We Are the Crisis of Capital: A John Holloway Reader

by John Holloway

We Are the Crisis of Capital collects articles and excerpts written by radical academic, theorist, and activist John Holloway over a period of forty years. Different times, different places, and the same anguish persists throughout our societies. The articles move forward, influenced by the German state derivation debates of the seventies, by the CSE debates in Britain, and the group around the Edinburgh journal Common Sense , and then moving on to Mexico and the wonderful stimulus of the Zapatista uprising, and now the continuing whirl of discussion with colleagues and students in the Posgrado de Sociología of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

320 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2019

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Sociologist, philosopher and lawyer by profession. Holloway is closely associated with Open or Autonomous Marxism and anti-globalisation movements such as the Zapatistas.

His 2002 book, Change the World Without Taking Power, has been the subject of much debate and brought him to a wider audience.

Reviews

[Sam Whitehill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading John Holloway is inspiring. He has boiled down his version of open Marxism to a simple poetry of resistance. One feels that anything is possible in revolt against the dehumanization and commodification of life under capitalism.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some might say Holloway’s perspective seems dated, since it was a lot more prevalent during the 90s up until Occupy, but I’m not sure that’s the case. There’s much to recommend it, whatever opinions become more common on the left as it develops. All the flowery and poetic language he employs aside, I think Holloway shines brightest when delving into concrete analysis of economics. It is probably better to understand some of the more provocative concepts figuratively than literally.

[Rui Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

These texts were cutting-edge when they were first written, in the 1990s-2010s. I found Holloway's research very inspiring when I first became aware of it, during the 2011 wave of protests. The fact that this book would be considered quite moderate by current standards is a testament to how fast movement practice and theory is developing.