Change the World Without Taking Power

John Holloway

Description

This book is a profound search for a theory of social change. Through clearing away the cobwebs of revolutionary socialism, it renews the fight for the ending of capitalism and the construction of a new, fairer world.



After a century of failed attempts by radical projects, the concept of revolution itself is in crisis. By asking the deepest questions about the nature of humanity, work, capitalism, organisation and resistance, John Holloway looks sharply at modern protest movements and provides tools for creating new strategies.



First published in 2002, this book marked a shift in the understanding of Autonomism, Anarchism and Marxism, addressing the doubts activists had in their own political history and work, and helped form the perspectives of a new generation who are today changing the world.

Acknowledgements

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Preface to the Third Edition

Preface to the First Edition

1. The Scream

2. Beyond the State?

3. Beyond Power?

4. Fetishism: The Tragic Dilemma

5. Fetishism and Fetishisation

6. Anti-Fetishism and Criticism

7. The Tradition of Scientific Marxism

8. The Critical-Revolutionary Subject

9. The Material Reality of Anti-Power

10. The Material Reality of Anti-Power and the Crisis of Capital

11. Revolution?

Epilogue: Moving Against and Beyond: Reflections on a Discussion

Notes

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Sujets

• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Political Ideologies
• Political Science
• Political
• PHILOSOPHY
• Zapatismo
• Advocacy group
• Subcomandante Marcos
• Communism
• Zapatista
• Autonomism
• Marxism
• György Lukács
• Antonio Negri
• Political philosophy
• Politics
• Anarchism
• Georg Lukács
• Communisme
• Social
• Herbert Marcuse
• Toni Negri
• Rosa Luxemburg
• Sous-commandant Marcos
• Karl Marx

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786804716
• Langue: English

Extrait

Change the World Without Taking Power

First published 2002
This new edition published 2019 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright John Holloway 2002, 2005, 2010, 2019
The right of John Holloway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3933 7 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3932 0 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0469 3 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0471 6 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0470 9 EPUB eBook



This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface to the Fourth Edition
Preface to the Third Edition
Preface to the First Edition

1. The Scream
2. Beyond the State?
3. Beyond Power?
4. Fetishism: The Tragic Dilemma
5. Fetishism and Fetishisation
6. Anti-Fetishism and Criticism
7. The Tradition of Scientific Marxism
8. The Critical-Revolutionary Subject
9. The Material Reality of Anti-Power
10. The Material Reality of Anti-Power and the Crisis of Capital
11. Revolution?
Epilogue: Moving Against-and-Beyond - Reflections on a Discussion

Notes
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
Acknowledgements
There are an awful lot of people to thank for their help in producing this book.
First, my thanks to Elo na Pel ez, whose mephistophelean presence moves through every word, dot and comma of the book, and without whom I could never even have imagined the unity of constitution and existence: not duration, but nunc stans.
To Werner Bonefeld, Richard Gunn and now Sergio Tischler I owe a great deal for countless shared seminars and discussions over the years, for their support and for their very valuable comments on various stages of this text.
I have been very fortunate in being able to discuss both the text in detail and related ideas with the members of the seminar group on Subjectivity and Critical Theory in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades in Puebla: to all involved, very many thanks. Two trips to Argentina have also played an important part in helping me to crystallise the ideas contained in this book: the first, to give a seminar in the Instituto Argentino de Desarrollo Econ mico, organised by Gustavo Roux and Eliseo Giai; the second to give a week-long intensive seminar on the first draft of the book in the Facultad de Filosof a y Letras in Rosario, organised by Gladys Rimini and Gustavo Guevara: to the organisers and all the participants my deepest thanks. And, while in Argentina, a very special thanks to Alberto Bonnet, Marcela Zangaro and N stor L pez for their constant help and encouragement. Jumping from the other side of the world, from Argentina to Scotland, I owe much to the long-term inspiration and encouragement of George Wilson, Eileen Simpson, Maggie Sinclair, Rod MacKenzie, Vassiliki Kolocotroni and Olga Taxidou.
My sincerest thanks too go to those others who have been kind enough to comment, often in great detail, on drafts of this book: Simon Susen, Ana Dinerstein, Jorge Luis Acanda, Chris Wright, Jos Manuel Mart nez, Cyril Smith, Massimo de Angelis, Rowan Wilson, Ana Esther Cece a, Enrique Rajchenberg, Patricia King, Javier Villanueva and Lars Stubbe. To Steve Wright, thanks for last-minute help with a quotation.
To Roberto V lez Pliego, Director of the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales of the Benem rita Universidad Aut noma de Puebla, heartfelt thanks for his support and for helping to make the Institute an exceptional place to work.
To Aidan, Anna-Maeve and Mariana Holloway, thanks for making the abandonment of hope unthinkable.
To the many others who have helped and encouraged, but whom I do not mention here, please accept my thanks and remember that identification is domination.
Preface to the Fourth Edition
A new edition of Change the World ! I am delighted (and delighted too to be part of Pluto s 50th birthday party in 2019!)
We have to celebrate, even though it is hard to when the world is running hard in the wrong direction. It is more necessary now than ever to sing, to jump, to dance, when the clouds are getting darker. The storm - la tormenta - is what the Zapatistas call it: the storm that is building up on the horizon, the storm that is already blowing.
Trump, Duterte, Erdo an, May, Macri - there are all sorts of names that we can attach to the storm, but they are no more than symbols, names that with luck will have been forgotten by the time this book is published. So many clowns in a circus with a deeper, darker theme: the orgy of capital, the death of humanity.
The same storm, the same tragic theme, runs deep through the governments that have claimed to be different, those that say that they are against neo-liberalism, though not, of course, against capitalism. But enough of names, of politicians, of governments, of political parties and their promises! All leading us round in circles, taking us deeper and deeper into the storm. It is something else we need, a change in talking-thinking-doing.
In this latest edition of Change the World , three things are clear: first, we urgently need to change the world radically; secondly, it cannot be done through the state; and thirdly, changing it without taking state power is very difficult.
The urgency of radical change is even greater than it was when this book was first published in 2002. We have come closer to the possible self-annihilation of humanity. So many horrors that we are now learning to take for granted were simply unthinkable 20 years ago.
The financial crisis of 2008 was a classic expression of the failure and fragility of capitalism, an illustration of the enormous breach between human potential and the grim reality of a world dominated by money. And yet the breaking of lives and expectations did not lead to our emancipation from an absurd system, but just the opposite. Instead of breaking down barriers it led to the building of physical, intellectual and emotional walls, to the rise of a racist, nationalist right in many different parts of the world.
Capitalist crisis has always held a crucial place in revolutionary thought. It is a breaking point in the apparent normality of capitalist domination, an opportunity to show how awful the system is, a moment of potential rupture. If that is so, then we have to confess that in this case (as in the 1930s) we have been losing. The crisis has been going against us: labour rights have been eroded everywhere, the gap between rich and poor has soared, governments have become more authoritarian, the destruction of the natural environment has accelerated, the prospect of a revolutionary transformation seems further than ever.
Worse: for all its violence, the financial crisis was a postponement, through the quantitative expansion of money, of the more severe crisis that is very likely to come in the next few years. If the crisis of 2008 is to be seen, as many commentators suggest, as a foretaste of a much greater crisis which is already on the horizon, then the rise of the right takes on even more sinister tones. The Zapatistas are right, there is indeed a growing storm. How do we tackle that storm, how do we see it not just as a disaster but as a possible opening of hope? Is there hope for us concealed in the fear that prompts the crisis-postponement of the crisis that now shapes the world? That is an urgent question.
Furthermore, the radical change that is so urgent cannot be brought about through the state. When this book was first published, the great revolt in Argentina which showed us just how strong and creative an anti-state struggle against capital can be, was still at its peak, the uprisings in Bolivia had not yet been institutionalised in the election of Evo Morales; there was still no talk of a pink tide in Latin America. The pink tide - a dreadful term that glosses over the distinction between uprisings and their institutionalisation - brought some reforms and broke many dreams, dreams of a radically different world. The breaking of dreams is the sowing of disillusion, and this disillusion has certainly given nourishment to the resurgence of the right.
But the most dramatic failure of a government committed (at least verbally) to radical change has been the Syriza government in Greece. Elected in January 2015 as the government of hope that would boldly break the austerity policy imposed by the financial markets (through the European Union and the International Monetary Fund), it took just six months for this brave government to reverse its policies completely, bow to the power of money and become the most fervent implementer of austerity policies in Europe.
These are not the failures of individual governments, and the idea of betrayal is no help at all in understanding what is happening. It is simply that the existence of the state as an institution, and also the political success of its leaders, depends on its ability to attract or retain capital within its frontiers. That requires the state to provide the most favourable conditions possible for the profitable accumulation of capital, and this leaves no room for radical change, certainly no room for anti-capitalism. This is very simple and clear, and yet the state retains an extraordinary power, an extraordinary capacity to present itself as the answer to social discontent. Even after the resounding failure of Tsipras and Syriza in Greece, there are still many who think of Corbyn or Sanders as providing a wa