Change the World Without Taking Power : The Meaning of Revolution Today

by Holloway

• ISBN13: 9780745324661
• ISBN10: 0745324665
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-20
• Publisher: Pluto Press

Summary

This is a new, updated edition of John Holloway's acclaimed guide to the politics of revolution and protest. The wave of political demonstrations since Seattle have crystallised a new trend in left-wing politics. Modern protest movements are grounding their actions in both Marxism and Anarchism, fighting for radical social change in terms that have nothing to do with the taking of state power. This is in clear opposition to the traditional Marxist theory of revolution which centres on taking state power. In this book, John Holloway asks how we can reformulate our understanding of revolution as the struggle against power, not for power. After a century of failed attempts by revolutionary and reformist movements to bring about radical social change, the concept of revolution itself is in crisis. John Holloway opens up the theoretical debate, reposing some of the basic concepts of Marxism in a critical development of the subversive Marxist tradition represented by Adorno, Bloch and Lukacs, amongst others, and grounded in a rethinking of Marx's concept of 'fetishisation'-- how doing is transformed into being.

Author Biography

John Holloway is a Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the BenemÈrita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla in Mexico. He has written widely on Marxist theory. His publications include Zapatista! Rethinking Revolution in Mexico (co-editor, Pluto, 1998), Open Marxism: Emancipating Marx (co-editor, Pluto, 1995), and Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money (co-editor, Palgrave, 1994).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Preface to the First Edition	viii
Preface to the New Edition	ix
1. The Scream	1	(10)
2. Beyond the State?	11	(8)
3. Beyond Power?	19	(24)
4. Fetishism: The Tragic Dilemma	43	(35)
5. Fetishism and Fetishisation	78	(28)
6. Anti-Fetishism and Criticism	106	(12)
7. The Tradition of Scientific Marxism	118	(22)
8. The Critical-Revolutionary Subject	140	(15)
9. The Material Reality of Anti-Power	155	(21)
10. The Material Reality of Anti-Power and the Crisis of Capital	176	(28)
11. Revolution?	204	(12)
Epilogue: Moving Against-and-Beyond — Reflections on a Discussion	216	(30)
Notes	246	(19)
Bibliography	265	(9)
Name Index	274	(2)
Subject Index	276