[lbo-talk] Good take-down of John Holloway's latest book

Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 13 01:47:55 PST 2010


Sorry, wrong list, this was intended for Marxmail.

--- On Sat, 11/13/10, Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:


> From: Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Good take-down of John Holloway's latest book
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010, 4:47 AM
>
> The problem, though, is that the reviewer makes exactly the
> same mistake as Holloway: namely in assuming that a
> form-analytical, fetish-critical approach to Marxism
> necessitates any specific political orientation.
>
> As Carrol and I have stated repeatedly both here and on
> lbo-talk, this is simply not the case.  There is no
> immediate relationship between a rigorous understanding of
> Marx's analysis of the fetishistic mediation of social life
> in capitalism and "good" politics.
>
> One can have the squishy, New Left green politics of
> Postone.  One can have Holloway's inchoate brand of
> autonomism.  One can have Zizek's Neo-Bolshevism. 
> Or the self-congratulatory armchair wankery of the
> Platypussies.
>
> I mean, does not Lenin's main contribution consist in
> stating the truth that there is a gap between Marx's
> critique of political economy and a political practice aimed
> at overturning capitalist social relations?  We
> definitely need lots of people reading _Capital_ and the
> _Grundrisse_, but they are not guides to action.  The
> mistake of Holloway and cohorts is in assuming that they
> are.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>      
>



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