Abstract
Capitalism is in crisis. This is evidenced by the many cracks visible on its crumbling facade, fracturing its seemingly impenetrable totality. Cracks are, crucially, also evident in the many examples of people refusing to live their lives according to the values of capital, instead attempting to live ‘their lives according to their own decisions’ (p. 21). For John Holloway, then, the crack is a metaphor for the establishment of non-instrumental practices, or other ways of ‘doing’. These refuse to be reduced to the (il)logic of the market and reject the demeaning effects of various forms of domination and subordination such as racism and sexism. Thus Holloway describes cracks as constituting ‘the material base of possible radical change’ (p. 12), representing ‘a break with capitalist social relations’ (p. 39).
Holloway’s book, for better and for worse, is not written in a typically ‘academic’ fashion. He presents his arguments as a series of 33 theses which are broken up into eight parts. The book begins with a discussion of how cracks constitute a break with capital (Part I); then moves on to some explorations of how such breaks can be the basis for more dignified forms of social relations (Parts II and III); before delving into an extended revision of Marx’s notion of abstract labour (Parts IV to VI). It is through Holloway’s adoption, and re-interpretation, of Marx’s labour theory of value that he is able to make the case for cracking capitalism. The book then concludes with discussions of how ‘concrete doings against labour’ (VII) can contribute to the strengthening of other, non-commodified forms of social relations (VIII).
Holloway’s case rests on a critique of the tendency in capitalist societies towards the reduction of creative human activity, what he refers to as ‘concrete doing’, to the generation of (exchange) value via its transformation into abstract labour. This same process can also be expressed in what might be more familiar terms: the dual character of labour; the separation of use- and exchange-values; or, simply, alienation.
Following Marx, Holloway suggests that it is through the dehumanizing and externalizing affects of the abstraction of labour that capitalism comes to take on a form which appears as solid to us, and hence in need of cracking. Yet this separation also gives rise to the tensions which suggest that there is an intrinsic antagonism between doing and labour. In sum: ‘[a]bstract labour involves a drive towards determination of our activity by money, whereas useful labour implies a drive towards social self-determination’ (p. 173). That is:
… doing exists as a revolt against abstract labour: in every refusal of alien authority, in every attempt to gain control over the work process, in every attempt to develop meaningful activities either outside the hours of employment or as an alternative employment, occasionally too as explosions of refusal (carnivals, riots, rebellions). (p. 175)
It is the widespread evidence of this antagonism that provides Holloway with the confidence to assert that capitalism will continually be exposed by cracks, no matter how many attempts are made to seal them up.
The case made by Holloway is as compelling here as in its earlier form presented by Marx, and yet there is an astute incorporation of some critiques of Marx. This means that Holloway differs crucially, and productively, from many of the ‘orthodox’ Marxists whose caricatures form the straw targets of so many attacks. The kind of Marxist and communist imaginaries which people tend to react against are those ‘closely associated with the idea of the Party … and central socialist planning’ (p. 144). Holloway on the other hand is painfully aware of the sociological complexities, tensions and contradictions involved in ‘resistance’.
It is not the point of the book to provide a road map to the destruction of capital, and another central feature of Holloway’s approach is the commitment to a prefigurative ethics. This is summed up in his statement that: ‘what matters most is not just the cry of revolutionary hatred for capitalism but the ways in which we try to develop in our everyday practice activities that misfit with the cohesive suction of capitalist activity’ (p. 74). Holloway concludes the book, therefore, with a perhaps obvious call for us to ‘Stop making capitalism’ (p. 253) and start living our lives in accordance with other values, exploiting the cracks.
For some sociologists, Holloway’s account of social relations and social action might not be as nuanced as it could be, while others will balk at his avowedly political position. Nevertheless, sociologists would do well to incorporate critiques of capital, and resistance to capitalism’s tendency to structure human activity, back into the mainstream of their analyses. To this end, Crack Capitalism constitutes an important contribution to an essential discussion about trying to find and live in spaces outside of the domination of capitalist values. And ultimately to try and move beyond isolated pockets of resistance towards generating a more profound, revolutionary, shift, that would remove the instrumentalizing threat of capitalist value(s) and our dependence on them.