flection. In exa mining Holloway's contribution, I willaddress four key issues: the state, the nature of power, commodity fetishism andthe meaning and relevance of revolution.

The question of the sfateolloway's critical theory in Change the World Without Taking


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Capital & Class 95oppression. This rage at oppression connects us: it is a recognitionthat the world is fundamentally flawed in some way, and thisentails opposition, negativity and struggle against oppression(Holloway, 2002: i). For HoUoway, it is from the anger expressed inthis scream, and not from reason, that thought is horn. While it ispossihle to sympathise with this perspective to an extent, it seemssomewhat overstated: oppression entails resistance, hut this is notthe whole picture, for it also invokes despair, self-destructivebehaviours, and more suhtly, conscious and unconsciousidentification with the oppressor. Consequently, it is as well to bewary of any perspective that grounds itself in anger, not onlybecause it separates reason and emotion,' both of which areneeded to inform our decisions, but also because anger is a doub leedged-swordfor in overcoming oppression, how can anger alsobe transformed so as not to become the very oppressor we startedout fighting against.' Any reinvention of the emancipatoryimagination needs to address this crucial problematic.

In contemporary capitalist societies, Holloway points out, thereare numerous ideological mechanisms designed to limit thereverberations and impact of the scream, and he argues: 'It is notso much what we learn as bow we learn that seems to smother ourscream. It is a whole structure of thought that disarms us'(Holloway, 2002: 3). He wants to offer a counter to this strategy ofcontainment, not only so that we can hear the rejection ofoppression, but also so that we can creatively respond throughcollective action. For Holloway, the scream presupposes we as asubject. We are the starting point of theory, for the very acts ofreading and writing are based on the assumption of some sort ofcommunity, however contradictory or confused (Holloway, 2002:4). The idea, though attractive, remains somewhat unconvincing:'we' certainly exist in an objective sense, that is, as a collection ofhumans with shared faculties and histories; but we do not exist in asubjective or conscious sense, and in making this argument I ammindful of Marx's distinction between a class-for-itself and a classin-itself {M arx, 1936: 145). Thus, it is through the struggle to realisecollective projects, grounded in recognition of ourinterconnectionsto realise what Marx referred to as the socialindividualthat we truly come into being. In a fragmenting andtumultuous world, it is understandable but also politicallydangerous to assume that we already exist.

For Holloway, the scream reveals a Utopian dialectic integral toour collective subjectivity, which he frames as a tension between


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John Ho lloway's Change The World Without Taking Powerbetween the two dimensions, which is predicated on theassumptions that:

We are, but we exist in an arc of tension towards that whichwe are not, or are not yet. Society is, but it exists in an arc oftension towards that which is not, or is not yet. There is iden-tity, but identity exists in the arc of tension towards no n-identity. (Holloway, 2002: 7)Bloch's notion of the not-ye t is grounded in a positive dialectic,albeit one used in an unorthodox manner. Consequently, Holloway'sUtopian proposal emanates from the scream, which proposes a fusionof Bloch's not-yet with Adorno's negative dialectical appreciation ofidentity, is unconvincing. Positive and negative dialecticalappreciations cannot so readily be overcome, for what becomesapparent in Holloway's articulation is not a fusion but rather thedom inance of Adorno's negative dialectics. While there is a latentutopianism implicit in Adorno's thinking, it is also understated; andmoreover, it is marred by the inability of the negative dialectic toproduce concrete knowledge (see Habermas, 1984,1987).In coming to terms with the failed promises of revolution withinMarxism, Holloway focuses on the relationship of these movementsto the state, and argues: 'The mistake of Marxist revolutionarymovements has been, not to deny the capitalist nature of the state,but to misunderstand the degree of integration of the state into thenetwork of capitalist social relations' (Holloway, 2002:14).Thus the false p remise that informs revolutionary groups is theirassumption that society is the state, and that it is through captur ingthe state that society can be transformed. Drawing on the moreanti-statist Marx of The Paris Commune, Holloway contends thatsocial relations have never coincided with national frontiers, and indeveloping this argum ent he points to the de-territo rialising role ofmoney, wherein 'There is no reason why employer and employee,producer and consumer, or workers, who combine in the sameprocess of production, should be within the same territory'(Holloway, 2002: 14). In making this argument, he is referring to hisown work in theorising the state from an autonomous perspective,which is not so much concerned with how the economicdeterm ines the political supe rstructu re but rather, with w hat it is inparticular about the social relations of capitalism that gives rise toa state (Holloway, 2002: 93).From the 1970s through to the mid-1990s, Holloway's work was


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Capital & Class 95Poulantzas-Miliband debatea debate constituted by Miliband'sinstrumentalist claim that the state had been captured by thecapitalist class as a result of its political organisation, versusPoulantzas's structuralist argument that the state is capitalistbecause of its functions, and acts to disorganise the working class.Founding his analysis in a reading of commodity fetishism,Holloway argued tha t the Poulantzas-M iliband debate was limitedbecause both thinkers treat the state as a thing that is imposed onus, rather than as a distinct social form that arises from thepractical activity between people in a society based on generalisedcomm odity exchange. Holloway argues:

Capital is not external to class struggle, but is the historicalform assumed by class struggle. This derivation of the stateopened the way to an und erstand ing of the state as a partic-ular form of the capital relation, understood as a relation ofclass struggle. (Bonefeld & Holloway [eds.] 1991: 96)While he is correct to point out that capital is not external toclass struggle, we should be wary of reducing capitalistdevelopment to being solely a response to class struggle.Moreover, Holloway's argument is ahistorical, for the existence of

the post-Westphalian state significantly predates the emergence ofcapitalist social relations. This observation exposes an even morefundamental weakness in Holloway's analysis: an inability toadequately explain nationalism, which not only cuts across but alltoo often subverts the class struggle. The appeal of nationalismand its contradictory relationship to class is most starklydemonstrated in the case of the First World War, when the labourmovements of different European nations rejected the SecondInternational's appeals for internationalism, supporting theirrespective nations' war efforts instead. Consequently, millions ofyoung workers died fighting for the glory of their na tions. Th isembracing of nationalism by significant sections of Europe'sworking classes facilitated the collapse of the SecondInternational, which was a profound wake-up call for the forces ofrevolution. What was it that led so many young men, exploited inthe workplace, to go and fight and often die defending what wereobjectively the national interests of the ruling class.'

Holloway goes on to assert:The state is capital, a form of capital. The state is a


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John Ho//owoy's Change The World Without Taking Powerthat there is no way an anti-capitalist sociality can be con-structed through the state, no matter which party occupiesthe government ... T he path of the state is not the path ofdignity. (Holloway, 2003)Collapsing the w orkings of the state and capital, as Hollowaydoes here, is not only theoretically wrong but also politicallydangerous, for it limits our ability to articulate and respond to thetensions and possibilities that emerge through the ever-shiftingrelationship between the state and capital. Crucially, these sites ofcontestation often offer moments ripe for movement and struggle.The recent struggles in Bolivia against the privatisation of water;France and G ermany's vetoing the US decision to go to war againstIraq; state-socialist and social-democratic states' provision of basiceducation, health and welfare, and their indigenous, labour andenvironmental legislation, are all cases in point. The interests ofthe state cannot be reduced 10 those of capital, and as such, we mustbe constantly reassessing and re-evaluating the potential formovement available within such conflicts between the market,sovereign states and emerging global institutions, the latter ofwhich Holloway's theory does not even address.Holloway goes on to argue that, in the party's focus on buildingand eventually capturing the state:The struggle is lost from the beginning ... it is lost oncepower itself seeps into the struggle, once the logic of powerbecomes the logic of the revolutionary process, once the neg-ative of refusal is converted into the positive of power build-ing. (Holloway, 2002: 17)But however critical one might be of party formations, itseems necessary to more fully appreciate the context in whichsuch articulations emerge and develop in order to assess theirstrengths and weakness, rather than so absolutely dismissing thehistory and struggles that gave rise to them. This is especiallyrelevant since Holloway offers no alternative to the partystrategy; rather, he is content to champion its negation whilecastigating those who have and do try to change the worldthrough a party form. He argues:The idea of changing society through the conquest of powerthus ends up achieving the opposite of what it sets out to


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Capital & Class 95quer power involves the extension of the field of power rela-tions into the struggle against power. (Holloway, 2002:17)Holloway does not seem to be aware that while his essentially

anarchist argument may offer some insight into why revolutionarymovements fail, at the same time it is also essentially a moral stance,castigating the wrongs of the world but unable to pose an alternative.Th e key argument of Holloway's theory is thus:For what is at issue in the revolutionary transformation of theworld is not whose power but the very existence of power.What is at issue is not who exercises power, but how to createa world based on mutual recognition of human dignity, onthe formation of social relations which are not power rela-tions. (Holloway, 2002:17-18)Holloway's arguments regarding the nature of power relationswill be examined in the section that follows, below; however, what 1wish to address now is the abstract nature of his arguments regardingboth the state and the party, and their implicit righteousness.Holloway's discussion has little to say regarding how we are to relateto the state now; and nor does he examine the implications of his

perspective for the development of a strategy of revolutionarytransition. These are questions to which I will now turn.The limitations of Holloway's comprehension of the state areclearly apparen t in his discussion of liberal democracy. He isscathing in his attacks on representative democracy, and writes that:'through the ballot box resistance to class oppression is channelledinto an act of individual, private choice between two or moreoppressors ' (Holloway, 1991: 243). Fu rtherm ore, he contends, 'toimagine that you can weaken the old forms of intercourse byworking through them is nonsense' (Holloway, 1991: 258). Whileliberal democracy as practised in numerous states across the globeis often a barefaced example of class rule and manipulation, can weafford not to examine the nuances and levels of contestations thatemerge and unfold historically.' In being so dismissive, Hollowayfalls into the trap of mistaking his principles for strategy, which is potentially dangerous, though common error. At the level ofprinciple, Holloway is right that liberal democracy and its implicitillusions are essential to the efficient running of capitalism. Butwhere does this understanding leave us.' What spaces, discoursesand resources are available for the facilitation of movement and


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Jofin H o//owoy's Change The W or ld W ithout Taking Powersafeguards are available to defend civil society from the totalitarianleft and right.' And, perhaps most crucially, how are we to move fromwhere we find ourselves now to where we want to be.' In fashioningresponses to these tactical and strategic questions, liberal dem ocracycan and should not be so glibly dismissed. Laclau and Mouffedemonstrate that the left cannot merely dismiss the importantpolitical gains and spaces developed through liberal democracy, forto do so is merely to hand the baton to the far-right and fascist forcesthat want to do away with any semblance of democracy andaccountability, permanently.

In the current context, the starting point for any emancipatoryproject m ust, at one level, be a defence of liberal democracy. Th estrategy must be grounded in a desire to defend and extenddemocracy to what I term 'deep democracy'. With that aim, wemight press for more inclusive and participatory forms ofdemocracy and globalisation. The language and nature of thisarticulation will depend very much upon the context. We mustdefend liberal democracy and the spaces it creates, wherever itexists, in order to create the time and space to be able to developthe people, communities, movements and alternatives thatconstitute an anticapitalist politics. The fundamental challenge forthe foreseeable future, for those engaged in this process, will be thatof co-option and compromise: that of how we are to relate to theliberal foundations of capitalist democracies, which work toexclude, in order to transform them into more inclusive forms.Holloway's argument that 'you cannot weaken the old forms ofintercourse by working through them' must be more thoroughlyscrutinised. We need to recognise the self-defeatism implicit in thisarticulationfor what other realistic options do we have, otherthan to begin where wefindourselves.' And in m any cases, we beginin a version of liberal democracy. If we do not start from thecontext in which we find ourselves, with those resources at handand with all the limitations that this implies, how, exactly, are tobegin outside of this context.' This is not to argue against either theneed for or the value of a revolutionary transformation ofcapitalist social relationson the contrary; it is rather to argue thatin developing strategies to engage capital and the state, we must beable to clearly distinguish between our principles and ourstrategies. If we conflate the two, we have defeated ourselvesbefore we begin. Nor am I defending radical democracy asproposed by Laclau and Mouffe, for they discard the categories ofclass and production, and the ongoing inquiry as to their


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Capital & Class 95revolution within the conditions of global capitalism must beginwith the assumption that Nancy Fraser expresses: that 'democracytoday requires both economic redistribution and multiculturalrecognition' (Fraser, 1997: 173-4), which is recognition of deepdemocracy. In order to do this, we can also recognise that traditionalarticula tions of class politics are necessary but not sufficient inarticulating alternative social formations; that is, we must addressthe categories of difference, and in this avoid remaining human-centred but also, crucially, address the question of non-hum annature and the science of ecology. In accepting this foundation,what becomes apparent is that we are at the cusp of a newemancipatory politics that has only begun to be articulated. Thisawareness is daunting, as well as rich with possibilities.

These criticisms aside, Holloway is right in his suspicion of thepolitical strategies whose one-dim ensional focus is to seize the state.The seizure of the state constitutes, in G ramsci's terms, a war ofmanoeuvre, which has been shown to be a limited strategy thatcreates the space for the war of position to m ore ally assert itself. Itis essential to note that Gram sci's war of manoeuvre a ttempts tosidestep and speed up the transformative process, which in manycases is very slow and difficult. The war of position, conversely,which is inherently democratic, is a much slower process though noless arduous, for its focus is on developing the people, ideas andcommunities that can transform civil society in a democratic manner.Prioritising the war of position does not necessitate a wholesalerejection of the war of manoeuvre, for in certain contextsand hereI am thinking of East Timor's resistance to Indonesian rulethepossibilities for democracy are predicated on the seizure of the state.In general, though, in order to avoid the latent totalitarian impulsesand/or the watered-down social forms of neoliberalism availablewithin the war of manoeuvre, we need to radically rethink itsrelationship to the war of position, and prioritise the latter.In defending liberal democracy at a strategic level, I concedethat if politics is not fundamentally concerned with thedevelopm ent of a more vibrant and articulate civil society, then thevalue of this position is deeply compromised. As we expe rimentand propose m ore inclusive forms of globalisation, we need a moretruncated approach to the state and liberal democracy thanHolloway offers. Perhaps Gustav Landauer's commentary on thenature of the state adds some clarity to this discussion, as he arguesthat the state cannot be destroyed by a revolution, since: 'The stateis a cond ition, a certain relationship between hum an beings, a mode


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John Ho//owoy's Change The World Without Taking PowerHence, in Landauer's perspective, the state can only be replacedto the extent that it is replaced by another more egalitarian form ofcommunity, which he refers to as the Volk or 'people'. Thedevelopment of the Volk happens only as the inner statehood ofpeople is broken open to allow the slumbering immemorial reality

to be aroused, and thus:It is the task of the socialists and of movements they havestarted amongst the peoples: to loosen the hardening ofhearts so that what lies buried may rise to the surface: so thatwhat truly lives yet now seems dead may emerge and growinto the light, (cited in Buber, 1949: 48'Holloway does not address this crucial inner dynamic ofinterpersonal relations that facilitates the reproduction of the statein people's lives, and in failing to do so he limits his ability tocomprehend the rupturing of the state formation, and wherepossibilities to radically transform these relationships cancommence.An obvious omission in Holloway's arguments regarding the stateis that there is no discussion of the Zapatistas' relationship to theMexican government, the ambiguous nature of which furtherdemonstrates his limited comprehension of the state. Th e guerrillawar waged by the EZLN lasted twelve days, after which massivedemonstrations across Mexico demanded an end to the civil war.Consequently, the government and the insurgents began tonegotiate a peace settlement, which culminated in the signing of theSan Andrs Accords in 1996. In the ir n egotiations with thegovernment, the Zapatistas tried to include all dimensions ofMexican civil society in the discussion, although of course , thequestion of autonomy for indigenous communities and theirrelationship to the state was central. Indeed , it offered the Zapatistasa chance to revoke this oppressive colonial and historical bond.The fundamental demands of the Zapatistas were for recognitionby the state and for autonomy. In articulating these demands, theZapatistas found themselves on difficult terrain; for on the one handthey were pushing the state to live up to its own constitution, whichinvariably leads to a demand for the writing of a more inclusiveconstitution. In order to organise civil society so as to be able toeffectively engage this aspect of struggle, the Zapatista Front wascreated in 1996. On the other hand, in pushing for more autonomy forindigenous communities, the Zapatistas had to be careal not topropose pan-Mayan solidarity, which would invariably involve


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Capital & Class 95state and its need to defend its sovereignty and thereby giving itgrounds for the Zapatistas' extermination. And at the same time asengaging in this national process, the Zapatistas were also involved infacilitating international discussions about global resistance toneoliberalism. So they were engaged both in a campaign to defendand extend liberal democracy within Mexico, and at the same timein developing relationships on a global level that demand moreinclusive and international goals.

This ability of the Zapatistas to engage the shifting terrain ofglobal capitalism marks a quantum leap in the emancipatoryimagination. This shift is expressed and captured in their slogan: weare 'a revolution that makes revolution possible' (cited in Zizek,2004: 200), in which those organised in struggle and indeed, willingto take up arms to that end, seek to be the catalysts rather than theembodim ent of change. Th is is a timely expression of Gram sci'swar of position. It is further elaborated on by SubcommandanteMarcos's comment:

We do not want state power. It is civil society that must trans-form Mexicowe are only a small part of that civil society,the armed partour role is to be guarantors of the politicalspace that civil society needs, (cited in Arquilla et al., 1998: 64)Consequently, the Zapatistas' relationship to the state isambiguous. While not interested in seizing the state, they are not sopolitically naive as to negate the possibility of civil society, or a part

thereof, engaging itself in the struggle to seize the state eitherthrough elections or force of arms. Th is ambiguity allows both p ro-and anti-state forces within civil society to support Zapatistademands. Crucially, even though the San Andrs Accords weresigned in 1996, they have not been acted on by the Mexican state.W ithout doubt, the Zapatista rebellion contributed to the overthrowof Institutional Revolutionary Party rule in Mexico. The result isthat the Zapatistas now exist in a non-place in which they aretechnically not at war with the Mexican state, but in which at thesame time, their communities are surrounded by and continuallyencroached on by the military and paramilitary death squads.

Whot is power? Can we move beyond its reach?Holloway's theory addresses the philosophical inquiry, 'How can


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John Ho//oway's Change The World Without Taking Powercomprehension of power and its workings that challenges thecommonly assumed perception that changing the world is, at afiandamental level, abou t cap turing the levers of pow er that is,the state. The experiences of the Zapatistas inspire Holloway'sproject because, in his words, they reveal the possibility 'ofsalvaging revolution from the collapse of the state illusion andfrom the collapse of the pow er illusion ' (Holloway, 2002: 21).While Holloway's reading of the Zapatistas seems limited, theirdiscourse regarding civil society is the foundation of what he termsanti-power, the m eaning of which I shall explain in due course. It isinto this space that he proposes to insert a new language of strugglebased on a phenom enological reading of Marx's labour theory ofvalue.For Holloway, the scream implies doing, which is basically 'theability to do things'; and moreover, 'doing implies power, pow er-to-do' (Holloway, 2002: 28). In this conceptualisation, pow er-to is neverindividual but always social; that is, 'doin g is always part of a socialflow, but the flow is constitu ted in different ways' (Holloway, 2002:28). 'Power-to' approaches Marx's category of 'labour power' butdoes not contain the theoretical vigour or categorical structure inwhich Marx poses his concept. For Holloway, the problem emergeswhen 'the social flow of doing ' is broken by the 'powerful', wherethey present themselves as individual doers while the rest simplydisappear from sight. In so doing, argues Holloway:

Th e 'we' of doing appears as an 'I' or as a 'he': Caesar did this,Caesar did that. The 'we' is now an antagonistic 'we', dividedbetween the rulers (the visible subjects) and the ruled (theinvisible de-subjectified subjects) Power-to now becomes'power-over', a relation of power over others. (Holloway,2002: 29)

In essence, power-over is the breaking of the social flow ofdoing (Holloway, 2002: 29), which again approximates somethingakin to Marx's und erstanding of capital as the accumulation ofsurplus value or dead labour, without having its breadth ofunderstanding or philosophical acumen.Holloway argues:Whereas power-to is a uniting, a bringing together of mydoing with the doing of others, the exercise of power-over isa separation. The exercise of power-over separates concep-


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Capital & Class 95This is not to infer that subject and object are constituted bycapitalism. On the contrary, HoUoway suggests that subjectivity isinherent in negativity, which is signified by the scream, and thatnegativity is inherent in any society. For Holloway, the separationbetween subject and object, doer and done or done-to, acquires anew meaning under capitalism, leading to a new definition and anew consciousness of subjectivity and objectivity, a new distanceand antagonism between subject and object:

Thus, rather than the subject being the product of m oderni-ty, it is rather that m odern ity expresses consciousness of thenew separation of subject and object which is inherent in thefocusing of social domination upon the done. (Holloway,2002 :31 )In making this argument, Holloway is obviously drawing onHegel, but via the numerous mediations of a neo-KantianMarxism. The subject Holloway points to is the Kantian subject,which Hegel critiques in his elaboration of the unfolding of thenon-dualistic subjectthat is, Geist. Consequently, Holloway'sargument that the separation of the subject and object is 'inherentin the focusing of the social domination of the done' is an attempt

to insert his phenomenologically grounded categories into thisdialectical appreciation. The weakness of this approach is thatphenomenology is drawn into the categorical structure ofMarxism without the ontological and epistemolgica! tensionsbetween these often contrary traditions being adequatelyaddressed. Moreover, Holloway's uncritical acceptance of theKantian subject deeply compromises his ability to comprehend thenature of dualism within global capitalism.In making this argument, Holloway takes to task Hardt andNegri's understanding of power as the distinction between potentiaand potestas. He argues that their conceptualisation points to adifference inherent in the subject, whereas what is at issue is anantagonism over the emergence of subjectivity, or rather, anantagonistic metamorphosis. Holloway contends that 'Power-toexists as power-over, but the power-to is subjected to and inrebellion against power-over, and power-over is nothing but, andtherefore absolutely dependent upon, the metamorphosis ofpow er-to' (Holloway, 2002:36).

Thus the struggle to liberate/OWT-O is not a struggle to constructa counter-power, which is Hardt and Negri's term for the immanen


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking Powerto defeat it, army against army, party against party, with the resultthat power reproduces itself within the revolution i tse lf (Holloway,2002: 36). As an alternative to Hardt and Negri's counter-power,Holloway poses the possibility of anti-power, which, he argues, isradically different from coun ter-pow er in that 'it is the dissolution ofpower-over, the emancipation of pow er-to' (Holloway, 2002:36).

The problem is that Holloway does not adequately demonstratehow this distinction is realised, and when it moves from the realmof the theoretical into that of social practice.Understanding power in a capitalist society as the relationshipbetween power-to and power-over, Holloway muses:To pose the question of the vulnerability of power thusrequires two steps: the opening of the category of power toreveal its contradictory character, which has been describedhere in terms of the antagonism between power-to andpower-over; and second, the unde rstand ing of this antagonis-tic relation as an internal relation. Power-to exists as power-over: power-over is the form of power-to, a form whichdenies its substance. Power-over can exist only as transformedpower-to. Power-over can exist only as the product of trans-formed doing (labour) That is the key to its weakness.(Holloway, 2002: 40)In this articulation, he is pointing to a fairly orthodoxappreciation of the dialectical relationship between capital andlabour, albeit one framed in phenomenological terminology. Inorde r to help unpack the im plications of Holloway's analysis ofpower, I will briefly address the way a reworked labour theory ofvalue can aid us in comprehending and transforming the workingsof power.Numerous social movement theorists/activists, and post-structuralism more generally, criticise Marx's labour theory ofvalue for its inability to comprehend difference sufficiently. Whiledynamics of gender, race, nature, nation, ethnicity, sexuality, abilityet al. are framed by capitalist political economy, they cannot besimply reduced to this dynamic. In defending his reading of Marx,Holloway encoun ters the contribution of Michel Foucault as arepresentative critic of Marx's understanding of power. Hollowaypoints out tha t Foucault argues that it is a mistake to think of power

in terms of a binary antagonism; rather, we must think of it as 'amultiplicity of force rela tion s' (Foucault, 1990: 92). But Holloway


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Capital & Class 95theorising of the relationship between class analysis and differenceis posed in a dualistic either /o r fashion, which is of limited use orvalue. An inquiry that takes both class and difference seriously,coupled with a willingness to squarely face the ramifications of thisfecund encounter, entails a potentially revolutionary approach,which seems to me to be the most pressing theoretical task at thishistorical juncture.

Holloway critiques Foucault's commitment and focus, inpar ticula r in his defence of micro-practices, since it does not allowhim to comprehend any sense of totality or thus any possibility ofuniversal emancipation. The weakness of Holloway's reading ofFoucault is that he does not adequately address the epistemologicaland ontological implications that difference and the struggles forrecognition pose to a Marxist understanding of power. Th is is not tosuggest that we should reject the category of class or classanalysison the contrary. But reimagined class struggles withinthe conditions of postmodernity need to take the challenges ofdifference more seriously. Th is task requ ires that we be willing toenter, interrogate, reflect upon and re-theorise the relationship todualismand in particular, I believe, to the human relationship tonature and the relationship of theory to practice.

Due to his inability to adequately engage difference, Holloway'sanalysis of power remains unable to comprehend thecontradictory, simultaneous existence of the lesbian blackbourgeoise and the white male worker, who find themselvessituated as oppressor and oppressed. What this points to is aninherent weakness in Holloway's phenomenological categorisationof power-to and power-over, for they are not as clearlydistinguishable as he would have us believe. I would contend thatthere are considerable grey areas within this categorisation, wherecertain types of power-over are necessary not only to survival butalso to the fiinctioning of more inclusive, even partic ipato ry formsof democracy and globalisation. Holloway is silent about possibleareas of legitimate forms of authority, such as in ch ild-pa ren t andstudent-teacher relationships. Furthermore, he does not engagethe question of represen tation, for even direct forms of democracythat involve thousands if not millions of people necessitate levelsof represen tation and accountability. Finally, isn't a certain level ofpower-over implied in the human relationship to nature regardingfarming and food production, even if we are able to extract theprofit motive and private property from the process.' In assessingHolloway's attempt to theorise and categorise the slippery essence


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John Ho//oway's Change The World Without Taking Powermulti-dimensional and constantly in motiona point made veryaptly by deconstructionists.

Reading commodity fet ishismFor Holloway, commodity fetishism is 'the central theoreticalproblem confronted by any theory of revolution' (Holloway, 2002:53), and as such, he wants to critique the dominant readings offetishism as offered by scientific Marxism. In outlining his position,he caricatures and rejects the positive dialectic as a 'guaranteednegation-of-negation happy ending', and defends Adorno's negativedialectics 'as the open ended negation of the untrue, as revoltagainst unfreedom' (Holloway, 2002: 98). Th is position, however, isunable to subate the limitations of scientific Marxism, but rather,gets stuck in negation and therefore merely mirrors that which isbeing criticised. Holloway's argument also begs the question as tohow exactly Marx came to comprehend the fetishism of thecommodity in the first place, which Holloway now wants to re-theorise.

In outlining the basic assumptions of his perspective, Hollowayargues that 'Marxism as a theory of struggle is inevitably a theoryof uncertainty. Fetishism is (false) certainty, anti-fetishism isuncertainty' (Holloway, 2002: 98). This observation has two crucialweaknesses:first, t sets up an false opposition between the certaintyof scientific Marxism and Holloway's position of uncertaintywhere is there room, in this schemata, for the methodological breakwith scientific Marxism present in Luxemburg's 'socialism orbarbarism' thesis.'' Second, in making this argument, Hollowayreifies uncertainty and gets stuck in it. Granted, scientific Marxismhas to a considerable degree been closed and limited in itsepistemological approach to the world, which Holloway is correc t tocriticise. But offering Adorno's negative dialectic as the alternative,which negates certainty with uncertainty, is not actually animprovement on the situation. Will the limitations of certainty beovercome by its negation of uncertainty.' Or rather, is uncertaintypart of the process of critiquing certainty and coming to a newunderstanding of knowledge.' What I am suggesting is that ratherthan Adorno's negative dialectic being offered as the alternative tocertainty, it should be contained within a greater Hegelian whole.

When Holloway contends that 'there is nothingfixed o which wecan cling to for reassurance: not class, not Marx, not revolution,


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Capital & Class 95negation of Marxism. While this position is fairly popular in thecurrent context, it is of limited value since it can only know what itis against, and has immense difficulty in articulating what it isfighting for. This is not to reject the value of deconstruction, butrather to recognise it as part of a greater process. I would agree withHolloway that we should not cling to abstract categories; but thisproposition does not entail the rejection of a com mitment to theprocesses that the notions 'class', 'labour' and 'revolution' representin the real world. Such a commitment necessitates a commitmentneither to certainty nor to uncertainty, but rather an appreciation ofthe dialectical relationship of this opposition. This is whypostmodern forms of Marxism are worth considering, for whetherthey are conscious of the process or not, they are attempts to bringMarxism together with its deconstructive negation and movebeyond either/or thinking. Herein lies the move back to Hegel andthe possibilities for the theorisation of alliance politics, which takesboth class and difference seriously.

In order to construct his argument regarding fetishism, Hollowaytakes us back to Marx's analysis of the commodity with particularfocus on its dualistic nature, which for Holloway remains 'the pointof fracture of the social flow of doing ' (Holloway, 2002: 46). Inreading Marx, Holloway focuses on the observation that: 'separationis the real generation process of cap ital' (cited in Holloway, 2002:54). This understanding not only informs Holloway's analysis ofpower as the separation between the doing and the done, but it alsoallows him to weave his take on power back into Marx's analysis.Holloway contends that 'commodity fetishism is, therefore, thepenetration of capitalist power-over into the core of our being, intoall our habits of thought, all our relations with other people'(Holloway, 2002: 50). But how does Holloway think tha t capitalismhas penetrated to the core of our beingwhat are his criteria forassessing such totalising.' The most glaring weakness of thisposition critiquing scientific Marxism's view of fetishism is that thenegative dialectic contains no epistemological criteria for assessingthe validity of claims (see Haberm as, 1984:1987).

Holloway argues that in order to proceed, we must open up theconcept of fetishism categorically. In this, he contends that there aretwo dominant ways of reading fetishism that is,first,hard fetishism,where the fetish is a fact and the only possible source of anti-fetishism lies outside the ordinary, either in the party (Lukcs),amongst privileged intellectuals (Adorno and Horkheimer), or inthe substratum of outcasts and outsiders (M arcuse) (Holloway, 2002:


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking PowerHolloway refers to as fetishisation-as-process. To answer the questionof how we can know such fetishism, he quotes Bloch approvingly inthat:

Alienation could not even be seen, and condemned of rob-bing people of their freedom and depriving the world of itssoul, if there did not exist some measure of its opposite, ofthat possible coming-to-oneself, being-with-oneself, againstwhich alienation can be measured. (Holloway, 2002: 89)Thu s, the resistance to and rejection of alienation in our dailypractice is the cornerstone of our knowing the process offetishism. In making this argument, Holloway offers no criteria asto how we are to assess the myriad ways in which people resist, orat least, think they are resisting alienation. He goes on to argue thatif fetishism and non-fetishism coexist, then it can only be asantagonistic processes. Fetishism is not static but is itself a processof de-fetishisation/re-fetishisation. Thus understandingfetishisation-as-process is the key to thinking about changing theworld without taking power in that:To find anti-power, we do not need to look ou tside the m ove-ment of domination: anti-power, anti-fetishisation is presentagainst-in-and-beyond the movement of domination itself,not as economic forces or objective contradictions or future,but as now, as us. (Holloway, 2002: 98)The problem with this perspective is that is Holloway rejects thestandpoint for the critique of ideology, and in offering no alternative,is swamped in the innumerable machinations of the subject.He contends that if we abandon fetishisation-as-process, we

necessarily also abandon revolution as self-emancipation (Holloway,2002:10, my emphasis). While I would accept this position, I wouldalso propose that it is time to address the shadow of thisargum ent that is, the emancipation from our limited andseparated notions of the self, which is informed by a Kandan-Descartian worldview tha t acts as one of the foundations ofmodern views of knowledge and subjectivity. The reinvention ofthe emancipatory imagination is predicated on recognising andresponding to the tension within the competing perspectivesavailable within our notion of self-emancipation. The questionthat arises from such a proposition is, from what position can we


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Capital & Class 95Holloway argues that, central to his reformulation of fetishism:It is crucial to see ... the bourgeois nature of our ownassumptions and categories, or, more concretely, a critique ofour own complicity in the reproduction of capitalist powerrelations. Th e critique of bourgeois thought is the critique ofthe separation of subject and object in our own thought.(Holloway, 2002: 53)In order to engage in this level of self-reflection, he draws onAdorno's negative dialectics and its critique of 'identity' thinking,which is an attem pt to go to the roots of the subject/object dualismwithin capitalism. In critiquing identity thinking, though, Holloway

is at pains to distinguish the difference between identifying as anessential part of thinking, and identifying as a project ofsubjectivity in the world. 'All conceptualisation involvesidentification; if we cannot identify we cannot think ... thedifference is between identification that stops there and anidentification that negates itself in the process of identifying.(Holloway, 2002: 102, my emphasis).The identification that negates itself, which Adorno termed'non-identity thinking', is by necessity an open-ended and

inquisitive process, which implies neither dialectical synthesis noran eschatological end point. Holloway argues:To think on the basis of doing is to identify, and, in the samebreath, to negate that identification. This is to recognise theinadequacy of the concep t to that which is conceptualised ...thinking on the basis of doing mean s thinking against-and -beyondour own thought. (Holloway, 2002: 102, my emphasis)W hat sort of knowledge can be created by 'thinking against-and-beyond our own thought'.'especially when it seems to leaveno room for the discussion of praxis, which is not concerned pure lywith abstract reasoning. Moreover, what are the implications ofthis essentially deconstructive perspective for our understanding ofclass and the possibilities for developing a revolutionarytransformation.?In order to analyse class, Holloway inserts Adorno's non-identity thinking into Marx's comprehension of fetishism andconcludes that:


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking Powerdefinition constitutes otherness ... Definition excludes us asactive subjects ... the we-who-want-to-change-the-worldcannot be defined. (Holloway, 2002: 62)In making this argument, Holloway resists the very possibility ofdefinition to argue that defining class 'leads to a blinkering of theperception of social antagonism' (Holloway, 2002: 141). Classstruggle, then, is the struggle to classify and against being classified,and Holloway argues:We do not struggle as working class, we struggle againsthemgworking class, against being classified ... it is the un ity of theprocess of classification (the unity of capital accumulation)that gives unity to our struggle, not our unity as members ofa common class ... working class identity is seen as a non-identity; the communion of struggle to be not working class... We exist against-in-and-beyond capital and against-in-and-beyond ourselves ... everyone is torn apart by the classantagonism ... It is only in so far as we are/we are not theworking class that revolution as the self-emancipation of theworking class becomes conceivable. Th e working class cannotem ancipate itself in so far as it is working class. It is only inso far as we are not working class that the question of eman-cipation is even posed. And yet, it is only as far as we are theworking class (subjects torn from their objects) that the needfor emancipation arises. (Holloway, 2002: 144-145)However, Holloway seems here to conflate class struggle with aform of identity politics. Working-class identity and thetransformative power of solidarity that can unfold from thisidentity are means, not ends in themselves. The aim of class

struggle, as Marx frames it, is to transform the material basis uponwhich the very production of class is based. The struggle totransform capitalist social relations is predicated on the ability ofthe working class to move from being a class-in-itself to a class-for-itself, which entails the developm ent of class consciousness. Inorder to be effective in their struggles, workers need to be able toidentify with and learn from local, national and internationaldimensions of the class struggle , which is why addressing theproblem atic of who constitutes the working class is so central toMarxism. Holloway's analysis lacks any discussion of praxis asoutlined in the Theses on Feuerbach, in which Marx explains how it is


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Capital & Class 95embodied in Eduardo Galeano's expression: 'We are what we do tochange what we are: our identity resides in action and in struggle'(Galeano, 1983: 190). Dism issing the possibility of defining theworking class heralds the death of Marxism. H olloway takes aphenomenological approach, and argues that the working classdefines itself by what it does that is, tha t it is a self-definingprocess with no necessary objective criteria. In contrast, Marxdefines class through the social relationship, which objectivelyexists and can be und erstood . Thro ugh his rejection of the verypossibility of sociological definition, Holloway falls into asubjectivism that offers no viable criteria for discriminating amongmany innumerable claims for and proposals of different actions.

Reinventing revolution as processCentral to Holloway's project is the desire to reinvent the m eaningsand practices associated with revolu tion. In the process of forgingthe space for an autonomist and more libertarian reading ofMarxism, I would argue that he too quickly and glibly dismissesscientific Marxism. In remaining almost exclusively in the realm oftheory, Holloway tends to caricature and unnecessarily simplify thehistory of the struggles that constitute scientific Marxism. Whilemy intention is not to defend scientific Marxism, it is important torecognise that there are many tensions within this tradition, out ofwhich numerous lessons can be gleaned, especially regarding therelationship of oppositional forces and the state.

In categorically rejecting scientific Marxism, Holloway begins tooutline his alternative understanding of revolution, the startingpoint of which is the Rousseauean observation that 'prop erty is themeans by which freedom is reconciled with domination. Enclosureis the form of compulsion compatible with freedom' (Holloway,2002: 206). Holloway's und erstanding of revolution is ground ed inrecent autonomist discussions regarding enclosure and the endingof the commons.* Holloway writes, 'It is not enough to flee, to scream... for the scream to grow in strength, there must be a recuperationof doing, a develop ment of pow er-to. Tha t implies a re-taking ofthe means of doing' (Holloway, 2002: 208). With this, Holloway isreformulating a fairly orthodox understanding of revolution as theneed to seize the means of production into his own terminologyregarding the scream and the relationship of the doing to the done.He goes on to argue, 'our struggle, then, is not the struggle to make


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking Powermaking this argument, Holloway is pointing out that the verycategories of property and the means of production arethemselves the result of habitual separation between 'the means ofdoing from doing', which 'is a result of the rupture of doing'(Holloway, 2000: 209). In other words, it is not enough to merelyseize the m eans of production, for we must also be able totransform the fragmentation of 'the social flow of doing which isthe precondition of our doing', which engenders separation in ourthinking (Holloway, 2000: 209-210). As previously argued, I remainunconvinced by Holloway's phenomenological categorisation ofdoing and do ne as a way to und erstand the workings of power incapitalist societies; but despite this, he demonstrates the insidiousnature of duality often characterised as the separation of theknower and the know n that lies at the very heart of the problemof revolutionary praxis. Th e reinvention of the emanc ipatoryimagination must be grounded in an ability to reflect on andmaintain an awareness of our m ost basic assumptions regarding theconstitution of the self and the way knowledge is constructed.

Developing his argument, Holloway goes on to argue, 'Capitalis the movement of separating, of fetishizing, the movement ofdenying movement. Revolution is the movement againstseparating , against fetishizing, against the denial of movem ent'(Holloway, 2002: 210). While I can appreciate what Holloway istrying to do in offering a basic opposition between capital andrevolution, I believe that he is ultimately unsuccessful inarticulating the essence of this relationship. How can capital be'the movement of denying movement'. ' Certainly, to a degree,capital denies the movement of labour from the South to theN orth ; but at the same time, it is supportive of information andcapital flows across all sorts of bou ndaries, and has been ab le totransform forms of resistance to capitalism into fashionable newcommodities that perpetuate its very existence. Holloway'sargument reifies the meaning of revolution, and does notadequately recognise the central importance revolution has to thevery reproduc tion of capital. A lucid exam ple of this relationshipis the military Keynesianism of the USA under Reagan in the1980s, which was an effective response to its own economic woesas well as to the insurgencies in Central America. The challengeseems to be as follows: how can we create and reproduce anund erstan ding of what is, while at the same time keeping alivethe possibilities of what can be, based on the princip les ofdignity, democracy and justice.'


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Capital & Class 952002: 214). By instrumenta lism, he m eans 'engaging with capital oncapital's own terms, accepting that our own world can come intobeing only after the revolution. But capital's terms are not simplya given, they are an active process of sep aratin g' (Holloway, 2004:214). Holloway's observation begs the question as to w ho, what andhow we can engage capital not in its own terms.' While Hollowayis correct in recognising that capital's terms 'are an active processof separating', he does not adequately demonstrate what thisprocess of separation is or how it can be reversed, transformed orotherwise avoided. Holloway's focus is more directly on takingscientific Marxists to task for separating means and ends in theircomprehension of revolution. Thus, Holloway argues thatrevolution should not be reduced to a continual process oforganisation-building, and that 'certainly there must be anaccumulation of practices of oppositional self-organization, butthis should be thou ght of not as a linear accum ulation, but as acum ulative breaking of line arity ' (Holloway, 2002: 214). ForHolloway, the aim of events is not to build a centralisedorganisation but, in the words of Benjamin, to 'blast open thecon tinuu m of histo ry' (cited in Holloway, 2002: 214). W hile thesecomments are perhaps inspiring, for those interested in lookingfor a way beyond the limitations of Marxism-Leninism and socialdemocracy they are vague, and offer little to the development ofa transitional politics.

Holloway's reading of the central categories of Marxism suchas the state, power, class and fetishism, are in response to the crisisof identity within Marxism. This crisis marks for Holloway:A liberation from certainties: from the certainties of capitalbut equally from the certain ties of labour. Th e crisis inMarxism is a freeing of Marxism from dogm atism; the crisisof the revolutionary subject is the liberation of the subject fromknowing. (Holloway, 2002: 212, my emphasis)It is alarming that Holloway should actually champion 'theliberation of the subject from knowing'. What is even moredisturbing is that he tries to make a connection between thisperspective and the Zapatista reinvention of revolution, writing:We do not know ... we have lost all certainty, but the open-ness of un certain ty is central to revolution. 'Asking we walk',say the Zapatistas. We do not ask only because we do not


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking PowerWhile openness to uncertainty is central to a revolutionaryperspective, it does not require that we lose all certainty. In posingthis argument, Holloway indamentally misrepresents theZapatista struggle, trying to squeeze their experiences into his

negative categorical structure. It must be pointed out that anypolitical movement against oppression that grounds itself in anegative dialectical perspective forfeits the ability to produceconcrete knowledgethat is, the ability to reflect upon its own andothers' experiences, and to respond accordingly.Theorising revolution in a post-Zapatista context, Hollowaymakes explicit a link between his own anti-politics and the abilityto assert alternative ways of doing, referring to:Strikes that do not just withdraw labour but point to alterna-tive ways of doing; university protests that do not just closedown the university but suggest a different experience ofstudy; occupations of buildings that turn those buildings intosocial centres ... revolutionary struggles that do not just tryto defeat the government but transform the experience ofsocial life. (Holloway, 2002: 213, my emphasis)In making this argument, Holloway is once again proposing the

anarchist argument that there exists an absolute dualism betweensocial life and the state in which no shades of grey exist. Incritiquing scientific Marxism, he is able to draw on anarchistcritiques of the cult of personality and democratic centralism andto recognise some problems inherent in seizing the state to goodeffect. But in their acceptance of the anarchist demonisation of thestate in all forms and in all contexts, Holloway's arguments are oflimited revolutionary value. In offering a critique of revolution asan orchestrated T T/ conducted by a party, Holloway reiterates theUtopian impulse that is too often derided in scientific Marxism: topropose that revolution has become a question or a process ofquestioning He argues that in this unfolding there has been a basicshift from the politics of organ isation to the politics of events. T h eessential difference implied within this shift is in the way we relateto time: revolution as events moves from building for the future tobecome an expression in the present moment. Holloway argues.

At their best such events are flashes against fetishism, festivalsof the non-subordinate, carnivals of the oppressed, explo-sions of the pleasure principle, intimations of the w stans.


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Capital & Class 95of domination of dead labour over living doing, the dissolu-tion of identity. (Holloway, 2002: 215)But we might ask more critically whether Holloway'sperspective really a rticulates a postm odern pastiche ofrevolutionary politics. In this pastiche, has revolution itself becom eanother postmodern cultural commodity to be consumed by fluidand schizophrenic subjects caught w ithin the web of what Jamesoncalls the perpetual present? It is not clear whether Holloway'stheoretical can answer or reflect on this critical question, since hetends to assert rather than explain the dynamics that constitute hisunderstanding of revolution. Thus, while he invokes MeisterEckhart's nunc stans,^ the re is no explanation or discussion of its

meaning or its relationship to the pleasure principle. Moreover, hisproposition that revolution is the 'explicit unification ofconstitution and existence' is also sadly left unexam ined. A lthoughHolloway does point out key areas for consideration in any effort togo beyond the historical limitations of traditional understandingsof revolution, there are crucial weaknesses in his analysis thatvitiate its validity as emancipatory theory.

BibliographyAdo rno, T. & M. H ork he im er (1972) Dialectic of Enlightenment (Verso).Adorno, T. (1973) Negative Dialectics (Seabury Press) .Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections On the Origins and

Spread of Nationalism (Verso).Bloch, E . (1995) The Principle of f/opf (Basil Blackwell).Buber, M. (1949) Paths in Utopia (Beacon Press) .Foucault, M. (1978) The History of Sexuality, Volum e 1 (Al len L ane) .Fraser, N. & A. Honneth (2003) Redistribution o r Recognition: A

Political-Philosophical Exchange (Verso).Galeano, E. (1983) Days and Nights of Love and War (Mon th ly Rev iew

Press) .Gramsci, A. (1996) Prison Notebooks (Columbia Univers i ty Press) .H a b e r m a s , J. (1984) Theory of Communicative Action, Volume I: Reason and the

Rationalization o f Society ( H e i n e m a n n E d u c a t i o n a l ) .H ab erm as, J. (1987) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Poli ty Press).Hegel, G. (1977 [1807]) Phenomenology of Spirit {Oxford Univers i ty Press) .Hollow ay, J. & S. Pi cc iot to (eds.) (1978) State and Capital: A Marxist Debate

(Edward Arnold) .


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John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking PowerHollowa y, J. (1991) 'T h e state a nd e ver yda y stru gg le' , in S. Cl ark e (ed.)

Tbe State Debate (Macmil lan) pp . 225-2^9 .Holloway, J. (1992) 'Crisis, fetishism, class composition' , in Open Marxism

Volume 2: Theory and Practice (Pluto Press) pp. 145169.Hollovvay,J. (199J) 'From scream of refusal to scream of pow er: T h e

central i ty of work ' , from Open Marxism Volume 3: Emancipating Marx(Plu to Press) pp . ijj181.

Holloway, J. & E. Pelez (1998) Zapatista! Reinvmting Revolution in Mexico(Plu to Press) .

Holloway, J. (2002) Change The World Without Taking Po wer The Meaning ofRevolution T oday (Pluto Press).

Holloway,J. (2002B) 'Zapatismo and the social sciences' . Capital & Class,no. 78, pp. 153-160.

Holloway, J. (2002c) 'Time to revol t : Ref lect ions on Empire ' , avai lab le a th t tp : / / l i bcom.o rg .

Holloway, J. (2003) 'Is the Za patista s trugg le an a nti-ca pital ist struggle. ' 'avai lab le a t .

Jameson, E (1991) Postmodernism or the C ultural Logic of Late Cap italism(Verso).

Jeffries, E (2001) 'Zapatismo and the intergalactic age' , in R. Burbac (ed.)Globalization an d Postmodern Politics {P\\\to Press), pp. 129146.

Laclau, E. & C. Mouffe (2001) Hegemony and Socialist Strategies iyerso).Lowy, M. (2002) 'The meaning of revolution today, ' Herramietita, and

on l ine a t < www.her ramien ta . com.ar> .Lukcs, G. (1971) History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics

(Merl in Press) .Marcos (2001) Our Word Is Our Weapon (Seven Stories Press).M ar x, K. (1936 [1847)) The Poverty of Philosophy (Mart in Lawrence Ltd . ) .Midnight Notes (2001) Auroras of the Zapatistas: Local an d Global Struggles of

the Fourth World H ^ r ( A u t o n o m e d i a ) .Plu m w oo d, V. (1993) Feminism and the Mastery of iV/rf (Routledge).Salleh, A. (1997) Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern

(Zed Press) .Waters, Mary-Alice (ed.) (1970) Rosa Luxetnburg Speaks {Pathdnder Press).Wolf, E. (1971) Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Eaber and Eaber).Zizek, S. (2004) Organs Without Bodies: O n Deleuze and Consequences(Rout ledge) .

Notes1 The poli t ical implic ations of the sepa ration of reason and em otio nhave probably best been addressed wi th in eco -fem inism rece nt


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Phenomenology of Spirit (\^1i) also addresses this question, though it isa much more difficult text to engage with.For a more thorough discussion of the tensions between struggles forredistribution (class) and those for recognition (differences), see therecent debates between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistributionor Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003).Luxemburg's 'socialism or barbarism' thesis is outlined in herpam phle t, 'Th e crisis of social dem ocracy ' (1915), available in Waters(ed.) Rosa Luxemburg Speaks (1970).For an introduction to some of the autonomist discussions regardingenclosure, see Midnight Notes (1992), and the website.Nunc stans is a term from the work of Meister Eckhart, a Christianmystic of the Rhineland region in the thirteenth century. It points tothere being no separation between time and being that is, betweenthe creation and the creator. While Holloway uses the term, he merelyinserts it, unexplained, into a secular context.

Trans-Pennine CSE W ork ing GroupThe working group is jointly organised by Stuart Shields and GreigCharnock (Manchester), Hugo Radice (Leeds) and Werner Bonefeld (York).The purpose of the group is to provide space for comradely criticism ofwork in progress and a wide variety of topics have so far been addressed:Primitive Accumulation; Imperialism; Space and the Critique of PoliticalEconomy; the critique of the Developmental State; Globalisation and theGerman Mod el. The June meeting w ilt host a talk by a comrade from Ne wZealand.The group meets once a month and has a pool of about 40 members ofwhom about 15 to 25 people generally attend any one meeting. Meetingstake place in Manchester, Leeds or York. Normally the discussion iscontinued afterwards in a pub.Those wishing to attend meetings should contact Stuart Shields at [email protected] obtain copies of papers, please contact Werner Bonefeld at


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(#)mcnaughton, colm - critique of holloway

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