The New SPACE
Fall 2005
Instructor: Andrew
Kliman
Reading John Holloway’s Change
the World Without Taking Power
Alternate Wednesdays, 6-7:30
pm
October 5 – December 14 (six
sessions)
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
2nd floor Art Gallery
107 Suffolk Street, NYC
(between Rivington and Delancey
Streets; take the F train to Delancey or the J, M, or Z
to Essex)
Tuition:
$75–$100, sliding scale
Course Description:
Revolution has frequently been identified with the capturing of state
power. This notion is now discredited. But the idea of revolution itself
will also be discredited unless a different concept of revolution that can
replace it is worked out concretely. In Change the World Without
Taking Power, John Holloway argues that genuine revolution cannot be a
process of capturing power – not even in order to abolish state power and
other relations of domination. Power must be dissolved.
The premise of this course is that, whether one ultimately agrees or
disagrees with this idea, Holloway’s book deserves serious consideration.
It is an important recent effort to come to grips with the need to work
out an alternative concept of revolution for today. We will read and
discuss the whole of Change the World. Since fetishism and
anti-fetishism are among its major concepts, we will also read and discuss the
section on the fetishism of the commodity in Marx’s Capital. Other
readings include Peter Hudis’ and Cyril Smith’s reviews of Holloway’s
book.
Main Text:
John Holloway, Change
the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today. London
& Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002.
Other Required
Texts:
Karl Marx, “The
Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret,” Section 4 of Ch. 1 of Volume I of Capital:
A critique of political economy. Any edition / translation may be
used. I will be using the translation by Ben Fowkes in the Penguin Books
(and Vintage Books) editions, pp. 163-77. The text (in a different
translation) is available online, free of charge, at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4 .
(For all of Ch. 1, scroll to the top of the page or leave off the #S4 at the
end of the URL.)
Peter Hudis,
“Rethinking the Idea of Revolution,” News & Letters, January-February
2003. A review essay on Holloway’s book. Available online, free of
charge, at www.newsandletters.org/Issues/2003/Jan-Feb/Essay_Jan03.htm .
Cyril Smith,
“Anti-Power Versus Power.” A review of Holloway’s book.
Available online, free of charge, at www.commoner.org.uk/smithrev.htm .
Instructor:
I taught a course on Volume I of Marx's Capital last
spring at the New Space. A professor of economics at Pace University, I
have published extensively on Capital, crisis theory, and value theory.
I am co-editor of The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics
(2004), and I have just completed a book that reclaims Capital from the
myth of internal inconsistency. Many of my writings are available at my new
website: http://akliman.squarespace.com .
Please feel free to
e-mail me at Andrew_Kliman@msn.com .
|
Course Calendar |
||
|
Session |
Date |
Readings |
|
1 |
Oct. 5 |
Holloway: Preface; Ch. 1, “The Scream”; Ch. 2, “Beyond the State?” |
|
2 |
Oct. 19 |
Holloway: Ch. 3, “Beyond Power?”; Ch. 4, “Fetishism: The Tragic Dilemma” |
|
3 |
Nov. 2 |
Marx:
“The Fetishism of the Commodity ….” Holloway: Ch. 5, “Fetishism and Fetishisation” |
|
4 |
Nov. 16 |
Holloway: Ch. 6, “Anti-Fetishism and Criticism”; Ch. 7, “The Tradition of Scientific Marxism”; Ch. 8, “The Critical-Revolutionary Subject” |
|
5 |
Nov. 30 |
Holloway: Ch. 9, “The Material Reality of Anti-Power”; Ch. 10, “The Material Reality of Anti-Power and the Crisis of Capital” |
|
6 |
Dec. 14 |
Holloway: Ch. 11, “Revolution?”; Hudis’ review essay; Smith’s review |