Autonomism’s failing

http://www.gonzotimes.com/2013/02/change-the-world-without-taking-power-a-decade-later-john-holloways-challenge-still-unmet/ 

At the point where Holloway wrote this book it had already become clear that such a victory, even if it happened, would only expose Marxism’s lack of a real conception of a post-capitalist society. No one had any idea what a communist society would look like, or how to even begin to construct such a society.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, and events in China called into question everything about post-capitalist society we thought we knew. Beyond this, mounting a democratic challenge to, for instance, the domination of the US politics by the two parties was mostly a delusion. Holloway’s book calls to mind the observation Engels made toward the end of his life that the progress of the armaments industry had made insurrection obsolete as a means to break the state:

“Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, had become largely outdated. Let us have no illusions about it: a real victory of insurrection over the military in street fighting, a victory as between two armies, is one of the rarest exceptions.”

Who today seriously believes the social movement is any more capable of breaking the state by means of an electoral victory than it is by means of an insurrection? None of Holloway’s critics dares mention this, even as they cling to the hope of an electoral solution. And this is because letting this illusion go presents us with the stark reality that all political means have become a dead end. The unspoken assumption is that to follow Holloway’s advice must turn us all into bin Laden’s or the organizers of one ineffectual demonstration after another.

A direct military solution is no longer possible, and even a political solution is impossible – are we left with terrorism and street demos? Simply stated: Holloway’s critics don’t want to face reality; they want to continue to live in an illusory world of revolutionary politics. It is not so much that Holloway’s critics have an argument to raise against him, it is that they no more have a solution than he does. They argue against Holloway’s conclusion because Holloway’s book appears to condemn us to inaction, to passivity, to powerlessness.