Crack Capitalism

A groundbreaking guide to moving beyond capitalism, which shows that radical change can only come from exploiting 'cracks' in the system.

Crack Capitalism, argues that radical change can only come about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of 'cracks' in the capitalist system. These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing. John Holloway's previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism. Now Holloway rejects the idea of a disconnected array of struggles and finds a unifying contradiction - the opposition between the capitalist labour we undertake in our jobs and the drive towards doing what we consider necessary or desirable. Clearly and accessibly presented in the form of 33 theses, Crack Capitalism is set to reopen the debate among radical scholars and activists seeking to break capitalism now.

Part I Break
1. Break. We want to break. We want to create a different world. Now. Nothing more common. Nothing more obvious. Nothing more simple. Nothing more difficult.
2. Our method is the method of the crack.
3. It is time to learn the new language of a new struggle.
Part II Cracks: The Anti-Politics of Dignity
4. The cracks begin with a No, from which there grows a dignity, a negation-and-creation.
5. A crack is the perfectly ordinary creation of a space or moment in which we assert a different type of doing.
6. Cracks break dimensions, break dimensionality.
7. Cracks are explorations in an anti-politics of dignity.
Part III Cracks on the Edge of Impossibility
8. Dignity is our weapon against a world of destruction.
9. Cracks clash with the social synthesis of capitalism.
10. Cracks exist on the edge of impossibility, but they do exist. Moving they exist: dignity is a fleet-footed dance.
Part IV The Dual Character of Labour
11. The cracks are the revolt of one form of doing against another: the revolt of doing against labour.
12. The abstraction of doing into labour is the weaving of capitalism.
13. The abstraction of doing into labour is a historical process of transformation that created the social synthesis of capitalism: primitive accumulation.
Part V Abstract Labour: The Great Enclosure
14. Abstract labour encloses both our bodies and our minds.
15. The abstraction of doing into labour is a process of personification, the creation of character masks, the formation of the working class.
16. The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of the male labourer and the dimorphisation of sexuality.
17. The abstraction of doing into labour is the constitution of nature as object.
18. The abstraction of doing into labour is the externalisation of our power -to-do and the creation of the citizen, politics and the state.
19. The abstraction of doing into labour is the homogenisation of time.
20. The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of totality.