A critique of John Holloway's Change The World Without Taking Power

Abstract

John Holloway's Change the World Without Taking Power is an attempt to translate the Zapatista experience into Marxist categories—an undertaking fraught with many difficulties. This review interrogates the four key issues addressed by Holloway: the state, the nature of power, commodity fetishism and the meaning and relevance of revolution. Born in Dublin and now living and working in Mexico City, John Holloway is one of a small group of intellectual—activists whose work emerges from and contributes to an autonomist reading of Marxism. Holloway's work within this milieu has largely been concerned with revitalising a Marxist comprehension of the state—that is, until January 1994, when the masked Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico, burst onto the global scene. After this, he became a commentator on the role and impact of the Zapatistas on the resistance to exclusive forms of globalisation. Indeed, his most recent work, Change The World Without Taking Power, is an attempt to translate the Zapatista experience into Marxist categories. Holloway is often criticised for focusing so heavily on the Zapatistas, but in his defence, they do seem to constitute a significant shift within the emancipatory imagination and, as such, their contribution warrants further scrutiny and reflection. In examining Holloway's contribution, I will address four key issues: the state, the nature of power, commodity fetishism and the meaning and relevance of revolution.