John Holloway (sociologist)

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John Holloway (born 1947) is a lawyer, Marxist-oriented sociologist and philosopher, whose work is closely associated with the Zapatista movement in Mexico, his home since 1991. It has also been taken up by some intellectuals associated with the piqueteros in Argentina; the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement in South Africa and the Anti-Globalization Movement in Europe and North America. He is currently a teacher at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Autonomous University of Puebla.

Background

He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and has a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh.

He is brother to writer and academic David Holloway, and first cousin to Canadian political activist Kate Holloway and Canadian entertainer Maureen Holloway.

Work

During the 1970s, Holloway was an influential member of the Conference of Socialist Economists, particularly in his support of an approach to the state as a social form constituted ultimately by the contradictory relations of class struggle between capital and the working class.[1] This approach was developed primarily through the critical appropriation of aspects of the German state derivation debate of the early 1970s, in particular the work of Joachim Hirsch, and lead to the publication of "State and Capital: A Marxist Debate" [2] an anthology of texts from the German debate with a critical introduction, in collaboration with Sol Piccioto. Around this conception of state, social form and class struggle, a particular current developed within the Conference of Socialist Economists from which the Open Marxism school of thought ultimately emerged, and in which Holloway remained a significant participant. This current is typified by its rejection of both traditional Marxist ideas of state monopoly capitalism and more recent innovations such as Poulantzas' Althusserian state theory, and the Regulation school,[3] and an affirmation of the centrality of the class relation between capital and working class, conceived as a relation of struggle.

His 2002 book, Change the World Without Taking Power, has been the subject of much debate in Marxist, anarchist and anti-capitalist circles, and contends that the possibility of revolution resides not in the seizure of state apparatuses, but in day-to-day acts of abject refusal of capitalist society – so-called anti-power, or 'the scream' as he puts it. Holloway's thesis has been analysed by thinkers like Tariq Ali and Slavoj Žižek. Holloway is considered by supporters and critics to be broadly Autonomist in outlook, and his work is often compared and contrasted with that of figures such as Antonio Negri.

Crack Capitalism from 2010 carries on with the political ideas developed in Change the World Without Taking Power. Holloway sees the problem of political activism, in terms of those struggling “in-and-against” the system, as one of continuing to perpetuate capitalism through their commitment to abstract labour. He argues that from the Marxist stand-point of “two-fold nature of labour” or abstract labour and concrete labour, that anti-capitalist struggles should be about concrete doing being against labour, and not a struggle of labour against capital.

Books in English

Online articles

Influences on culture

Music

References

  1. ↑ The State Debate (1991), Simon Clarke (ed.) ISBN 0-333-53584-7
  2. ↑ State and Capital: A Marxist Debate (1978), ISBN 0-7131-5987-1, ed. with Sol Piccioto
  3. ↑ Post-Fordism and Social Form: A Marxist Debate on the Post-Fordist State (1991), ISBN 0-333-54393-9, ed. with Werner Bonefeld
  4. ↑ 'tik/we.pdf "ay'tik/we". Retrieved 2009-11-29. 
  5. ↑ "Disco inspirado no livro de Holloway". Retrieved 2009-11-29. 

External links

Authority control
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