Re: John Holloway

[Dave Carroll <dccarrol@xxxxxxxx>]

I have not read the Holloway book, although I imagine I will in a year
when I have the time.  Does his conception of power and the idea of
resisting classification ever get connected to unions in the text?  As a
union organizer, and elected representative of the union, if I told
other workers that being late to work (the refusal to work) was a
significant strike against capital, or even some sort of progressively
growing component of the struggle against capital, I would be greeted
with skepticism and anger.  In Holloway's conception, is unionization a
sort of tacit acceptance of capitalism, engaging in capitalist planning,
that kind of thing?

I'm not asking this as an excuse to trash Holloway; I really want to
know.  Are unions an example of "taking power"?  I have noticed within
autonomist critique a number of tendencies, for example a important
critique of problems of democracy in unions from experienced organizers,
while other "autonomists" appear to reject--in an individualist,
anarchist fashion--unions in a broad sense as an example of reproducing
the power relations of capitalism.

It often appears to me like an excuse not to do the hard! work of
organizing.

Dave