Review: John Holloway
Change the World without Taking
Power
John Holloway's book Change the World without Taking Power makes
an excellent case for not judging a book by its cover. The cover
graphic of a ski-masked protester, paint brush in hand, and the
anarchist circle @ might lead the curious reader to suppose the work
to be the product of the anti-globalization movement; however, the
title of the book suggests a new-age consciousness raising treatise.
Both are misleading. In fact, while not flawless, the book is a
sophisticated critique of much of what passes for mainstream Marxist
thought, and deserves to be widely read and discussed within critical
circles.
Holloway begins with the scream: Of rage, of negation. Parodying
the Gospel of St. John he begins "In the beginning is the scream. We
scream." And why not? Millions go hungry, while food is thrown
away.
Corporations post record profits while their employees are thrown
onto the scrap heap. Companies scramble to produce more and more
elaborate toys to entertain while much of the world exists without
clean water, much less having used a telephone, computer or the
Internet. Holloway notes, even Hollywood has taken note of these
massive discrepancies by producing movies which chart the world's
injustices, such as Erin Brockovich, before assuring the viewer that
everything is all right. To exist in capitalism is to rebel against
its insanity. Millions everyday stage small acts of rebellion against
capital. Be it through stealing of the company's time through phoning
in sick, or by stealing the company's property through office
supplies. In the last decade, several books have documented these
underground rebellions against capital.
But these small acts merely resist capital, and while they may
challenge aspects of capital's power, they do not ultimately
challenge it. What is the strategy to overthrow capitalism? For
conscious revolutionaries, the answer has largely been the taking of
state power.
As he moves from small to large rebellions against capital,
Holloway also critiques the "orthodox" Marxist notion of revolution
and state power. In Marx's time and after many Marxists saw their
role, as helping to build a powerful movement, which they believed
would destroy capital. The anarchists, of the other hand, warned
against the impending Red Bureaucracy. While this is not the place to
debate old charges within the Marxist and anarchist debate, it cannot
be denied that the German party was sucked into the state machinery
and when the war broke out, identified itself with the German state
(while other 'socialist' parties allied themselves with their
national governments). This state identification extended even to the
anarchists, the avowed enemies of all states, as sections of the
anarchist movement including such luminaries as Kropotkin endorsed
the allied cause against Germany, even though those allies included
the backward reactionary Russia.
Yet still the lure of state power beckons. Reading Holloway
reminded me of a review of Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing
in a leftist newspaper." Lecturing the filmmaker for his use of
Public Enemy's song "Fight the Power," the review sagely commented
"No, fight FOR power." Ironically, it is just that thought that has
led the "left" in pursuit of unattainable and undesirable goals for
over a century. Holloway notes that "these movements often had an
instrumental view of the state" believing that state power was
something which could be wielded in the interests of the
oppressed.
It is this fetishism of the state, and indeed, the Marxist
conception of fetishism itself, which informs Holloway's
critique.
What then can be done? Holloway, in keeping with his thesis, is
not a vanguardist, and realizes that resistance can take many forms.
He quotes Foucault's dictum on power as a "multiplicity of force
relations" and counter-poses an "endless multiplicity of
screams."
But here is where Holloway's book seems to run into difficulties.
While he is correct that resistance should not follow a pre-ordained
schema, as the latter-day Church of Vanguardists would have us
believe, Holloway runs the opposite risk, where autonomist Marxism
often falls into of seeing every struggle as being equally important
and equally central to the fight against capital. In rejecting this
approach, and while not wanting to fall into old workerist
conceptions, it is important to recognize that certain groups have
social power in their collectivity and others do not. Recognizing
this matter does not make you a vanguardist. It is a necessity in
steering between the vanguardist and those who would disappear all
distinctions in struggle.
The other curious aspect of Holloway's book is his seemingly
uncritical approach to the Zapatista current. He argues at several
points in the book that the Zapatistas do want to change the world
without taking power, but is this true? When they emerged from the
jungles of Chiapas onto the world stage a decade ago, the Zapatistas
certainly had a very different approach from many leftist groups. On
the Internet and elsewhere, the language of the Zapatistas was often
about creating a new world. At other times the language has been of
inclusion in this one and of finding a place in civil society.
But these are small criticisms. The merit of this book is its
questioning tone. After all, didn't Marx call for "ruthless
questioning"? Holloway is unafraid to attack icons (even Engles) and
take on what has been the orthodoxy of the mainstream Marxist
movement, even .as he maintains he has no master plan. Perhaps it is
fitting that its final lines are
"This is a book that does not (yet) have a happy
"
N.F.
Home Page / Index
/ Articles / Reviews
/ History / Links /
Publications/ Martin
Glaberman Archive /